The past week was quite a long one, it seemed to drag on. Work was constantly interrupted by the rain. The problem with the rain is that because we are working on clay and peat, any amount of water makes a complete fucking state of the ground and all the hard work is very quickly undone. This can be very frustrating but we are supposed to be getting a new tent to cover the new area that has been opened up. Hopefully this will alleviate the problems some what. The thing with Icelandic archaeology is that when dealing with volcanic island we can quite quickly date deposits due to the documented fall of volcanic ash called Tephra. There are several years throughout
Iceland’s history that volcanoes have erupted and laid down a carpet of ash. There is one from the thirteenth century, the sixteenth century, and most importantly the late ninth century. This one, from 871 plus or minus two years, is the settlement Tephra, and can quite precisely date a structure if the Tephra is found on a construction or within the turf used to build the structure. This spot dating certainly beats scratting about for bits of rubbish pottery like in the
UK.
I went over to Thingtakk’s rehearsal on Tuesday night, along with Kipp. I have only heard them on CD and they blew me away live. They are all incredibly talented musicians, it makes me fucking sick. For the last half an hour I demonstrated some Sudoku songs: Ninja!, Ninja Is For Life and Do You Wanna Get Pumped? We have an idea to play live at some point; the main problem is locating Ninja costumes in Reykjavik. This is the first time I have heard Sudoku with live drums, being that we only ever played with a drum machine, and it sounded fucking brilliant. At least from where I was standing…
The latest edition to our crew turned up on Tuesday night. Jo has come from London after working for PCA for eight years. I didn’t get to meet her on Tuesday night as I was in bed, but met her on Wednesday when she visited site for the first time. After work, Duncan, Roz and myself took Jo to the local swimming pool. I spent the whole time in the hot tubs.
We have this three week old tradition on site where someone makes a cake on Friday. Last week Lilja made a cake and cookies, she raised the bar somewhat and then chose me to make one this week. So I spent the first part of Thursday night making a cake and some brownies. Jo found a box of icing pens in the house and I used them to write abuse all over the top of the cake, see my Facefuck photos to see the results…
After baking class was over, Jo and I headed over to pick up Duncan and head down to Dillon to see Thingtakk perform. They were supported by a TOTAL FUCKING METAL band, called, I think, Rimmer. They were excellent live and didn’t give a shit about being TOTAL FUCKING METAL!!! Thingtakk put on a great performance, they’re drummer is a fucking machine! I also met Brant Bjork, he was playing on Saturday and was obviously in town a few days before for some expensive beers. I was chatting to him about DAM Pedals.
I was pretty fucked on Friday, I can’t drink on school nights anymore, but I got through the day and I spent the evening in the house with Duncan, Roz and Jo, drinking wine.
On Saturday I was going to go on a Reykjavik Excursions trip on the Golden Circle, but Atli and Hrön offered their services and said they’d take myself and D&R around all the major sites that the tour has to offer, plus a couple of other places too. The first place we visited was the volcanic crater at Kerið, I fucking love craters. There is something so mysterious about them.
We passed a fairy stone that the road had been diverted around outside of Selfoss, and this led to a discussion about Fairies and Hrön telling us her Grandfather had seen one once. What do they look like? Asked I. Like us, but more beautiful and better dressed she told me. So your Grandfather saw a good looking man in nice clothes? I asked. No, they are smaller than us, she countered. To which I replied: So your Grandfather saw a good looking well dressed man, who was standing far away?
We drove on to the excavations on the Bishop’s house at Skálholt that both Atli and Hrön had worked on as students. It was quite interesting, but I am not too keen on Churches, so thankfully we didn’t go in. The most interesting thing was the detail of a painting of Skálholt in the eighteenth century showing the turf houses.
Next stop was Geysir, where all the Geysers in the world are named after. The big one hasn’t blown since the eighties when an earthquake shook it up and it blew off. The smaller Strokker still blows every eight to ten minutes and is amazing to see. As is my usual luck with cameras I was waiting for the fucker to blow and my batteries ran out. A quick visit to the shop for batteries and chips and we finished our tour of the hot pools of Geysir.
The next stop on the itinery was the waterfall at Gullfoss which was breathtaking. It’s at least two tiers of cascading water and falls for meters. The sheer size and amount of water that runs down them is mindbending. I asked Atli if he would consider going over it in a barrel, he said yes as long at it was a metal barrel, with an oxygen canister in it. And a TV.
Driving on a grit road over incredible Autumnal landscapes of lava fields we arrived at Þingvellir were the original Parliament met during the Viking period. It remained in use up to 1798 but was reused during the independence declaration in 1944. The site is set in between a rift in the North Atlantic ridge that rises up in Iceland. It’s the only place in the world where you can cross from Europe to North America in a few steps. It’s also cheaper than flying. Darkness was falling as we left so we threw some coins into the water and made a wish. I really wanted mine to come true so I fucked a handful of cash into the stream.
I got back to Reykjavik and had some food before heading out into town with Jo to go and see Brant Bjork and the Bros at Café Amsterdam. At the bank machine Jo got confused and withdrew 100,000 Kroner, wishing to get about £60 out she ended up getting £600 out… Being obviously nervous about having so much cash in her pocket she headed back to the house to drop some off, I headed into the gig as the first band had started. They were pretty good laid back American bluesy stuff, I wouldn’t buy anything by them but they were good live. The second band were called Brain Police and were fucking heavy. They ended up with a cover of a Kyuss song, which I had not heard for maybe twelve years. The really got the crowd going. Then Brant Bjork and the Bros took to the stage and they played a fucking amazing set. I am not really into them, but have heard most of their back catalogue at Dave’s house. They kept coming back on, and must have played for about two hours. Great value for money. Jo and I hung around in Café Amsterdam afterwards until about four when we headed home, drunk and satisfied with the evening’s entertainment.
Sunday was spent in a café drinking coffee, reading National Geographic, using the free internet access and then coming home to watch Enemy at the Gates.
