Gleðilegt sumar...

Gleðilegt sumar, happy summer...

Last Thursday was "sumardagurinn fyrsti", literally, the first day of summer! Icelanders do not consider June 21st, the summer solstice, as the first day of the summer.

Sumardagurinn fyrsti is celebrated on the first day of the month of Harpa from the old Icelandic calendar. Harpa is the first of the six "Náttleysi" (night less) months... It is not "night less" yet but we are getting there. Sunrise is around 05:10 and sunset if around 21:45 so we are not speaking of midnight sun yet!

Now temperature wise, there is nothing summery about them... a mere 10°C if you are lucky. This year, spring is really late to arrive. We are celebrating the first day of summer but spring has yet to come!!!...

Weather outside: Cloudy, 6°C

Aurorae borealis...

YES!!!... I finally did it!!!...

At last, I was able to take some pictures of northern lights (aurora borealis).
It took some time but I'm quite happy about my first series of shots. I do still need to play around with the camera's settings (ISO, F-steps, shutter speed).

The shot on the right is from the little church in Búðir, snæfellsnes.

Búðir is already mystical during daylight so with northern lights waving above our heads the place just became magical.

If you want to see more shots taken that night, you can see them on my web page: http://site.voila.fr/gonguleid/lights.html

Weather outside: cloudy, 4°C