Demma the Pomeranian and the Attack of the Killer Sheep

I went hiking with Demma, my host's Pomeranian, and she managed to get us in trouble with the sheep.  She liked to chase them down, you see. Oddly enough, with fear in their eyes, the wild sheep obediently ran away from Demma--a tiny black ball of joy-- as she raced towards them.  At some point though, they realized that they, a large group of 7 robust mountain sheep, were running away from a small solitary fluff on legs.  As if on command, they all turned around at once and began chasing Demma in the direction towards me.  This made me nervous.  Seven mountain sheep were headed towards me determined to prove their might.   "Look what you've done Demma!" I shouted.  My sister's ramblings of how to communicate to animals and images from the scene where the small African boy stood tall in front of the wild cat in The Gods Must Be Crazy raced through my head--I stood tall, stomped my foot, and let them know that I was the superior homo sapien though I was terrified inside.I could already see myself running away as fast as possible from the "killer sheep", as Icelanders commonly refer to them.  My act was thankfully sufficient though, and I survived the day to be able to write this entry.

This was another group of sheep. They stared me down from afar and wouldn't let their eyes off of Demma and I. Every time I looked behind me, they hadn't moved an inch. They just kept staring.
































In the end though, Demma and I had an amazing hike with amazing views. :)

smattering...overdue Iceland pictures

Eldgjá

An excerpt from an entry:

Once I stop moving, I get cold.  I'm sitting here in the middle of nowhere, alone in Eldgja, the fire gorge (pronounced Eldgao).  Yesterday was my first day working here.  It was a little scary.  Well, that's an understatement, I was terrified.  Being alone face-to-face with nature is something I can't describe.  But there are a few tourists walking in and out throughout the day.  So even if I can't see them, at least I have the comfort of knowing there is some sort of humanity in my near vicinity.  

I did about 50 feet yesterday.  Frankly, it looks quite beautiful.  

A German man and his son stopped near me.  He had found two rocks on different sides of the gorge and announced that one was from the American side, the other from Europe.  "I'm just joking," he grudgingly added.  He noticed my piece and asked if it was a border.  "Kind of," I replied.  Then he asked, "Where are you from?"  "America," I smiled, stepping across to the opposite side.  

He immediately went into this long spiel about how American politics are wrong, unjustified, just not right.  I say this as if I see the matter softly, but in fact, his passionate words expressed to me exactly how pressing and unjustified U.S. politics are, not to mention annoying.  The way we bully other countries around, make laws for the world, and then find loopholes around them to allow ourselves to do what we've clearly forbidden others to do. 

Before he left, he told me my work was beautiful.  That made me feel pretty good, encouraged to say the least.  I was already starting to wonder if I was crazy for voluntarily choosing to come out here, alone, and haul rocks around--not much different than how I felt that time I was pasting sequin onto rubber snakes for my thesis.

Last night, I had dinner with Jon, an Icelandic tourist guide with an affection for all things Western, my hut warden Palli, and 14 old French tourists.  Then we went back to the kitchen on his bus and talked about the rich and resented farmers of the past, Halldor Laxness, singers and non-singers like Garthur Holm and Garthur Toll, and the health fish oil provides.  Apparently, Icelanders take a shot of cod liver oil every night.  I tried some...hmmm....no comment.

The final product.

Menningarnótt

Stolen from Wikipedia:

Menningarnótt or "cultural night" is a yearly event held in Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, usually on the third Saturday of August. It was created by the Reykjavík city council, and has now become one of the largest festivals in Iceland, rivalling the celebration of Iceland's national day on June 17th.It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people attend the annual concerts and festivities conducted in central Reykjavík, a staggeringly high percentage of Iceland's total population of 315,000 and Reykjavík's population of nearly 118,000.

The festival often consists of a main stage in the city centre and many smaller events mostly in the city's centre but also spread over the city. The highlight of the festival is often an outside concert on the main stage by 3-4 of the most popular musicians in Iceland followed by a rather glamorous fireworks show.

I was walking down the sidewalk of the main street of downtown Reykjavik when I noticed a store, completely barren except for the turf that was laid out on the floor. My kinda thing...I thought. So I asked the guy inside what was going on. Next thing I knew, I was part of the crew and had a spot as an artist at this soon-to-be art gallery slash internet cafe slash indoor park for Menningarnott. 

With some knowledge of the aluminum/aluminium* smelting plants, which have been protested against due to their adverse environmental and health effects, I created this piece:

Feel free to visit this site

http://savingiceland.puscii.nl/?language=en

*The confusion over the aluminum/aluminium spelling arose because of some uncharacteristic indecisiveness on [Humphrey] Davy's part. When he first isolated the element in 1808, he called it alumium. For some reason he though better of that and changed it to aluminum four years later. Americans dutifully adopted the new term, but many British users disliked aluminum, pointing out that it disrupted the -ium patterm established by sodium, calcium, and strontium, so they added a vowel and a syllable. (Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, currently reading :] )