Homecoming

  We've done a couple museums in Reykjavík, some silly and some serious, we've done some souvenir shopping, and a lot of walking around, but there was an odd feeling chasing me a good part of the day. It wasn't until we left Iceland National Museum and walked toward the park, that I realized what it was.About 17 years ago work moved us to a town in Germany, just in time for T1's arrival. I had family in that town, so for us the transition was easy. The generous healthcare and maternity leave and the lifestyle in general grew on us quickly. Had it not been for my job that had me working far longer each week than originally agreed upon, we would have stayed indefinitely.  We love Vermont, but part of me still misses that place. The last couple days I have been sensing echoes of that lifestyle. We have been surrounded by a symphony of languages. Icelandic and German have mutual sources so similar patterns are becoming more obvious, but, as we found in German cities, we keep catching snippets of conversations in languages other than the local one. The Icelanders, while slightly less formal than Germans, share many customs and the cityscape shares much of the same design and pedestrian-friendly functionality of many modern European cities.  So when we turned into this small city's park, with its fountain and duckpond that looked almost exactly like the Stadtpark in T1's original home town, I felt like I was coming home for more reasons than one.