This post isn't really about anything, so it doesn't have a title

I had one of the most traumatic experiences of my life today when EPI and I ventured out to the new IKEA they just opened in Garðabær [near Reykjavík]. Of course nothing less than the biggest IKEA anywhere in the Nordic countries would do for the shop-happy Nicelanders, never mind that our nation is about a fraction of the size of any of the others nations, or 300,000 punters if you want to be exact.

First, there was the actual navigating there in the dark [around 5.30 pm] because in true Icelandic fashion there are no proper signs to give you directions. Having finally found it, we just sort of stood outside and gaped at the sheer monstrosity of the thing, and the fact that they had couches lined up vertically on the walls, reaching two stories up – a rather bizarre display method that would surely make an alien from outer space surmise that the Swedes hang their couches off the walls and have their TVs on the opposite walls and use astro-projection to go to the kitchen to get beer.

A moment later, having ventured inside, we had to face the horrifying fact that we’d been swallowed into the belly of the whale and would quite conceivably never get out. The thing is absolutely monstrous. I can’t remember how many square metres it is nor how long it would take you to walk through the whole thing [although 3 hours somehow rings a bell] but it is a lot. We were late and it was about to close so we frantically kept searching all the signs and looking for arrows to follow and stopping, and going the other way, and asking for directions, and getting lost and asking for directions again, until we finally stumbled into the gigantic check-out hall where we could finally breathe a sigh of relief and turn our attention to the task at hand: buying candles and Christmas wrapping paper [that they magically had on display in front of the cash].

It was nerve-racking, let me tell you.

Before going to IKEA, though, we went to Penis Mall to see if we could find EPI some clothes at ZARA. EPI is of the species of male who will wait until his clothes are riddled with holes and falling to pieces before he will consider maybe going out to look for something new. So there we were at ZARA and I turned to the first clerk I saw to get some help with a size and guess what? He spoke only English!

It’s an epidemic.

Penis Mall was absolutely packed, for once [usually there’s hardly anyone there] and I figured it was because everybody was using the opportunity to go because it was impossible to be outside on account of the cold. [Later I found it was because the incredibly aptly-named girl-band Nylon was playing there]. As for me, I’ve come down with a nasty chest cold with an icky cough and I have not dared to venture outside in the –11°C temperatures with my lungs in this shape, so going to Penis Mall was a welcome respite for my cabin fever. I tried to erase the feeling that I was a tiny bit like one of those suburban American ladies I once saw in a mall in Syracuse NY, with their perfect clothes and hair-just-so, power-walking inside the mall on account of the cold. Something I found inexplicably pathetic.

In any case, I survived these escapades and am now at home in my snug little office and not sleeping in a display cubicle in IKEA like I feared I might be late this afternoon. It is still wickedly cold around here, although the winds have abated somewhat. Yesterday we went out to see a movie, and about halfway there I discovered that my windshield fluid was frozen and I’d made the mistake of turning my windshield wipers on so it matted the film of sea residue that had settled on my car in those several days of storm we had, so I could barely see the road in front of me. According to EPI, that windshield fluid was supposed to be good in frost of up to –15°C which goes to show how cold it was yesterday. Currently temps are [only!] –5°C [it was –11° today] and it’s started to snow outside. The sun came up at 10.08 and set at 16.17.