reunited

Sigrun, my dear wife, returned from her Iceland trek last night. Truth be told I almost didn't make it to the airport on time because of.......THE HOCKEY GAME!! The Juniors Championships final between Canada and Russia. What a drubbing! What a sight for hockey-starved eyes (well, ok, I don't *really* miss the NHL but do enjoy the occasional good international match-up) Canada was all over the Russkies, winning it 6:1. At this point, Canada is playing by far the best hockey in the world: the Canada Cup, the Olympics, the IIHF Championships and now the Juniors. A clean sweep. It warms the cockles of my heart that my adopted country is so good at SOMETHING! By golly, we know it ain't international politics.

So, with about ten minutes to go in the game and my Internet flight tracking program showing my wife's plane just about to land in Toronto, I put my VCR on to record the last minutes (not that I expected anything drastic to happen: you can't come out of a 5 goal deficit in ten minutes) and rushed to the airport. Not only did I make it in time: it just so happened that about eight thousand flight had landed at the same time and I still had to wait for her to emerge from customs, weighed down by about the same amount of luggage she had left with. Which is a lot! I expected her to shed some along the way BUT NO! She was bringing back lots of xmas presents from the family back home.

For those who don't know Iceland - it is a strange yet beautiful place but definitely NOT a place to visit in December. Sigrun told me the weather was atrocious, blizzards daily and, of course, the anticipated Nordic darkness. The sun rises at 11 am and sets at 3:30 pm. And it doesn't really rise, as much as peeks up above the horizeon for a precious few hours, then dips and disappears not to be seen again for 18 or 19 hours. This is not unbearable when the weather is relatively mild - as it can be in Iceland because of the Gulf stream (it is not unheard of to have temperatures in the plus 5 range in December and January) But when it's really cold and snowy, the darkness literally makes you feel like you're on the North Pole.


Iceland winter dawn at 11am

Coming back home to Toronto feels like coming out of solitary confinment - even though just as my wife arrived, the mild weather we've been having is about to turn nasty and 15 cm's of snow will be on the ground this time tomorrow. Oh well, this IS Canada, after all!!