“[The] house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.”
Something about Skálholt makes this quote from The Hobbit come to mind. Here there are lectures, bedrooms, a living room with a fireplace for talk late into the night, plentiful and delicious food, and regular singing in the church (Aftönsongur, Náttsönger, and more). Whenever the bell rings we all run to get our shoes and coats and hie us to church (it’s not far, but it’s cold!).
Speaking of shoes, here’s a cross-cultural tidbit: it’s important to take off your shoes (or muddy, snowy boots) when you enter an Icelander’s home, and the halls of Skálholt are no exception. I’ve noticed that while we normally keep a bench in our entryways for sitting and donning shoes, that’s not the case here. Instead people use shoehorns with long handles that make it easy to put your boots on while standing—at least, I assume it becomes easy with practice. I’m not quite there yet.
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