The Last Weekend

i won three beeers!

Friday night after hiking Mt. Esja, Jeremy, Melissa and I decided to find some Reykjavik nightlife. We began the night with our usual, The English Pub. We get into town early because the bus stops running at 11 and the english pub has music and nice outdoor seating. I was feeling lucky and decided to spin the famous wheel. It's 1500 krona to spin and you can win up to a meter beer or no beer. I won 3 beers yayyy! After that, we mostly just bar hoped from place to place finding some fun. We got home around 4ish (I think) and found a man dressed in a princess dress in our hostel kitchen. Turns out it was the stag party from England and he was the groom. Jeremy and I decided it was a good night/morning to go for a swim in the ocean and convinced them to join us. Those guys were a riot and it got me looking forward to going to England in July!!
Anyways, we eventually woke up Saturday and were in desperate need of some greasy American breakfast and found Prikid. Turns out we went there the night before; most places downtown seem to be cute cafes by day and grungy bars/clubs by night. Prikid thankfully had the all-american hangover curing breakfast we were looking for. After that I hung around town looking into the tourist shops and reading on the green by the parliament.

Glymur

 We decided that Sunday would be our last full day to be free in Iceland and decided to rent a car and go on another adventure. Agust reccomended Snaefellsnes, the peninsula between Reykjavik and the Westfjords. There is a glacier, Snæfellsjökull, at the end of it which you can see from Reykjavik on a clear day. This glacier is famous for being the starting point in the book/movie Journey to the Center of the Earth. We set off around noon (late start because Hertz messed up our hostel pick up) and headed to Glymur, Iceland's tallest waterfall. Glymur is at the end of the Hvalfjodur bay so instead of taking the new tunnel under the bay we detoured around it. It was a beautiful drive all along the sea overlooking cliffs and beaches. We were expecting it to be a big touristy attraction like Gulfoss, but instead found a small hiking trail leading towards the falls off a dirt road. It turned out to be much more of a hike than we were expecting and hiked for about an hour, making it about two thirds of the way up before turning back. The waterfall is in a huge gulley so it was hard to see, and the trail was more like a mountain climb than a walk.

the 'trail'

river crossing

We found a completely different trail on the way back down which went up through a cave rather than around the cliff face. It was pretty cool. Back to the car and onwards towards Snaefellsnesjokull towering over us.

Snaefellsnesjokull getting closer!

After about 1.5 hours we made it to the peninsula, and we were the only car on the road. It was a barren flat land; just us and the sheep. I was getting tired of driving and Jeremy decided he could try to learn how to drive shift. He actually caught on pretty quick and realized that so long as he doesn’t stop, he’ll be fine! That was until we convinced him to turn onto a gravel road that appeared to lead up to the glacier. The slow driving caused some issue and after a lot of jolting around we swapped positions and it was my job to drive us up a mountain to the glacier.

Our little but mighty car

We were all terrified winding up the mountain in our little Toyota and eventually decided to park the car and continue on foot. The glacier is much less intimidating up close, but we had fun playing in the snow in June! By now it was pretty late, so we continued driving around the glacier/peninsula, stopping at a few view points and finally in Olafsvik for a delicious meal complete with an amazing desert! After a long and eventful day, we were actually looking forward to our hostel and our beds. Another great Sunday to complete our last weekend in Iceland. 

