2013. The year that really, really was.

Well 2013 has definitely been one for the books. As its final moments eek away I’m still grappling with everything that I saw, did, ate, accomplished, learnt, discovered and appreciated. I’m really not ready for 2014 to start and feel like I’m being dragged along, heels firmly entrenched, towards Getting On With Things when I’m still not ready to let go of London. So, really, New Years Eve is the perfect excuse for some indulgent looking back. And there’s a lot to twist the neck for….

Reykjavik

So Reykjavik is a funny little place. And I’m being literal about the little. Perhaps my expectations of a European capital city have been mis-managed after jaunts to Berlin, Istanbul, you know, Paris, but Reykjavik, as I suppose naturally befits the capital of a country where there are more sheep than people, is small, kooky, quiet and strangely, wonderfully contradictory.

Inside Harpa, Reykjavik

First class problems.

I was on the bus this morning, on my way to work, blah blah blah, on the phone to my sister.

Her: How are you?

Me: Oh, I don’t know. Tired. Hormonal. Busy. Distracted. In need of another day of nothing but we’re away this weekend in Reykjavik and away next weekend in Paris, which I’m really looking forward to but I’m going to be so tired.

(Pause.)

Me again: I know, I know, my life is a series of first-world problems. I should just shut the fuck up.

Her: No, no. Reykjavik one weekend, Paris the next – that’s not a first world problem. That’s a first class problem. So yes. Shut the fuck up.

Did I mention I’m off to Reykjavik on Friday with Lovely Boy and his parents? Whale watching, blue lagooning, eating, wandering. If only all my first-world problems were this awesome.