By the time I learned to like Skyr, to like washing my teeth with the stinky water, to like the stinky water itself, to eat (and prepare!) fish, to shower naked in the sundlaug, that cars will stop if want to go through on the street at the zebra, that driver waits for me if I run to catch the bus, to smile back to everyone smiling at me on the streets, not to be offended if no answer to my emails, doing things the „Icelandic way” = as good as it gets and it’ll always turns out right somehow, that my given name is enough to introduce myself, how to use self service gas stations (í lagi), pronounce Eyjafjallajökull like an Icelandic, to resign myself I’d never be able to pronounce Hafnarfjördur properly, that weather-report is the most unreliable program manager, to listen to Carmen in Icelandic, to watch a theater piece I didn’t catch a single word from, but still understood it, that I am able to climb a snowy mountain alone, how to make a new friendship, that spending some time alone is not the devil itself, that writing about myself can be fun (for others as well), that darkness, snow, storm, rain don’t effect life here, that sitting in hot water in snow/rain storm with frozen hair at minus 16 is common and normal, not dangerous – I have to go home. But – as the elephants – I never forget.
