Had a pleasant morning yesterday of about two hours helping a theological student prepare for his Hebrew exam on Wednesday. Gunni is in charge of the youth program at Grafavogskirkja and studying to be a Lutheran priest. All theological students must take a year of Hebrew and (I believe) two of New Testament Greek. The homework assignment was relatively simple, having to identify certain verbal forms with prepositions attached to them. I found it especially interesting to translate the Hebrew into Icelandic, not your everyday language(s)…

The weather was so fine yesterday afternoon at work that they had the large doors open where trucks back in to receive and take mail. Not the slightest breeze, a welcome change here in the mid Atlantic Ocean.

'I´ve lived here all my life and still say that Reykjavik is an ugly city. Period.' Words not far from the truth, unfortunately, but need to be put into perspective. Iceland´s climate isn´t conducive for building to last long nor are material at hand for durable construction, at least in earlier centuries. Hence Iceland lacks castles, etc. Reykjavik itself was always a sleepy fishing villiage and didn´t take off until after WWII. Building were put up hodge-podge without regard for beauty nor planning which reflects the highly independent Icelandic mentality. However, in the last 40 years or so buildings are very attractive and modern. As I noted several times earlier, much of Reykjavik and surrounding towns look a lot like southern California, minus palm trees. No question, it lacks that distinctive European feel. All in all, the homes and apartments are very well kept and higher in quality than the US. After all, Iceland has no poverty.