Daft Punk is playing at my house?

Well, unfortunately not quite. Just that judging by the noise, they just might´ve been.

I was not especially delighted a month ago to hear about the size of my new home away from home when I got to know where I´d be living. My own room has ample space, but I share the guesthousey solution with roughly ten other inhabitants. While everybody at our apartments seem to be easy to get along with, I still knew that eventually I´d just have to bail out. That happened yesterday.

Last evening I took up the official-looking "Pronunciation Guide to Modern Icelandic". It doesn't feel especially contemporary though, since the newest edition was produced in 1988, and the whole volume is still from the good old typewriter editing era. I wasn´t about to let that bring down my determination to be able to pronounce Alþjóðaskrifstofa háskólastigsins properly someday, so I boldly took a comfortable stance in my bed, and started reading and going through the excercises. I got to the third page before right next to my door there were twentysomething people attending a Italian dinner party.

Now, I won´t complain about poor noise insulation in our house, because there does not seem to be any.

Great, thought I. Of course I could've just joined the table, but those of you who know me well enough probably understand when I say I just can't do it on all days. Yesterday was probably one of them, and at this point I meet so many new people all the time that I don't really feel obliged to be in a handshaking readiness 24/7. I wasn't having a bad day, in fact I had been quite industrious. Classes in the morning, taking a swim at the pools next to the campus, then back for some more classes. When the day was turning into an evening, I had spent considerable energy doing things I liked, so I was feeling happily tired. Raukea. (can't think of a good equivalent in English, sorry.) I had tucked myself nicely into bed, wanting to take a look at the book before sleeping, and then all the peacefulness was gone.

Of course I wasn't going to tell the folks to "can you try to be a little more quiet, pleeeese? " as it is the home of their hostess as much as it is mine. I doubt it would've helped for more than 15 seconds anyway. Besides, I wasn't angry at them or anything like that, I just would've liked to have a nice and peaceful evening for myself. I just opted for a walk.

Without thinking all that much, I skipped past Hlemmur towards north to the path alongside the ocean. Naturally you won't be alone, standing on such exposed ground. The wind came down from mountains cold, and like a tide it roared and rolled over me. I turned my back at it and it kept urging me to walk westwards, towards the harbor. Besides stopping at Sólfar I just kept going forward. It was the kind of wind that pierces your clothes, skin and flesh. It was the Nordic wind that swiftly gets truly inside you, wrapping a cold shroud around your soul. And it didn't feel bad at all. I felt relieved, I felt the solitude I needed. While I was slowly going about, trying to protect my nose from the wind, hazily skipping between the little and the little bigger boats and more or less pulsating dim lights, I thought I had come a little closer to discovering something. Something what I came here for. To understand the essence of Icelandic culture, the solitary but warm, simple but enormously beautiful feeling I often have perceived, or thought to perceive. Where it has to originate.

After some meandering walking back towards home, I found myself standing at Hjolmalind. I went in, let the athmosphere and hot chocolate nurture my soul and till the closing time contemplated on what I just had been experiencing. I guess I might have a weird relationship with cold weather. I often find it purifying. Perhaps all the energy in your body is just allocated to keeping you warm, giving you an escape from the less wanted thoughts. When I was walking home again, my skin might've been on goosebumps, but my soul felt exceptionally warm.

Sadly that didn't help me cover my ears from sounds of drunken conversations, singing, dancing and vacuum cleaning at 3am.