I recently bought a new car, a Mini Cooper S Clubman, in chili pepper red. I also got a tiny version for my grandson, who is very excited to have a car like grandma’s.

I am back to my regular routine of baby sitting two days a week, so here are a few pictures from yesterday. He is always on the move, so it isn’t easy to get a good picture of him.

I am heading back to America next week. I always miss the view of the bay and the mountains from my windows here in Fuglafjørður. However, I am looking forward to seeing the sun much more often, knowing that the fog will disappear by noon.

Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks, some with sun and some with clouds, but most of them with water and mountains.

Kalsoy is the closest island to where I live in Fuglafjørður, but I had never been there before. I drove through the under-sea tunnel to Klaksvík, where I caught the afternoon car-ferry to Syðradalur on Kalsoy. There are only 4 small villages on Kalsoy, and no stores of any kind. Many people on the ferry were carrying bags of groceries from the stores in Klaksvík.

Kalsoy is nick-named the “flute”. It is a long, thin island, with 8 holes in it from the four tunnels. I am never fond of one-lane tunnels, but we didn’t meet any traffic in any of the tunnels. In fact, the only time there was any traffic was when 16-20 cars drove off the ferry.

During July and August, you can often see families out on the hillsides harvesting the hay. I joined some relatives on a warm, sunny afternoon on the hillside. They raked the dried hay into a large pile, then piled it into a small trailer and took it down the hillside to a hay shed to be used during the winter to feed the sheep. Kids and grandkids joined in the work, leaving plenty of time for play, as well.

Here are some pictures in and around Fuglafjørður. Since “fugla” means “bird” I included some pictures of birds.

We have had a few beautifully sunny days, and the mountains and bays are always beautiful in the sun. We have also had our share of fog and rain, but I don’t usually do a lot of walking in the rain.

The hotel in Gjógv, called Gjáargarður, was the location for a Faroese Cultural Evening, part of the Faroe Islands Festival of Classical and Contemporary Music. We had dinner that included many traditional Faroese food, followed by music by a string quartet, ending with the traditional Faroese line dance and ballads.

Gjógv is at the northern tip of Eysturoy, the island where I am living. I passed the quaint village of Funningur on the way, taking pictures as I went. Gjógv is known for its deep gorge, used as a harbor. Gjógv means gorge. Even on chilly days, you will find children playing in the pond in the creek running through the town. The water is soooo cold, but the kids don’t seem to mind.

While sightseeing in Iceland, I happened to encounter a family from my church in America. They were also planning a visit to the Faroe Islands, so I arranged to take them on a long day of sightseeing while we were all in the Faroes.

We started with a visit to Saksun, with its quaint old village, waterfall, and the lake that used to be a bay. Then we drove up the eastern edge of Streymoy with a view of Eysturoy across the sound, stopping at the Fossa waterfall and at the unusual church in Haldorsvík. Our destination was Tjørnuvík at the northern tip of Streymoy. We got there in time to see the end of the sheep shearing, and the sheep were released to go back up the mountain. We had our picnic lunch in the parking lot.

From Tjørnuvík we headed back down the one lane road along the coast, crossed the bridge to Eysturoy, where we stopped to see the church in Gøta. Next I took them through Leirvík and down through the long tunnel that goes under the sound and under some mountains and finally comes up in Klaksvík on the island of Borðoy. We drove through the two long, unlighted, one-lane tunnels (about 4 km of controlled panic). The traffic going east has the right-of-way, and the traffic going west must use the turnouts, marked by a big blue “M”. We crossed on the causeway over to Viðoy and drove to the northern-most town of Viðareiði. Unfortunately, the fog was so thick that my friends couldn’t see any of the mountains ridges. Eventually the fog cleared enough that we could almost see the neighboring island.

Leaving Viðoy, I got to drive back through the same tunnels, this time looking carefully for the marked turnouts whenever I saw headlights coming toward me in the black darkness of the tunnels. We drove over another causeway to the Island of Kunoy, where we had another long (nearly 3 km) one-lane tunnel. This one, at least, was not very busy, and I only had to turn out one time. From Kunoy, we went back to Klaksvík where we found a restaurant and had a good dinner. Then, back through the long tunnel under the sound, and I took my friends to my adopted home-town of Fuglafjørður, where we watched the dock workers unload frozen fish from the large trawler Høgaberg, and drive it into the freezers under the mountains. Finally, I took them back to their car, waiting for them beside the road in Hvalvík. They drove on to Tórshavn and I went back home to Fuglafjørður. After 14 hours and five islands, my friends were quite ready to go back to their hotel.

It has taken me a few weeks, but at last here are the final pictures from my trip to Iceland, with everything from reflections in a quiet lake, to strange lava formations, or views of the ocean and views of the countryside. There is also a category of miscellaneous, where I put pictures I like but don’t know how to categorize. I hope you enjoyed my trip to Iceland. I did.

I still have more pictures from Iceland to show you, even though I have been home for two weeks. I have realized that I can either sort pictures and update my website, or I can get out of the house, do fun things, and take more pictures. I have opted for the taking more pictures and am getting further behind with updating my website.

Here are photos of flowers in Iceland – some are familiar and some are quite unknown. I like them, and I hope you do, too.

The state church in Iceland is Lutheran. While driving through Iceland we passed many little villages that had a white church with a red roof, and someone suggested maybe that was the only kind of church they build in Iceland. Eventually we did see some churches that were different. The Hallgrim’s Church in Reykjavík is certainly a notable exception.