We celebrate one year of moving to Iceland! It all started at the end of 2018 in Sweden, the idea was to establish ourselves by December 2019. But, the quest made us accelerate the process. By May, we managed to bring our belongings on two two-meter-high pallets. What didn’t fit in those, we donated to charity. I returned to Mexico. Between paperwork and papers, and lots of queues, we took the opportunity to travel, visit family and friends. The sun, the sea, the villages. After three months, we returned, on a day like today, to start our new life.
For A. it has been a rediscovery, seeing the changes in the city, the new residential areas, where before he used to play as a child; the change of attitude in the people, now that the economy has been healed; to know your country, now as an adult. For me, there have been many discoveries. The greatest is to notice the cultural similarities that bind us, and the great differences that there are with respect to Swedish culture. It hasn’t been entirely complicated, but it hasn’t been easy either. Especially, when part of this journey has been marked by hard personal events and what to say about the pandemic that we’re still enduring.
Also, I’ve completed a year of texts published on this site. That may not be in the public interest, I’m sure, but it’s worth celebrating. The site started because, in Sweden, funny and curious things happened to me or I found out interesting facts, that sometimes I forgot who I shared with. Little by little, this corner of the internet has been forming a more solid idea that, I hope one day, I know what its true purpose is. In the meantime, it still is another nonsense of the internet.
And as good nonsense, I am going to tell you something else, which has nothing to do with it. An anecdote that I read before arriving in Iceland from the book Axolotiada. Roger Bartra proposes the image of the axolotl as a representation of the Mexican national identity. The anecdote tells that in 1864 specimens were sent to Paris, where French scientists tried to classify what they assumed was a larva of the salamander. They were astonished at the strange and complex animal, when they discovered that, in Parisian territory, the amphibians not only reproduced (which was debated at that time) also, only the young ones metamorphosed into adult salamanders, despite the fact that the parents remained as axolotls.
I recount this anecdote to tell you that, from the following text (which doesn’t have a delivery date yet) the site will have some changes, which reflect the novelties entering this second year in Icelandic territory. I start an academic adventure, in addition to facing the bureaucracy again to renew the famous residence permit. And what comes along the way. Despite the changes, the new airs, the new waters, let's continue being more axolotls than salamanders.
See you later, in 53!
Source:
- Roger Bartra (2011) Axolotiada. Vida y mito de un anfibio mexicano, Fondo de Cultura Económica / Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.