Chapter 33: The Pages of Rootedness

Chapter 33: The Pages of Rootedness

Although I discovered that the vast majority of Icelanders speak perfect and fluent English, I didn't want to be an eternal tourist who communicates from the comfort of a foreign language. I wanted to learn their language. I wanted to understand their roots, their idioms and feel genuinely part of them, their community and their history.

So when we'd stopped by the publishing house a few hours earlier, I stopped in front of one of the rustic wooden shelves and asked Ethan to recommend a special book. I wanted a text that would help me to understand in depth the culture of their country, its myths and its geography. He searched through the shelves with a knowing smile and handed me a beautiful volume, promising me that every night he would sit down with me to review the paragraphs to help me with the pronunciation and grammar of the language.

As we went to bed that first night in Akureyri, with the book resting on my nightstand and the sound of the Icelandic wind gently tapping the wooden windows, I felt that the ink of my new life was already running on paper. She was no longer