Blue Lagoon and Mt. Esja

the steam on the right is a geysir in the lagoon

covered in silica

Lecture on Thursday we had a little exercise by creating our own country and brainstorming on ways to make it sustainable and how extensive it would be for a community to rely on renewable energy. It was interesting and helped to put real numbers into the equations. That afternoon we took a trip to Carbon Recycling International, which is a small methane plant next to a geothermal power plant (it isn’t really international and is the only one so far). I found the process confusing but basically geothermal plants release carbon dioxide so CRI takes the CO2 and through a chemical process transforms it into methanol and water. The water is pumped back into the ground and the methanol can be used as an additive with gasoline to be more renewable. It is very experimental and is still quite small, but it sounds like if it works out, it is a good thing to have at all geothermal plants. After that, we headed to the infamous Blue Lagoon! We have been hearing about the Blue Lagoon from everyone since we arrived in Iceland and have been anticipating it for the past three weeks, so my expectations were pretty high. It is a geothermal spa and probably the biggest tourist attraction in Iceland. It is just one big geothermal pool that is this milky blue color due to the natural minerals. There is an abundance of silica which is a white clay that is supposedly really good to rub on your skin. Agust informed us on the ride over that the Blue Lagoon actually uses the discharged water from the Svartsengi power plant. I doubt most tourists know that! Surprisingly, it exceeded my high expectations and it was amazing. I’ve never seen water that color before and it was so huge with not too many tourists. We spent about an hour in the water. Depending on where you swam it went from warm to extremely hot. Of course we had to rub the silica on our faces, although the only results I noticed was my hair becoming extremely dry and frizzy after. Needless to say, it was a great day!

Friday morning was a wrap up on the topic of renewable energy and Agust let us out early. Jeremy and I decided today was the day to hike Mt. Esja, one of the mountains surrounding Reykjavik. It was quite the bus journey to get there; we attempted to hike it our first week in Iceland, but got stranded half way there between bus routes. After three different buses, we made it to the base and headed up! Hiking is so different here because there are no trees and it is on lava rocks and dust. There were six marked points along the way, each with a sign written in Icelandic (of course). It took us about an hour to troop up to point 5 which had a big rock along with a guest book to sign.

where's the trail?

There were two groups of people taking a long rest but, aside from pondering the image of a stick figure falling, we didn’t think twice about continuing up to the top. From point 5 to 6 there was hardly a trail and pretty much straight up piles of small rocks and dusty soil. Jeremy went first and was scrambling and sliding down the mountain and it wasn’t until we noticed a man trekking down about 10 meters to our left that we realized we weren’t even on the trail…oops. I took over the lead and found the trail again and finally spotted the 6^th sign. It still wasn’t the top though. Looking up was a scrambling cliff and we figured we made it this far, why not go for it.

view from the top

The trail was not marked at all so I gave it my best shot and climbed up, finding chain ropes to hang out while we climbed along the treacherous summit. We eventually made it to the top and it was well worth it! We stared down at the tiny city that was Reykjavik, managing to spot the Pearl, near where our hostel is. Esja isn’t so much of a mountain as it is a plateau shelf-like ridge. The other side was a rock field that looked like it went on forever. You could see cairns marking the way into the horizon. We knew the last bus from the parking lot left at 6:08 and it was about 5:30, but the view was so great we didn’t bother rushing. After taking it all in, we climbed down. Halfway down the trail we actually saw the bus drive right by the driveway, so we weren’t to sure how we would get home. Luckily, my parents trained me well and we asked a woman who had just come down for a ride into the city and she agreed. We came back to the hostel to find a group of loud, drunk British guys staying in our hostel for the weekend for a stag party. Should be an interesting weekend…

Week 3

humpback whale tale!

Whale..yumm

Week three: We had classes each morning with Agust all week. On Monday we went over geothermal energy. It is much more complex than hydropower, so I am glad we learnt about that one first. Geothermal energy has many more parts rather than simply water being pushed through a turbine, spinning a generator. In this case, one needs to first find a location with high geothermal activity (usually near a volcano). A Borehole is drilled and hot liquid is pumped out of the ground. The liquid is usually a combination of steam and fluid, so it goes through a separating tank to separate out the steam and recycle the fluid/water. Then the steam goes through the turbine (causing the generator to spin). Depending on the complexity of the system there are more parts such as condensers (creating cold air below the turbine, creating a vacuum and making the turbine more efficient), heat exchangers and storage tanks. Sometime the excess steam can be used for space heating. Also, some areas of geothermal activity are only used for district heating, not electricity.

