a little politics

The Saturday before last was an important day here in Iceland (and no, I'm not talking about Eurovision!). There was a national election for althingi, the parliament - they're held every four years. The governing coalition, composed of two parties on the centre/right side of Icelandic politics, had been in power for twelve years. A swing to the left was very much expected. The results were somewhat surprising I think; the largest party actually gained a few seats, while their coalition partner suffered heavy losses. The coalition was left with a majority of one, which isn't enough for a stable government, so a new coalition is expected to be formed consisting of the main party, and one of the more left-wing ones. It will be interesting to see if this changes anything in the decisions made by the government. For more details try this article on the Grapevine's website.

Myself, I just hope that they go easier on all the construction work that's been going on all over Iceland - aluminium factories, big dams etc. It doesn't even make economic sense to me - tourism is the second biggest industry in this country, but people won't be excited about coming to Iceland any more if they build over everything. When I first visited Iceland three years ago, the coach ride from Keflavik airport to Reykjavik was really something special. Now it's a string of building sites. And this is the one stretch of road that almost every visitor to Iceland is guaranteed to see!

On a more trivial note, we had an amazing day here last Saturday. Sunny, clear skies, and the temperature rose to all of 10 degrees celsius! At this point everyone gets really excited, saying finally summer is on it's way. Two days later, and it's snowing. I'm never going to understand the weather in this country.

a national tragedy

Don your most spectacular costume, wheel in your most powerful wind machine, and dig out your extra large cheese knife. Yes, it's Eurovision time again. And once more Iceland is in mourning because our entry did not make it through to the final. Cue the shaking of heads, and general bemusement about the randomness of the voting system (or lack of it - by a curious coincidence every nation that went through is located in the eastern half of Europe).

In case you're wondering, I do not want to feel your love-power, nor do I want to shake it up and shake it in (some of the more dodgy lyrics on offer on Thursday night). But I am looking forward to having a really good laugh tonight.

needles

This morning I had a blood test taken - the first I've had for a while. As usual the experience left me feeling totally pathetic, ashamed that I leave the surgery shaking, dizzy, and cannot even contemplate removing the little piece of cotton wool for a good 12 hours after the event. I am absolutely terrified of needles. I have convinced myself this is all down to a bad childhood experience, when a doctor couldn't find the vein in my arm, but searched for it in vain for what felt like an eternity. Later on as a teenager I had another test done, anxiously waiting for the nurse to remove the needle, and flooding with relief when she did so. She smiled at me kindly. I'm sorry, she said. I couldn't find the vein in that arm, I'm going to have another go with your other one.

I had a holiday nightmare last summer in Greece when I picked up an infection on the beach. I was driven to hospital at 11pm by my fiance's (Greek) family. They took a blood test from a vein in my forearm. I felt the needle go in. Then the nurse started fiddling around with something. What are they doing, I asked Chris, who was holding my hand. I don't know, he said. Moments later I was horrified to find myself attached to a drip. With the trauma of suddenly finding a needle permanently wedged in my arm, I sat up too quickly and nearly fainted. The doctors used this as an excuse to keep me in under observation for two nights and put me on a water based diet (this turned out to mean a bowl of rice/noodles left in the water they were cooked in, with a dash of oil, and lemon if you were lucky). My infection had cleared up as soon as they administered some antibiotics. After the second night, if I had been able to speak Greek, I would have pointed out that the only thing making me unwell was having been on a drip and eating nothing but gloop for two days. Fortunately my father-in-law took matters in hand and asked them to discharge me. Most people with the condition I had are sent home immediately with a few antibiotics. Enough said!