There is a Toyota Yaris parked outside our building, effectively blocking the entrance to the parking lot [you can squeeze a car in, but very slowly]. This is not an anomaly in Iceland; the Icelanders’ parking is on par with their driving, in that a large part of the population appears to think that the roads [and parking spaces] are there solely to accommodate their vehicles and nobody else’s.
It’s been sitting in that same spot since Friday, much to everyone’s supreme annoyance. On Saturday, EPI went out and placed a threatening little note on the windshield. [“…the next time your stupid little Toyota Yaris is found parked in this inconsiderate spot there will be fire and brimstone raining down upon your head.” Or something similar.] But nobody has come out to read the note [except our other neighbours, who have stopped their cars en route with the sole purpose of reading it.] It’s still there on the windshield, along with Friday’s snow.
So today as we were heading out for a power walk in the cold, I took a peek inside the offending vehicle. In the back seat, a winter jacket belonging to – as deduced by our resident sleuth YT – a girl approximately in her 20s. And on the front passenger seat, an open purse.
An open purse. Open.
Now the thing is [as YT promptly explained to EPI], no girl in her 20s leaves her purse in her car for an entire weekend. Unless something very weird is going on. No girl in her 20s [or any woman of any age] leaves her car with her purse open in the front seat, unless her plan is to return three minutes later at the very most.
So all of a sudden we’re not so much consumed with annoyance about that stupid little Toyota Yaris blocking the entrance to our parking lot, as we are utterly mystified by the sudden twist procured by the open purse in the front seat.
AND YET WE DID MANAGE TO TAKE IN A MOVIE
… At the second film festival in Reykjavík in less than a month. It was a Danish flick called Drabet, about a man completely undone by his own rather horrendous codependency issues and it is the third part of a trilogy. It was very good – won the rather prestigious Nordic Council of Ministers’ film award this year. The Danes, it seems, have this knack of making films portraying intense human dramas in which the protagonists are caught up in some sort of moral or philosophical dilemma. Just YT’s cup of tea.
OH, SPEAKING OF FESTIVALS
Rolling Stone’s reporter appears to have enjoyed his stay in Niceland last week, calling the Iceland Airwaves music festival “the hippest long weekend on the annual music festival calendar”. I’m betting that he wasn’t one of the multitudes who have been complaining about the inordinately long line-ups outside the best venues.
MEANWHILE, WINTER IS HERE TO STAY
It’s been pretty damn cold today, sub-zero temps and windchill. EPI went and put up my new thirty-year-old thermometer out on the balcony and guess what? It doesn’t work. Temperature has been holding steady all day at 6°C, whereas current temps according to mbl.is are –1°. Guess that proves that thermostats don’t have a very long life span. Or something. Sunrise was at 09.04 and sunset at 17.17.