After lecture on Monday we went whale watching off the reykjavik harbor! It was fun, such a beautiful and sunny day made being out on the water very enjoyable. The first stop was by an island filled with birds, especially puffins, but we saw them up close and personal on our trip south last week so it wasn’t as cool. Then we headed out into the waters to find some whales. We saw minke whales maybe 3 or 4 times, and a humpback whale. The tour guide was very excited about the humpback because it was the first one he’s seen this season. After enjoying the beauty of the creature out in the ocean, we worked up an appetite for trying some minke. Iceland is one of three countries that can still legally hunt whale (Norway and Japan are the other two) and it is still a huge discussion whether or not it should be legal. We went to a cute little fish shack called Sea Baron and ordered a skewer of minke whale to split. It was very rare, which made it unenjoyable for me, but the outer grilled bit was actually quite tasty. It was like a fishy tasting steak.

The Boreholes were covered in funky looking shells

After another lecture on renewable energy on Tuesday we visited Hellisheidi geothermal powerplant. With all the boreholes it is a huge area covered with pipes and different tanks and steam separators. Apparently there are beautiful mountains all around the plant (we couldn’t see them because it was so foggy) and the plant was a bit of a controversy because it disturbed the natural beauty of the hiking. I find this a bit silly because Iceland is covered in naturally pure beauty and there are plenty of other places to hike around the area, and the energy produced is a very good profit for the country. But that’s just me.

Relaxing on the green

Agust gave us Wednesday afternoon off, so we decided to go down to the beach and have lunch there. It was filled with kids because it was the last week of school, but the weather was amazing so we all just laid out and relaxed. After a while of that, Jeremy and I decided to head downtown for a drink or two. We started off at a café with a little outdoor patio and couldn’t figure out where all the people were hanging out on such a beautiful day. After that beer, we walked over to the parliament to find the green filled with 20-something year olds drinking beers, who knew? So we decided to follow suit, headed to the liquor store to buy some singles and hung out on the green all afternoon.

Hveragerði Hot Springs

so many hot springs!

After a wild night out on Saturday, we all managed to get out of bed, rent a car and head out on a Sunday adventure! Apparently I am the only one who can drive shift stick (thanks mom and dad!) so I was the driver. I was a bit nervous navigating around Reykjavik, but we seemed to have a good sense of direction after walking all over it the past two weeks and it is definitely no Boston. We decided to head to a little town called Hveragerði which is known for all of it's geothermal activity. We headed into town and once again down a gravel road to the end. Even from the parking lot we could see steam pouring out of the ground.

too hot!

We followed the trail up and around a mountain quickly gaining elevation, and then down into a valley. We came to a river crossing with no apparent way to cross it and decided to take off our shoes and walk. I was pleasantly surprised to find the river wasn't cold, but lukewarm. The trail skirted along what looked like an old inactive volcano to a land filled with hot springs! It still amazes me that boiling water can bubble out of the ground here. We walked up to a few and though about jumping in....but they were so hot and decided that

was a bad idea. After walking a little further we came around a corner to find that same river we crossed filled with people. There is a hot spring fed river coming down from the mountain on the left and a cold spring river coming down from the right and at the bottom of the valley they meet and create the perfect river for swimming! It was amazing, the highlight of my Icelandic trip so far. It was so cool because, like the old pool it wasn't a tourist attraction.

where hot (left) meets cold (right)

The people next to us were all from Iceland, and we saw a few Icelandic families hiking along, but not too many tourists. We did our best to change (there are no trees and Icelandic people have no problem whipping their clothes off) and hopped in! Spent the rest of the afternoon bathing and relaxing in the hot water. Eventually it was time to head back so we dried off and trekked back to the car and back to Reykjavik.

fish 'n chips

 

Once we got back to the hostel we figured we had the car all night, and might as well use it, so we decided to head out for a nice dinner in a little fishing town on the Reykjanes peninsula called Grindavik. After a bit of driving around and asking a poor 13 year old who hardly spoke English for directions, we found Salthúsið (salt house). We all had delicious meals of fish, lamb and meat soup! After dinner, we drove around the town a little, found a gravel road to wander down and saw our first real sunset of the trip (at around 10:30)! All around it was a great Sunday. I am definitely going to miss the wide open spaces of Iceland when I go back to Boston. 

