Winter has arrived in Reykjavík, as evidenced by the heavier coat I grabbed when I left my apartment yesterday morning and the first snow to accumulate briefly in the courtyard last night. This morning it was gone, but it’s sticking to the mountain tops that surround the city, a visual reminder that winter descends. Along with the colder air, the darkness on either side of the day hugs a little tighter, squeezing and slanting the light each morning and evening, shading the snowcapped mountains into a hazy pink before blinking awake or asleep.
Friday was the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Day Off strike in Iceland, a major event for women’s rights in which 90% of women in the country stopped all professional and domestic labor to draw attention to unequal treatment. That event was the start of a movement that led to Iceland topping the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap list (the USA is #43). It was estimated that 50,000 people gathered for the outdoor rally at Arnarhóll — roughly an 8th of the country’s population.
There’s a really good documentary about the original Women’s Day Off event called The Day Iceland Stood Still that I highly recommend. Unfortunately it’s not available on streaming services yet, but it is interesting to see that many organizations hosted screenings on the anniversary, including Scandinavia House in New York and The League of Women Voters in St. Paul. Keep an eye on the upcoming screenings page on their website, or you can catch it on in-flight entertainment if you happening to be flying Icelandair.
Noted & Done
- It was reported that 3 misquotes were found in Iceland, their first ever sighting.
- I finally made it to the downtown flea market Kolaportið and found a vendor that sells Icelandic and Faroese stamps. This is like catnip for me — I bought 30 First Day Covers.
- Finished watching the mini-series Task on HBO, which I highly recommended. It’s by the creators of Mare of Easttown, and like that show is also set in Pennsylvania in a way that feels really authentic to the place. Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey both have incredible performances.