Well now, we're stuck alright. Like a scratch on a record. We repeat each day and the weather repeats itself and I swear I'm going to wake up tomorrow and we'll do exactly what we did today: look desperately outside for signs of spring and, too, cancel all June bookings made the previous day.
I can't explain the impasse in the weather, but I can say a word about our tortuous June trip planning. We found the cheap flight. Okay. But nothing else felt right. Here we were, flying to Iceland and from there, flying on cheap airlines you've not have heard of to the continent. That part was okay. I didn't mind the round about travel. And I didn't mind having to take a long train ride south, and then east and after, west and north -- in other words up and down the continent. And we were willing to change airports between flights in New York. And to arrive at midnight in one city and depart at 1 a.m. from another. But the price of staying any amount of time in Iceland wiped out any savings from the complicated plans. So what's the point? We cancelled the whole thing.
Yes, yes, there was Iceland in the deal. I visited Iceland once, by myself. Many, many decades ago. I went in November because it was inexpensive then. The sun was out for three hours each day and even though I was a mere schoolgirl, not even drinking age in the States, I rented a car and ventured out into the bleak countryside. What a dumb trip that was. The roads were treacherous and I had to turn back. All my money blown on a rental that got me nowhere. In Reykjavik, waiters were on strike and stores were closed and I could get nothing to eat. Like I said, maybe I'm biased.
So the whole "cheap flight" (but expensive stay) through Iceland is out and it's back to Barcelona that'll be plenty exciting, thank you, even as we'll not even step foot in Barcelona until the very last day and then only for about twelve hours.
In other non-news, we had a pretty little breakfast in the sun room...
...and I had my 75 minute yoga class and I did some modest amount of house cleaning, but mainly I sat at my computer and that's not too satisfying for a Sunday afternoon, especially a sunny Sunday afternoon and so I was quite happy when Ed agreed to go for a walk.
We don't often do that. Usually we switch from cross country skiing (winter) to biking (all other seasons), but it's just too cold for me to enjoy a bike ride in this most difficult pre-spring season. And now that I ever so inadvertently brought up the weather here on Ocean, may I tell you how stunned I am to hear that we are getting ANOTHER snowstorm tomorrow?
Never mind, I'm outta here by the end of the week. I'll chase spring elsewhere.
As for St Patrick's -- well, I have no Irish in me, but not belonging to some thing, place or group has never stopped me from doing as the Romans do, or in this case the Irish do. So I made cabbage soup for supper (isn't that truly Irish?) and in an uncharacteristic for these times move, I baked a cake. Not Irish, but Italian: lemon and olive oil.
And if you aren't yet convinced that this was actually quite the lovely day, do note that, against a backdrop of snow, I saw this solitary cardinal. Hello, cardinal. Are you chirping away because we are just three days away from (calendar) spring?
I was briefly stationed in Keflavik in the late sixties at the US Naval Air Station. It was a cold, unfriendly place and the Icelanders, I thought, did nothing to make it any warmer. Of all the countries I've visited over the years, Iceland is the one place I'd least care to return to. This was only 22 years after the end of WWII and the locals still resented us for having established an air base there during the war (in part to keep the Lufwaffe from building one).
ReplyDeleteEven though the dollar had great purchasing power everywhere else in Europe at the time, prices in Iceland (as you note) were surprisingly high, something I could never understand, given that their entire economy was based on herring fishing and little else.
On the upside, their houses were brightly painted and their swimming pools were heated with geysers.