South Iceland day 2: waterfalls, hot springs and a farm

Day 2 of our wild adventure. After the best night's sleep I had in Iceland, Jeremy and I woke up early to check out the waterfall, Skogafoss, before starting our day. It was overcast and spitting mist out of the sky, but it didn’t matter once we got to the falls because it was so incredible and powerful. We tried to get as close as we could to it and ended up getting soaked from all the mist it created. There was a staircase leading up the side to the top that we decided to climb, taking a little detour half way up to a breathtaking overlook. Then we headed back to the hotel, had some breakfast and played cards until the museum we were going to opened. The museum was pretty cool, they had so many archaeological findings from excavations around the area as well as a few row boats that were used for fishing.  Outside, there was an old turf farmhouse village that we could go inside and see the stable, bedrooms, and pantry as well as a school, house and a church from I believe the early 1900s. After walking around there for a bit, we moved on to our next destination: Eyjafjallajökull Glacier.

Apparently we should have been able to see the glacier towering over the mountains for a good part of the drive, but it was so foggy, we had no idea it was there. That may be why it was so cool to finally see once we walked up to it. Of course Kristjan, the adventure seeker, led us up and on it. It wasn't as pretty and icy blue as I expected, because a) it is not winter/covered in snow and b) it was sprinkled with black ash. Still, it was cool to stand on and check out. Apparently this is just the tongue to the actual glacier. I would love to go on a glacier hike to the top of it, but you have to go with a guide and it is quite pricey. After testing some more of the fresh Icelandic water, we climbed off the glacier and headed onward on our journey.

            Remember in 2010 when a volcano erupted and all flights were grounded in Europe and everyone was fussing about not being able to travel? That volcano caused life altering disasters in Iceland. This one farm we visited lived at the base of the glacier/volcano, Eyjafjallajökull. The 2010 eruption covered their land in a thick layer of black ash and after much debate they decided they couldn’t abandon their farm and had to clean up the mess. About a year after the eruption, to help with some revenue they created a film documentary called Iceland Erupts and opened a little visitor’s center on the other side of the road. We watched the short film about how the eruption turned their life upside down. Because the volcano is covered by a glacier, the eruption caused serious flooding of not only water, but a volcanic ash sludge, spreading all over the land. The air was filled with ash dust and you couldn’t even see your hand out in front of you. The family returned to the farm after evacuating and started the clean up efforts. Two year later we still saw backhoes digging up and excavating the volcanic ash. Now, the farm is completely sustainable. The farmer built his own hydropower station on a small cliff behind the farm and they produce their own rapeseed oil for fueling farm equipment and cooking. It is quite amazing that after such a devastating thing happened and the most obvious thing to do is pick up and move on, they managed to clean it up and keep going on with their life farming and living off the grid. 

            After talking with some folks at our hotel the night before, we found out about a place called ‘the old pool’. In the 1920s a youth group decided to build a natural hot pool in a valley in the middle of the wilderness. We told Agust and Kristjan about it and they had heard of it and decided we should try to find it. Onto another dirt road we drove and stopped at the end. We followed a small trail and trekked into the valley. After about 15 minutes the pool came into view! It was built along the side of a cliff so half of it was a natural wall while the other half was constructed and on one end was a shack where we could change. It was freezing out and misting with rain so we quickly changed and jumped in. The water wasn’t that warm unless we sat where a small hot spring was pouring down the rock. It was definitely the highlight of the trip. A natural hot pool in the middle of the mountains, what could be better?

That was the last stop on our amazing two day journey and after returning to Reykjavik we were all pretty exhausted and had a quick rest before hitting the town for some more crazy, unexpected nightlife.

