Icelandic homes don’t have normal windows. Instead, they have small ones or slit-like panels, enough to allow airflow. The obvious reason is the weather. If you want to air out your apartment, just open two on a windy day of which we have an abundance. Within a minute you’re all set.

I’m about 60% through Plato’s Phaedo, making brief notations as to Greek words with focus upon prepositions. Greek abounds in subtle uses of prepositions, and a proper understanding of them is essential. At this juncture what seemed tedious work is slamming into place, for I can refer back to ground covered which, in turn, sheds light on a text now at hand.

When I was listening to WARE on the Internet, a radio station based in Palmer, Mass, I heard an ad about a restaurant. They were offering Icelandic haddock. No way, José! Obviously frozen; can’t compare with the Real Stuff here.

Yesterday was cloudy but no rain; a stiff wind made outdoor activity not particularly pleasant. Because of the holiday, the local Bonus supermarket was closed, so I decided to take in Noatun, www.noatun.is, at Grafarholt. That is a new suburb Bonus, Noatun and Hagkaup are the three chief food centers in Iceland and are owned by the same small clique of families. There’s some resentment about this control, that they engage in price gouging. Not much of a choice…Bonus is the most popular with the other two in ascending order as far as prices and quality.

As for Grafarholt, it’s a new suburb with construction everywhere. That seems to be a snapshot of Iceland today: buildings going up everywhere you look. I don’t mean a development here and an apartment block there: there’s a veritable explosion of construction with cranes as numerous as trees. One friend mused, “where do they come from? After all, our population is only 300,000.” We both wish we had the answer. As I noted earlier, Iceland enjoys a mild climate due to the Gulf Stream. Shift its flow a degree or two, and instantly we become a mini-Greenland. I think of that each time I gaze at one of those huge apartment blocks going up.