I bumped into one of Maciej’s typically hearty and generous essays last night, about a stopover in Iceland. It’s been 3½ months since I was there, and I still have not, as they say, “written up” my experiences. It all seemed too daunting. So much happened in four short days.

So I’m gonna do it piecemeal. Let’s start with an MP3 of my benediction before my presentation at Iceweb 2006, which, you’ll recall, went as follows:

Ég færi ykkur kveður frá landi sem forfeður ykkar ferðuðust langa leið til að flýja harðræði heimafyrir – aðeins til að upplifa sama harðræðið or í Kanada. Nú geta íslendingar notað veraldarvefinn til þess að miðla menningu sinni og sögu. Einnig til að varðveita hið einstaka tungumál sem þjóðin býr yfir.

Now you can listen along (MP3), thanks to Patrick H. Lauke’s conversion of excessively-open-source formats to viable MP3. Sound quality ain’t great, and it sure doesn’t sound like me. (Sound quality and what I sound like are two different things.) But by God I put a lot of work into it. I did five run-throughs of my benediction, but only one of my presentation!

I adore Iceland and I viscerally understand émigrés’ elemental, all-consuming imperative to return. I am not even from there and I have to go back.

• Coming up: The airport, the drive, the hotel.
• Later: Why Einar Gústafsson might be president someday.