iceland

I finally got to Iceland - somewhere I've wanted to go to for a very long time. We spent six days there driving around the island on the ringroad, aka Route 1. It's a bleak but beautiful place. Not many trees. But fjords, glaciers, waterfalls, emptiness.

Best things:
- soaking in the milky blue, mineral-rich, geothermal waters at the Nature Baths at Lake Myvatn
- driving 25km along a narrow unsealed road along the coast to dine at Geitafell restaurant
- Jökulsárlón where great chunks of ice break off the Breidamerkurjökull glacier, fall into the lagoon and float out to sea
- Icelandic sheep
- misty days
- skyr

Reading: My brilliant friend by Elena Ferrante. I know this is a very poplar book and I tried to like it. It wasn't bad. I finished it because I wanted to know what happened. But it wasn't the right book for me.
Reading: A manual for cleaning women by Lucia Berlin. Funny, sad, insightful short stories.

Watching: Life, animated. Tender documentary about raising an autistic child.
Watching: Mistress America starring Greta Gerwig who also starred in Frances Ha. I love both these films. They're kind of similar - about finding a place in the world. Funny, idiosyncratic, ridiculous and full of over-the-top characters. Incidentally the guy who plays the small part of Harold is New Zealander, Dean Wareham.