I have been living in Iceland for about nine months now. The situation of the pandemic had just started, when one day it struck me that I was beginning to adapt to my new reality. For someone with no geographic perception, I was starting to get myself around . And I had gotten into new routines. Among them, I began working. I would not classify my job as essential, but it is part of a fundamental institution during this crisis. And for this reason I have not stopped working throughout this time. The first month went by, I had been focusing more on understanding what my tasks were, than on paying attention to the minutiae of life. But we are already in April. April, a time that for my life in Mexico meant more heat and, above all, the celebration of almost all my family. Cake, meals, and more cake. In Sweden, this month marked the dates when the sun came out with eagerness, and with it, people crowded again the streets, cafes, parks or just sitting on the benches to take in the rays of which we had been deprived of since October .
In Iceland things have been different. Although, it is true that since February we have had quite pleasant days, in which the sun rises, and the sky is clear, we have also had gray, cloudy, snowing, drizzling days, with furious winds, sleet ... the list goes on. It may not be known to many, but Iceland tends to erratic weather, changing from summer to winter in a single day. At least the cold, in my little experience here, is more bearable than in Sweden.
Which does not mean that I can walk in my dress and flip flops at the slightest provocation of 10 ° C. And of course I absolutely cannot tolerate being somewhere cold yet. My hands get numb, I start to cough and sneeze. All this justification is to tell that I find annoying the Icelandic need to open the windows. Let me explain.
Where I work, there are huge windows that open only from a small area. The building, I understand, was built for other purposes, apparently a workshop to make coffins. There is a common area, where the computers are located, and most of the time, we work there. And other areas where there are thousands of files. Those areas, which one would think are the coldest (at least with the naked eye it looks like that, the tomb of the bureaucracy work), are in fact much warmer, due to that urgent need that my colleagues have to ventilate the common area.
A. is the same. The apartment's thermostat is set to replicate the temperature of Mexico. So, suddenly, my warmth has to give the air a chance to circulate. We open the balcony door and the window of our room. The curtain complains while dancing in the void that is created. It doesn't take five minutes for A. to have enough. Sometimes because of the cold, most of the time because the wind wants to tear off the balcony door.
Back to my work. I am assigned a computer, which unfortunately is next to the window. Again the air. Again my cough. Again a sneeze. Enough to close it.
