I've continued to work hard at improving my Icelandic, exhausting the resources at the Skagafjörður archives, and finishing my 2016 excavation report as well as a few other writing projects. I'll be continuing to work on all of these things over the course of the spring, as well as taking advantage of the research materials at the National Library and National Museum, and taking two courses at the University of Iceland. Both are taught in Icelandic, so I will be getting a lot of language practice over the next few months!
I attended numerous concerts and events over the Christmas season, both in Skagafjörður and Reykjavík, and my family visited for the week between Christmas and New Years, just in time for a week of wind and snowstorms! And I've been continuing to update my Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr, even when I haven't been posting to this blog: links are in the left sidebar.
The days are starting to grow longer again, and Reykjavík, being a few degrees south of Sauðárkrókur, already has about an extra hour of daylight. The darkness hasn't affected me too much, though it is difficult to disentangle darkness-related melancholy from the aforementioned ongoing global political nightmare. I gave a talk at TAG in Southampton, UK, in December, and seeing the sun stream through my window - not even at much of an angle! - was fairly glorious! But in general I am the sort of person who likes the darkness. It makes it easier to see the Northern Lights, for one thing.
Snorrabuð at Þingvellir - one of the turf structures where people lived when they came to the National Assembly. I've never seen it so clearly, and I'm eager to get back to Skagafjörður in April to take similar photos of the Hegranes fornbýli!