South Iceland day 1: hydropower, black sand and puffins

What a country! Thursday and Friday, Agust and Krisjan took us on the most amazing trip to the southern coast of Iceland. It began with a stop at Burfell Hydropower Station, a fully operating plant producing energy for a big chunk of Iceland. We went on a tour of the station, checked out the generators and the room with the turbine, and then looked around a little museum they just opened in the station. It was great to finally see all that we talked about in lecture. After that, it was time for a true Icelandic lunch! We drove down a gravel road (very common in Iceland) to a place called Stong. Back in 1104, a massive eruption of Mount Hekla caused the settlers and farms to be destroyed, so it is a hotspot for archaeology studies. The farm and house was later rebuilt in the mountains based on the excavated findings. We took a short walk through the lava covered hills to the house and ate Skyr (Icelandic greek-like yogurt) and dried cod (fish beef jerky). The skyr was delicious, and I'm still deciding how I feel about the dried fish.
After lunch, we decided to go waterfall hunting even though it was freezing cold and raining. We drove a bit further along the dirt road, traveling deeper into the middle of nowhere until finally we decided to get out and hike around. All of a sudden, we went over a hill and around a corner to find the most amazing picturesque waterfall. It was a whole series of waterfalls snaking around boulders and a big grassy mound with natural caves. I now know why Icelandic people believe in elves, or hidden people, because there are so many caves carved into the hillsides. Of course, we had to go down to see the beauty up close and Kristjan didn't think twice before leading us down the steep banks of the valley. We walked along the grassy island and into the hobbit holes. Kristjan introduced us to the purity and freshness of the springs here. He made us all stick our faces into the water and drink it and wash it over our faces. It is no myth, Iceland has the most pure and fresh water.

4km tunnel connecting the two reservoirs

After that little detour, we headed to the site of a power station under construction. This power station is one of five that will be a 'Run of the River hydroelectricity' on the Thyorsa River. This basically means that the river provides power to all the power stations and there is really no large drop or storage dam before, A reservoir is created artificially and the discharged water goes back into the river to flow down to the next plant. This plant took the water from a reservoir that is 4 km away, so a massive tunnel had to be drilled through the hills so the water can travel and fill up in a basin right before the station. The water will then flow through the station, turning the turbine and creating energy, then be discharged back into the river.

It was very cool seeing the plant under construction. It gave me a real feel for the immense size of the plant. We were able to go down into the empty reservoir and walk through the opening where the water pipe would go into the turbines and man did I feel tiny! The base for the turbine was in place as well as a massive pipe for the discharge water to flow out of. This plant definitely gave me a much better understanding of the power that can be harnessed with water.

  After the plant we ventured farther down the coast. It was a foggy and rainy day and normally we would’ve been able to see the glacier Eyjafjallajökull towering over the farms but it was too foggy out. We kept driving and eventually the paved road turned into a gravel road and then a deserted parking lot. As we got out of the car I was blown away with the scenery. Towering mossy cliffs to my left covered with white birds soaring around and a black sandy beach to my right with the sound of waves crashing in the distance. We walked onto the ash covered beach and along to the basalt cliffs which formed rock pillar cliffs and a scary looking cave along the beach.

Finally it was time for dinner. I wasn't sure what to expect, so when we pulled up to a cute little house in the middle of fields overlooking a cliff on the black beach with a lighthouse atop it, I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out Agust's mother owned this gorgeous summer house and offered to cook us a traditional Icelandic feast of lamb and potatoes with an apple cake for desert! It was delicious! After dinner she gave Agust a special key that took us on a private road up to the top of the cliff where we saw our first group of puffins and once again relished in the beauty of the coast. We then drove to our hotel in the town of Skogar, which is famous for the waterfall Skogafoss. Our hotel was very nice (with real mattresses and bath robes!) and we were very pleased to discover it had an outdoor hot tub and sauna. We dropped our bags, changed into our suits and spent the rest of the night relaxing in the tub, taking in the incredible day we just had and debating what more was to come tomorrow.

