Bad days (a bit long and very cold)

[Kristinn Leifsson]

Where to begin?



The weather has been pretty interesting this last week.  The last weekend I
went to a town about 45 minutes away for a concert tuning.  The church that
bought this new Steinway C from Hamburg was holding the concert in
celebration of the new instrument.  Having tuned for them almost
exclusively the last two years I decided to do this one for free.

I started on my way around noon.  The road goes over pretty high country,
and the weather on the moor was very bad, heavy snowing etc.  

I finished tuning the grand and got on my way back.  I drove for about 25
minutes the same way back and started noticing some jeeps in trouble with
the snow.  
Visibility was zero.  
I figured this way was out of the question for my non-jeepish Toyota.  

So, I turned back.  When I got down from the moor again the police had
already closed everything down.  

I decided to take the only other way to town (apart from driving the other
way around the country).  The weather there was also bad but I got through
-- just barely--  some two thousand people got stuck on this road just
after I got through and had to stay there for up to 14 hours to be rescued.
 Nobody left their keys in the cars so the road was clogged up for the next
day or two.


Well, yesterday I drove a fifteen-minute way to a tuning.  An easy job, I
was even offered a wonderful salmon dinner.  

After that there was just the way back, eerily similar to the weekend.
First of all there was a car stuck in the exit of a roundabout and I had to
wait for that one to pull loose.  

"Whoops, the gas light has been glowing for a good while now."  

I smashed my way through the piles of snow in front of the gas station.
Only the self-service part of the station was open so I couldn´t make
anyone else than me suffer out in the weather.  After banging open the
frozen lid on the car I went to pay.  I had to wipe the snow off the
computer screen and stick my car key in the bill-slot to get the ice out.

I took a bill worth 1000 IKR ($14) and started putting it in.  My fingers
were numb by that time and I accidentally dropped the bill, which, sure
enough, disappeared up on the roof of the station.  The next bill I took
was only a 500 IKR (in case I also dropped that one, it would have been
less of a loss).  That one went in easily so I proceeded pumping gas into
my craving vehicle.  It all went fine up to 70 IKR ($1) --  either the pump
was empty or just frozen!  
My head also probably froze 'cause I feel rotten today.
So on one dollars worth I got home.

Other than that there hasn´t been much going on, apart from this week´s
volcanic eruption, of course.


Regards from the land of fire and ice,

Kristinn Leifsson
Reykjavík, Iceland