I went stargazing tonight. An amateur astronomy group runs a telescope on the top of an elementary school in Seltjarnares, and tonight they had an open house.
The school was dark–a man emerged from the cafeteria to guide us up three separate ladders and into the dark room where the telescope was. Through a slot in the roof we could see the sky. There were ten or so people up in that small room already, which was nice because it was cold.
I couldn’t see anyone’s face, but we all stood in a circle around the telescope and took turns looking through. Occasionally someone would crack a joke in Icelandic (I could only imagine–probably along the lines of “Is that a galaxy? It looks like a smudge!”) and everyone would laugh. Briefly there would be a chuckle of conversation. Somehow all of this seemed like a quintessentially Icelandic experience.
We looked at Mars, the Crab Nebula, and Orion, which was stunning. The crab nebula was just a smudge. But I still tried to memorize it–I knew there were people waiting behind me in line, but this was my one opportunity to see something extraordinary. There is a metaphor there, by the way–and I’ll give you a hint, I think it’s a metaphor about death.
The build-up was so fantastic–the deserted school, the three flimsy ladders, the darkened room full of people–that the stars were just about the only thing that could have lived up to it.
Watch Out for Walrus! 
ben, i just thought about the mouth of the blue whale: it could be grazing, but don’t you think its more like a tusk. it must be male then. the fact that there are no baby blue whales is another argument
What happened to the rest of this…. it seems like you were suddenly kidnapped by aliens that came through the slot in the ceiling….