Lecture with Agust

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings we had lectures with Agust all about energy, turbines and hydropower. It is just the four of us in class with him lecturing which is good and bad. It is good because we all are forced to be attentive, no dozing off or playing on our phones and if we have questions or don't understand something we can just shout out and ask. The only problem is we are a very quiet bunch, so when he asks a question, we don't say much and our discussions are quite short. In those three days I felt like I learned a lot though. I have always had interest in renewable energy sources, but I never understood how they work, and now I do. We first went into energy concepts (work, power, energy etc.) and then about how a generator works with the magnet and a coil creating electricity. The next day it got more interesting because Agust went into detail about hydropower plants and how water can be used efficiently as an energy source. Basically the water falling is guided into a turbine, causing it to spin. The turbine is attached to a generator, which turns with it and, in short, creates electricity. Location is important because the two factors into the amount of energy that can be produced is flow rate and height of the drop. This causes a lot of discussion in Iceland because some of the best locations for power plants are the most beautiful waterfalls (Gulfoss). The hydropower plant also disrupts the natural ecology and flow of the river. The biggest rivers in Iceland are glacial rivers which carry a lot of silt, so when a reservoir is built above the power plant, a lot of settlement will occur also disrupting the natural environment. In most situations it seems like the issue is not how to design the plant to be most efficient in a location, but it's how to do so without harming the beauty and wildlife in that location. On Thursday we will see a complete hydropower plant as well as a plant that is under construction, which will be interesting.

Reykjavik Nightlife

Upon arriving in Iceland, a country that is known to drink heavily, finding and affording alcohol was quite difficult. Tuesday afternoon we decided a trip to the packy was needed so we could experience the nights in Reykjavik. After doing some research, it turns out that beer was prohibited in Iceland until 1989 (crazy!) and you can only buy alcohol in state owned liquor stores and they are rare.A can of cheap beer in the store is around 300 krona ($2.50) and buying in bulk saves you nothing. So we grab a selection of Icelandic and dutch beers as well as Brennevin, famous Icelandic schnapps that came about during prohibition. Thursday night we decided to see what was going on downtown. Kirstjan told us about a hostel that had a bar in it called kex so we thought we'd try it out. It was a cute little bar, with a lot of character. After a couple beers we checked out the menu, which had a lot of bizarre food and for some reason decided to get 'bone marrow on toast'. It was a bone cut in half and grilled. We scooped out the marrow and spread it on crackers. it was pretty gross, just tasted like pure fat, but it was interesting, and now I can say I've eaten bone marrow.

The pearl with the hot steam blowing out of the ground

 After a long day exploring the country on Friday, I was excited to see what a night in Reykjavik was like. We heard that because drinking at the bars is so expensive the locals don't go out until 1 or 2 am and the bars/clubs don't close until 6am. So we drank the brennevin in our hostel (the flavor is growing on me, it's like nothing you've ever tasted before and pretty nasty, but it goes down easy) and took the last bus downtown around 11. We found a cute and cheap bar to hang out in until the city got more lively. Then we went to the English Pub for a beer, they have a wheel that you pay $12 to spin and you can win upto 6 beers and 6 shots or you could get nothing (I'll have to try it out before going home). At this point it was just starting to become dusk out and was still pretty light out. We wandered around a found a bar with a DJ called Vegamont. We had a good time dancing and drinking the night away. When we decided to move on to a new location, the sun was already rising! Now i understand the reason they can stay out so late is because it never gets dark out. The city square has food trucks, which is the best idea ever. One has hamburgers (which are not like our hamburgers) and the other has waffles. Not bad options for drunk munchies. One the way home, Jeremy and I somehow convinced the taxi driver to drop us off at a place near our hotel called the pearl. It is a series of tanks where the hot water is stored for the city and it was turned into a tourist attraction by plopping a revolving glass dome restaurant on top. Because it was 4:30am it was closed, but we found a way to climb to the observation deck and watch the sunrise over the city.
Not a bad way to end our first night out in the city.

