klaka?

Ice is neat. Likewise snow.

I am always heartened to see Icelandic kids happily engaged in the time-honored practice of scooting one's feet back and forth on packed snow or an icy patch while, say, waiting for the bus, totally absorbed in the experience of near-frictionless movement for its own sake. Or shuffling through powder. Or poking the rimey edge with a stick as the ice crust forms over standing water. These activities have eternal charm, it would seem, international appeal extending even to the oh-so-slick teens and pre-teens of this subarctic hotspot. They may be too cool for school, but they are not too cool for ice.

The water in the Tjörn froze a forbidding black a few days ago, and then the sky went blue-gray and dumped several centimeters of fluffy white on top of it. It's been fairly still, and so the snow has lain quietly, tracked through here and there by awkward geese and red-clad children. Sunday evening, crossing over onto Lækjargata, I saw a lone small figure, well-insulated in parka and boots, trudging with an air of great concentration in that snow. Passing by, I could see that it was a boy of maybe nine. He was pushing the glittering snow from the dark ice with his feet so as to form two-meter-tall letters, presumably visible from the air, spelling (in English): HELP.