Three odd adventures

Well, yesterday was a very Icelandic day for me, especially in the afternoon, when a series of events occurred and at each turn I thought to myself 'only in Iceland'. I planned to meet a German PhD student for coffee and to view an exhibit at 4:45. The coffee place closed at 4:30, but they still let us come in, gave us the last of the bread and the last of the cake, which was hospitable but slightly awkward. The exhibit was OK, and free so one could not really complain, but actually far too sparse to warrant the name exhibit. Anyhow, we talked about the difficulties of living in Iceland, becoming part of the society, since she thinks Icelanders are not immediately friendly, and I must say I rather agree. So, that was odd adventure number one, and I was already feeling Kafka-esque enough to want to go home. But she suggested we check out a documentary on China at the university, which she reckoned in fact might even be over, so I thought it couldn't hurt to walk over there. The documentary was in fact still running, so we grabbed a seat, and I thought I might even just read while she watched it. But no, this 1960s style American production was just too unexpected to ignore. It was about the role of the US government in supporting the communist rebel armies in North China during World War II. The US did this because the communists were fighting the Japanese, and had a more effective operation than China's central government (which the US also supported). I found the whole thing remarkable. This was a US made documentary, but it was absolutely not one that made the rounds in my highschool. In a haze from this revelation of US military duplicity, I bid my German friend a hasty adieu and stumbled over to the library.  I had just put in my kennitala to get online (which one really ought not to have to do for privacy reasons, but then privacy laws in Iceland are really lax), when a friend of mine from California comes walking up to me. She excitedly declares that she is going to a concert, and would I like to come along? Well, I already had plans to go to my book club, but I thought clearly it was more in the spirit of the day to go along on another bizarre adventure.  And fate did not disappoint; the concert was in a rather small church, even though there was a 120 person choir and a respectable sized orchestra, clearly large enough for a symphony hall. After all of that, I decided on my way home not to do anything so mundane as go through the Taco Bell drive through. It just did not seem Icelandic enough.