Thingvellir, Geysirs and Gullfoss

 Friday was our first day long field trip! August and Kristjan picked us up in a van and we drove about 40 minutes out of Reykjavik to Þingvellir, where parliament was first established. It is also located in a rift valley that marks the crest of the Mid-Atlantic rift. It's such a beautiful area because the rift valley makes it look like the earth was ripped apart. It formed a ravine which is filled with water. It's so clear and pristine, you can see down forever. Apparently it's really good for diving because the visibility is so high.

After walking around Thingvellir, we drove a bit further to Geysir, a land filled with natural hot springs. We ate an incredible lunch buffet at the restaurant and then headed to the geysirs. They are so incredible, it was the highlight of the day for me. They are just holes in the ground where boiling water bubbles out. There's one called Strokkur that 'erupts' every 15 minutes due to a build up of pressure in the geysir. Hot water and steam shoots out of it upto 15m high! It was such a cool thing to see. At the restaurant we ate at, the bread was actually baked in the ground by one of the geysirs because it's so hot. We saw the chef walking back with a crate of fresh bread from the geysir.

After the Geysir we drove on to the spectacular Gullfoss waterfall. Much more impressive than Niagara Falls in my opinion. It is almost like two waterfalls, and the second drops into a gulley that you can't see at first so it looks like the water just disappears. August and Kristan told us the story of a woman named Sigríður, one of Iceland's first environmentalists. There was talk of turning the falls into a hydropower plant, which would destroy the beauty of the area, so she protested and threatened to throw herself into the waterfall if they sold the land to become a power plant.

Finally, we took one last stop at Kerið, a volcanic crater lake. When the volcano erupted however long ago it shot off the top of the volcano and caved in, forming a crater that eventually filled with water. The 4 of us are on a mission to take a group picture worthy of myneu's picture of the week. This was attempt #1 but I think we can do better.

Language Barrier

I realized of all the places my life has taken me in the past few years, this is the first place I've been to where English is not the primary language. I guess I assumed that Icelandic was one of those languages that they have as a tradition, but everyone speaks English instead, however I was mistaken. Our hostel is located outside of the city/touristy area and all the Icelandic people speak primarily Icelandic. The language comes from Danish settlers so it is nothing like I've ever heard before. They have a slightly different alphabet, no c, q or w and weird letters like: ð, þ (pronounced th) and æ. The words are also extremely long and I think one word can translate into a phrase in English. One of the volcanoes that we are going to visit is called Eyjafjallajökull and when August said it i couldn't help but laugh because it sounded like a big mumble and even when he says it slow it sounds so funny. It makes it kind of hard in class because there are different volcanoes and towns that I don't understand to it's hard to remember which one is which.
As for communication, nearly everyone knows English and the accents are not hard to understand so it's not too difficult to get things across. I think what bothers me most is hearing other people talk and looking at menus and signs and not knowing what they say. The pronunciation is very different also so I want to know how to say everything but its impossible to remember once they say it because it's the most bizarre language. It's a strange feeling that will take a while to get used to. Luckily we have 2 amazing professors who are so kind and helpful with communication and getting us whatever we need.

Trip to the Parliment

On Wednesday and Thursday mornings we had lecture with Kristjan. He grew up in a small fishing town on the north shore of Iceland before moving around and finally ending up in Reykjavik. His lecture taught us more about Iceland and its political history about how the Vikings first settled here. They were really good bout keeping records on animal skin, which are still preserved today. There was a lack of timber, so they built their houses into the hillsides, pretty neat. He taught us about Thingvellir, the meeting location for the first parliament around the year 930. He also focused much of his lecture on the bank crash of 2008. All three banks in Iceland crashed within 3 days and there was a huge recession. He talks a lot about how it was before the crash versus after and it definitely had a big impact on all the Icelanders. Speaking of the banks, the money here is Icelandic krona which are counted like if we were to count cents instead of dollars (ex 5000 krona = $40) so the prices are very overwhelming.

