Had a splendid dinner last night at Iðnó, down by the lake. No romance, though... just my bosses being nice. Ok, I´ve been moaning about not having any work and still I don´t really have any. At least none that you put proudly on your grad school application to show how dedicated you´ve been to geology... "selling books over the phone.. the new Icelandic-Icelandic dictionary and Snorri Sturluson complete" Terribly relevant to geology, right?

Anyway, if you want either of those books I can get you it with a HUGE discount ;) If you want both, you´ll get a surprise!

Do I suck? Never mind, since I am leaving town tomorrow and won´t be back for the next week. You see, at the demonstrations at Austurvöllur last Tuesday I met my long-time buddy Kjartan (he´s Bollason and thus the namesake of one of the most dramatic heroes of the Iceland sagas...) (although I had some trouble understanding, as a kid, why anyone would be called Cup (i.e. Bolli - Bolli´s son will have Bollason as a last name, according to our old name traditions)) and he told me about the jeep trip he´s going on with an American pal of his. I must have gone green in the face with envy or something since Kjartan asks if maybe I would like to join them. Hey, wow, of course!! I'll lose some money by not showing up at work for a week... but, what the heck. Let me explain:

In my mind Iceland has in a way turned into some sort of Gulag, and I don´t really feel well here because of this. Life here is to a large degree centered around making money, keeping up with the Jones´s, you have to work hard to be something and a person´s value is too often measured in the amount of money he or she makes. Very twisted, I know. I tend to let this mentality influence me a lot when I´m here and every summer since 1996 I´ve spent working as a psychopath, making money and not thinking about anything else. Not that it has made me rich, but I have lost out on a few things, like going abroad with friends, going camping and hiking, visiting the place my granny was raised in Hornstrandir, by now deserted and turned into a nature reserve... see what I´m getting at? So I thought, why the hell skip this opportunity to go to the highlands for some few krónur?!?! I mean, I spend a lot of money on going to Chile and Bolivia to go hiking there and on jeep tours...

Am looking forward to it.