Immeasurable happiness

22nd October 2004

I’m back in Iceland! I’m so happy. It doesn’t matter that icelandair have lost all of my possessions, because I’m here, and I don’t care. I’m sitting in the official Airwaves Festival bar (Hressingarsklin) - it’s all super wi-fi’d, laid back, comfy, warm. Bands are being interviewed all around me. The chap from Fourtet just walked by. It’s table-service-a-go-go, and I’ve never seen so many Apple products in one place. The guy with the 17” Powerbook looks particularly smug.

I must immediately share this conversation that the Snorkeller had with a seven year old girl who ran up to him giggling in Icelandic this morning:

Snorkeller: Do you speak English?

Young dottir: No, but my Daddy does.

And her response was in the most incredible, plum-perfect English we’ve ever heard! Icelanders are way too intelligent.

I think it’s my seventh time here, but it’s still full of surprises. As usual, the weather is wonderful - crisp, clear skies and stunning sunlight. Jules Verne’s glacier is visible 100kms across the bay, the air is clear and unpolluted, and I’ve just had a wonderful sleep in a wonderful house in a wonderful town…

Hafnarfjordur is a great little place - a harbour town five kilometres from Reykjavik, home to 20,000 people, and absolutely picture-postcard-perfect. We are staying in a fantastic house up at Klukkuberg - with views across the town and bay to the North, and the desolate nothingness of Heidmork to the South. The house is spotless, minimal, beautiful, and would cost £400,000 in Nottingham. Here, our friends paid around £100,000. So, Iceland may be expensive, but a high standard of living is available to all.

So, congrats to the Icelanders as usual. They really know how to throw a party. We’re all being looked after, our every whim catered for. This is most definitely the life. It’s bloody cold though…