            Iceland’s three main income is fisheries, tourism and geothermal/hydro power. There are definitely a lot of tourists in the city, tons of guesthouses and hostels and tour guide companies with huge buses and jeep for excursions out of the city. Iceland also has a very big fishing industry and I believe they were the first (and maybe only?) country to own the ocean in a 200 mile radius around the country for fishing. I look forward to eating a lot of fish on this trip!

            Iceland also has the purest water. The water comes straight from the ground and doesn’t go through much treatment at all so it tastes so pure. Apparently the hot and cold water come from different sources because there are so many natural hot springs in the country. So when running the hot water it smells like rotten eggs because of all the sulfur and when you switch to cold it becomes more fresh tasting.  

            After lecture on Wednesday we went on a tour of the parliament down in Reykjavik.

It is very very small, which makes sense considering the population of Iceland (300,000). The politics here is confusing (especially because I don’t follow politics even at home). They have a parliament which is 63 people and a speaker. Within the parliament is 9 ministers and the prime minister. However, they also have a president. In the past the president didn’t have much power in the sense of law making and regulations. The constitution was adopted when Iceland was under rule of the dutch king and has not changed much since. However, in the past few years the president has sent certain laws to referendum for the people to vote on. This caused a bit of a stir because the president has never done that before, but it doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me. 

 After parliament Kristjan took us to the coffee shop his wife runs and owns. Cute little coffee shops are very popular here and the coffee is amazing. It obviously is imported but the way they roast and prepare it is delicious. By the end of this trip i will most likely be addicted to coffee.    

Arriving in Iceland

In the short 4 1/2 hour plane ride from Boston to Iceland, I arrived in a completely different world. When the pilot announced we were getting ready for landing, I looked out the window so see the first land since leaving Boston, but instead of a city full of tall shiny buildings and a happening harbor filled with ships I saw a barren wasteland. Miles and miles of moon-like brown bumpy ground, with a dirt road here or there. After flying over the land for a bit we came into the airport Keflavik which wasn’t much of anything other than a small airport. We got off the plane and went through customs (which was a hallway and didn’t even involve custom forms) and Kristjan, one of our professors met us. After seeing that it was snowing outside, the three of us bundled up in our winter jackets while Kristjan had nothing on but a sweater and hat. Those sweater my mom raved about before the trip must really be warm! So we had quite a scenic drive into Reykjavik, the country capital which holds over 1/3 of the population of Iceland. The land is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, endless lava fields. Kristjan gave us a short driving tour of the city and sent us to our inn, the Capital Inn. The four of us are staying in a tiny hostel room of two bunk beds. It’s quite cozy. He let us settle in and that afternoon met us and took us to Reykjavik University to meet our other professor, August. It’s one brand knew building and has about 4,000 students however we seem to be the only ones taking class in the summer. It’s about a 15 minute walk on a scenic biking path along the sea to get to the university from our hostel. The university is super nice and has a beach next to it. (it’s Icelandic tradition to swim even though its freezing) The beach also has a natural hot spring built into a hot tub!

 We plan to test that out once it gets a bit warmer.

Tuesday morning was our first day of class with August. He gave us an intro to Iceland and taught us all about how Iceland is divided along two tectonic plates which is the result of so many earthquakes and volcanoes. 

After lunch we went on a walking tour of Reykjavik with a very strange woman named Birna, who gave us a tour through 'the cats eyes'. Apparently she is famous in the city for holding demonstrations and protests against the US army being in Iceland and joining NATO. She gave a very interesting and different tour of the city taking us to the original and authentic part rather than showing us all the typical tourist stops. My favorite part was a section where all the streets are named after the old gods, like the god of love and the devil, Loki. Reykjavik is a very cute city, there are no big buildings and all the houses are brightly colored and all shaped differently. downtown there's a big clash between the new, modern buildings (like the opera house) and the old traditional houses.

The oldest tree in Reykjavik.