A Few A-Ha's from Bergen

GraveLax isn't at all a Yiddish phrase, the eight petaled rose isn't a snowflake, and the term "going beserk" comes from Vikings. A-Ha!
Take On me, take me on.

Blue

Blue is the color of...

lupines, and late nights without your luggage. After some tea and toast at the B and B guest house in Keflavik, I showered and went to bed. Some time later I woke up to a loud knock at the door and someone yelling "LUGGAGE". I had no idea what time it was, all my clocks were different.

I try to solidify my plans to leave luggage and go to the blue lagoon. The hotelier is already out and I have trouble communicating well with the woman hugging the towels in her brown arms reaching out of her tank top. So she asks me if I speak Spanish. Si. I understand more Spanish than she does English so we have a great conversation about mi bolsa, y quando yo regressar a casa, etc. I learn that she is Dominican and married to an Icelander. Yet after all that, I changed my plan and decided to take my bags with me and head out for the bus. Just when I think I missed it, it comes down the narrow road and picks me up.

I sit next to a lovely Canadian gal who´s been teaching in Paris and has a short layover on route home before going off to Korea to do the same. She´s 24 and giggly and was a gem of a companion for the Blue Lagoon.

Silica mud reminds me a bit of ponds cold cream, the way my mom used to scoop it out and smear it on my rouged cheeks. Under foot it is squelchy. In some areas of the lagoon pools the substrate is smooth, like glass. All the while the water clarity is so loaded with particulates that visibility is barely 10 cm. We enjoyed the water fall massage, the steam room, and a snack.

It was a pleasant way to relax.

East, to North

I left Seattle in the dark on the fourth of July with fireworks bursting in air below me. The lights from Lake Union and the setting of a sliver of a very red moon popped in the window. Sunrise blushed as we approached Boston. The woman next to me pulled the shade up and said aloud, "Id like to think she wrote this while he slept," and showed me the sharpie love note on her window shade. "Look, More." on the tray it said "in Love with you..."

I do love to travel. It´s been a while since I have had the pleasure of simple serendipity. But it hit me like a heat wave when I landed in Boston early on Tuesday morning. I hopped in the T to the harbor. I don´t really remember the last time I was in Boston, but I do remember going to see the swan boats with Alex Graf when he was living there one summer, must have been 1993 or 1995. Funny how those memories floated back as I exited the T into the heat of summer. I was grateful for the hotel air conditioning as by 7:30 am, it was already over 80 degrees and I was waiting for my dad and grandma to drive up to join me for lunch. I texted my cousin to see if I could buy her a coffee on her way to work. She texted me at 9 or so and we met up in the park near where I was hanging out. Lindsay toured me around her little Italian neighborhood, narrow brick streets, and a brick work detail in the sidewalk known as the freedom trail. We passed Paul Revere´s house and the Old North Church where he famously hung one if by land, two if by sea, not rang some bells as Sarah Palin wanted us to believe.

By then it was time to meet up with Grandma and Dad. Great catch up time, lobster bisque, and a harbor walk. The temps rose to over 90. It was just one in the afternoon. Dad drove me to the airport, and there wasn´t a single person in the security line, so I got right through.

with the red eye flight, the jet lag, and the travel, i was looking forward to some sleep. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the flight to Reykjavik was only 4.5 hours. I caught up on some movies, Black Swan and the King´s Speech and landed before I knew it.

I landed in a luxury of lupines and the horizon-hugging sun at midnight. I later learned that the lupines were introduced to the area for erosion control. Still, I love the blue.

Iceland is a marvelous country. I can say that I wasn´t there long enough, and that I want to go back. I´d like to bring many of you with me

In the nature

Bjork and other music

I remember buying the green cassette tape of Bjork's Sugar Cube's album--Life's too Good. I remember that I loved that album so much, the cassette case got so scratched as I drove around wishing I was "on my bicycle" and that I was more of a punk "delicious demon" than I really was at the start of high school.

I remember hearing the word Iceland as if it was a cold delicious treat.

Soon, I will get the taste.

Thankfully, Bjork's been pouring a little sugar in my bowl for a week or so now, as KEXP's been playing songs off her soon to be released new album, "Biophilia" (the very term which I recently blogged about professionally). Today, the New York Times writes about her work and the Science of Song. Could she be any more my gal?

The NYTimes reports that "from their beginnings, the songs on “Biophilia” had a grand ambition: to unify music, nature (as described by science) and technology."

Sing it!
And maybe boogie a bit with this inspiration from Iceland.

Arctic Fever--Arctic Dreams

Spawned, perhaps, by Barry Lopez's book of the same title, I've got Arctic Dreams. I've been dreaming of a climate where I could wear a hoodie since I came back bug bitten and bitter from the Amazon. You could say I had Arctic Fever. If National Geographic wasn't going to take me to the North, I was going anyway.

Having had two student teachers from the Norwegian Univ. of Science & Technology in Trondheim in the last two years, I figured the opportunity to go north was as good now as it was going to get.

So I'm going.
I can see you there.
In that northern air.

Stay tuned.

address this!

I've picked up packages addressed to me at the wrong address more than once.

Once, my dad sent a package to my neighbors; same house number, wrong street. Funny how we figured that out. The contents of the package were gifts from his international travels. It was also a gift to meet new neighbors when I recovered the goods.

Tonight's journey is from a smaller world. I creaked open my red metal mail box today wondering when I'd get that package from Switzerland. It had been almost a month since Corrine had emailed letting me know she was sending photos from our time together in the Galapagos. Still, it wasn't there.

Instead, a curious email came just an hour later to my work email with the subject: Package from Switzerland. I recognized Dan's name, but couldn't place his face. Small world that he works for the same school district I do. We exchanged a few emails, mainly him directing me down the street a few blocks to connect tonight.

I arrived at an unmarked door and knocked. When the gentleman came to the door I asked for Dan. Sure enough, this was Dan, but despite his warm smile, hand shake and familiarity, I immediately felt that I had something wrong. "I'm the lawyer Dan; the teacher Dan is next door. But yes, we've skiied together on the street during those snow days," lawyer Dan reminded me and as his young daughter came running to the door I totally remembered! I briefly explained my mission, bid him good night, and went next door.

I knocked. Dan opened the door and handed me my package, saying, "It does look like it is addressed to me." "Perhaps, but if you were in Switzerland, that sure looks like a 9," I replied noting the 9 that started our zip code. "How did you find me?"

Dan told me he immediately recognized my name from the Green Team list serve in the district. Then he asked if I had taken kids to Japan a few years ago. I nodded. "We met in the back of the plane when I was coming home from Tibet."

I run by his house regularly. Once, when walking over a year ago with Jenn, we talked with him and picked up a set of rugs he was giving away.

It's a small small world.

More geeky Darwin delectables

In my preparation for my journey to the Galapagos I did quite a bit of reading. I read about Henry Walter Bates.

Naturally, I was delighted to find him, and Darwin, in the most recent Tuesday's Science times. I think you'll enjoy this article too.

a little white envelope

My mother clipped NYTimes articles. She clipped them and sent them off to friends and relatives. Once my sister bought her a special coupon cutting tool to use on the coupon-free NYTimes.

I received hundreds of white envelopes stuffed with articles she'd discover. The envelopes were stuffed with articles and surprisingly nothing else. No note. No letter. No sticky note, or ink marks at the top of the headlined paper. I rarely knew why she chose to send me this article over hundreds of others that week.

I craved to know why. It appears that researchers at the University of Pennsylvania also want to know why people send articles to each other.

So, in the spirit of my mother, I "forward" this article to you.

"And if you want to share that feeling with anyone, you know what to do next."