Hogmanay or New Year´s Eve is a frenzy of explosions and fire in Iceland. The battery begins around the 27th of December and continues until around the end of January. Áramót itself is hard to describe.. explosions all around in built up areas. I was reminded of live TV broadcasts from war zones. A lovely old couple appeared on the TV news to say that they had phoned the emergency services to ask when the explosions would end but the police couldn´t help, so they filled a flask with coffee and hid in the their bathroom which had no windows until around 3am. Þór did the same.. we put his cage in the bath. I enjoyed it though was rather alarmed at the proximity to houses, cars, people. The boys bought a big cake called Katla for me .. so I got to see an eruption of Katla. Thankfully nobody was hurt. The fireworks picture above was taken close to midnight, but we started the evening by going to an bonfire where children were playing with rockets, then went to Óli´s uncle´s house where they set up a last hot air balloon. There was a wild west feeling to the street full of boys of all ages wielding flares and explosive devices and spoking cigars and drinking beer. Icelanders are mad (madly fun) and strangely there are still some of them alive to set the night sky alight and perhaps a few unwary obstacles that don´t run away fast enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment