After almost 2 months of living in Iceland, the novelty is beginning to wear off. I feel guilty that I take for granted where I am, but it would be impossible to always be completely enthralled in a foreign place, it would be exhausting. I am becoming comfortable here, feeling almost at home here, but at the same time I´m starting to miss more things from back home. I was looking a pictures on Google yesterday of autumn in Canada and I really miss the bright colours of the trees and all the leaves on the ground, walking through a foot of leaves along Oriole Parkway. The smell of autumn, of bonfires, and pumpkins (and all the comes with them). They do have pumpkins here. I have seen them in one store, but they are pretty small. Would be nice to get a few for Halloween, make pumpkin pie (need to find a recipe), and roasting pumpkin seeds! I kind of miss the late nite Timmy runs, and conversations. It´s hard to just go to a cafe and chill because one coffee is about $6. But we hang out in our kitchen all the time, drinking tea or hot chocolate and chatting and it´s really nice.

I really love all the people in my residence, but sometimes it is strange to go back and forth from North America to Iceland/Europe everyday. When I was in the language course I was getting used to thinking and talking in a certain way, which was useful because you would think in more simpler ways that you could translate into another language more easily. But being with all English speaking people you get back into the groove of thinking Canadian or English and then it is hard to go back. I went to a store today and when the lady asked me if I needed help in Icelandic I automatically replied in English. I felt so foreign. I like when they mistake me for being Icelandic, though most of the time I don´t understand what they say, it´s a start and it is good to be constantly hearing the language. When I get my new laptop I plan on renting icelandic movies, or better movies I know well and watch them in icelandic and practise hearing it more.

Some times I think I am never going to learn this language. I feel really stupid some times, perhaps not so much with Icelandic, because it is very new to me and it is a hard language, but more with French and maybe a little bit Spanish, I feel I shoud know it better and more than I do. I also feel crippled when I try and speak in another language, like something is holding me back to being able to speak it. I cannot think how to formulate sentences or cannot think of the word at the time, but later it will come to me. I also even stupid with my own language, I have never been articulate, and it can be quite frustrating, especially if you have to explain to someone who does not know your language well.

Hann á afmæli í gær

Yesterday was Tom´s birthday. He turned 20. So far we´ve had parties for everyone´s birthdays, making a big dinner for everyone on our floor and some gifts as well. We made pizzas last night and fries as well with ketchup and mayonaise. Was really good. And for dessert we made milkshakes!!! So delicious. We had vanilla, banana, strawberry, chocolate and even Bailey´s milkshakes. I melted a dark chocolate bar down for the chocolate shakes, but the chocolate kept melting the icecream so we had to add more. In the end they were so rich and so decadent :P

A bunch of us pitched in and paid for a Chili plant as a gift for Tom. Kate and Nathan bought him more hot dogs and all the fixings of a typical Icelandic Hotdog (which is ketchup, relish, dried onions, and two other sauces which I´m not sure what they are, one is kind of like honey mustard and the other is almost a tartar sauce but not really haha). Tom will be "doggin' it" for a while now. The term doggin' it has become common speech now on our floor (thanks to Tom), and the different ways of making them. Right now they are trying to think of how to make a dessert dog. A thing that is very different is all the condoments are very sweet here. Even mustard, which was weird, unless you buy dijon mustard.

Chrissy has the next birthday, on Wednesday so we have to figure out what to do for her. She was always the one who organised the past birthdays so we have to do something big for her. Should be fun.

Winter in September

The days are getting shorter and colder now. There has been snow on the mountains around Reykjavik for a week or two now. It looks very beautiful and I need to take a picture of it. There were flurries yesterday. I was walking to the language lab to catch up on the self-directed icelandic course and there were tiny snow flakes coming down. And it was bright and sunny, gorgeous day, though I think it went down to 2°C. Weird to have winter coming so quickly, though apparently this is unusual. Some icelandic people were telling me that even August was a lot colder than it usually is. Leif and I were talking about how we (the Canadians) can take the cold, but we haven´t really been dressed for the weather yet. Psychologically we´re used to pushing off wearing our winter jackets until maybe November, and we don´t want to accept the fact that we have to in September (I actually wore it in August). Even back home I would avoid wearing my winter jacket until it was just unbearable.

Well, it isn´t quite winter yet because there are still leaves on the trees (more so bushes, most trees planted here were coniferous). I´ve been impressed though because some of the bushes have very brightly coloured leaves. But it´s definitely not the same as seeing large forests back home with bright red, orange and yellow. We are trying to find where we can buy a pumpkin for Halloween. They don´t celebrate Halloween here, but the guy who painted our kitchen told us that sometimes there are people who will sell them, so maybe we´ll be in luck. I think around Christmas they have something like Halloween where people dress up and go around to people´s houses and get treats or gifts. Christmas is suppose to be a huge thing here, so I´m looking forward to seeing that. It will be weird though because most of the friends I have met are only staying for one semester so they will be gone in December. It will be quite sad but hopefully I can stay in touch with them afterwards.

Sheep rrrrround up

This past Saturday I went on a bus trip through the school. The bus left at 8am and we headed to the sheep round up. This is a fairly big event and many icelandic and foreigners come out to it. In June, after the baby sheep are born, the sheep are let loose in the fields and hills of Iceland, so apparently icelandic lamb is top quality very juicy and lean. Then in September, all the farmers will go around gathering up all the sheep on horseback and bring them all to a big coral where they are then sorted out for each farmer. There were hundreds of sheep, scared and confused, being directed around and farmers, finding the sheep with their tags on their ears, grabbing them by the horns and leadings them or picking up the sheep and throwing them over the stone walls into their section of the wheel shaped paddock. There were probably more people than sheep and it seemed that the people were being herded around as well.

After that we headed to Geysir to have lunch and see the geysirs (I don´t even remember how to spell that in english, or is it the same?). There were a bunch of hotsprings there too, the one the water was bright blue. The one geysir went off every 5 minutes or so, it was pretty cool to see. There were a few others but they hardly ever go off. The really big one, called Geysir, which is named after the a guy, who I guess found them? rarely goes off but when it does it can reach 20 meters up. I took a walk up the big hill/plateau, the dirt was bright red, it reminded me of Prine Edward Island. When I got to the top I could a valley on the other side with a few farms and a river and more mountains. It was quite beautiful and very peaceful. I then had to rush back down to the bus.

We then went to Gullfoss, a big beautiful waterfall. Several years ago, the governemtn wanted to dam the falls for energy, but a woman who lived by camped out there and protested, preventing them from going through with the plans and everyone now is grateful for it. The sight was incredible. Words can´t really describe it, but the mist came up, the sun shining through and rainbows formed. Right afterwards the bus took us to another waterfalls called Faxin or Faxið (meaning horse mane) but it was hard to compare to Gullfoss.

We stopped by Skálholt, a church which stands where an older one used to, and in the 1800´s a volcano near by erupted and the lava flowed to only 2 km away from the church, destroying many houses and lives. There is a lot of archaeological excavation going on there trying to understand the way of life back then. The new church looked quite pretty and had a very modern looking painting of Jesus at the altar, which was painted by an icelandic woman.

One of the last stops was of a volcano crater, where a pool of water was collected at the bottom. It was strange because the sight seemed very familiar. I remember when I was in grade 7 or 8, a friend Sarah, who had been to Iceland showed me a picture of a pool of blue water surrounded by rocky cliffs, but I think there was the sea in the background. The picture looked very similar to the crater I saw, but I am sure there are many other sights that look similar in Iceland.

Our last stops were through a small town, Eyrarbakki, I had already been through the town on my first bus trip to the south of Iceland at the beginning of August. One of the oldest houses was in the town, and it was black (they used to paint the houses with tar for protection). On the way home we stopped at the black beach, which I was at before, so I just stayed on the bus. Last time I was there, so much sand collected in my shoes and pants.

The Shire is actually in Iceland

For my Icelandic Folktales and Beliefs course we had a field trip to Árbærjasafn. It is an outdoor museum with old buildings (old being only from the mid 1800´s). There was a church, which had actually been moved the from the north of the country and then a few houses, a barn and a sheep hut. Most of the buildings were made of sod and stones, which I was told the method was passed down from the Celtic women and slaves that had been kidnapped by the vikings in order to use less wood. I will post the pictures on my other site soon (my stupid laptop still doesn´t like my camera even after installin the software again). All the buildings are also very short and small, which could be due to the cold and natural selection prefered smaller bodies that could keep the cold in better or perhaps malnutrition, their diet consisting of mostly meat.

Walking into the place you kind of feel like you´re stepping into Middle Earth and you might understand when you see the pictures. My friend Leif had commented a while ago how a lot of Icelandic guys look like hobbits (though their height has increased). Some may say that Tolkien was inspired by Iceland for his books (or perhaps more for the movies). The place was really neat though.

I got my cold back again. It is really annoying. It comes and it goes, I´ll feel fine and then it pops up again. I think I have to take it easy for a week, rest a lot and hopefully it will go away.

This Saturday I am going on a trip through the school for the sheep run. All the sheep are allowed to roam around in the fields freely and in the fall all the farmers round up all the sheep into a pen, and they are shorted and distributed to the rightful owners. I don´t really know what we will be doing but I´ll find out on Saturday. I think we are also visiting Geysir and Gelfoss on the way.

Then on Sunday, Leif and Tom are planning on having a Drag Show for the residence. I don´t quite remember how it came about, but something about Leif checking out Tom´s butt and how both had dressed up in drag dancing to It´s Raining Men in school. So THAT will be an interesting site.

till next time...

babies in the streets

One major thing you notice when you come to Iceland is there are a lot of babies here and a lot of pregnant women. More than what you normally see in any major city. They seem to have a completely different view of child rearing here and I find it quite neat. I find that back home when you get pregnant your life practically stops for a few months or years while you go through the stages of pregnancy and then have the baby. Most girls seem to drop out of school to take care the child, most go on maturnity leave when the baby is born and there are the few that never go back to work once they have a child (though I think now most women do work, or they need to work).

Here the women are still quite active even when noticeably pregnant. They go out, have fun, go swimming, go hiking (no partying of course) and are just living. When the babies are born they still go out, you see a lot of mothers with their strollers on the streets or carryin their babies (you even see a lot of carriages left outside stores or houses, sometimes with the babies still in them, while the mother is inside). Another thing is the fathers seem to have a major part in the baby´s life as well. Many times now I have seen just fathers walking down streets with the baby carriages. Family seems like a very important part of their lives here.

I actually have to write two papers on icelandic culture and I am thinking I might do one on the nurturing of children in Iceland, and perhaps a comparative study with Canadian culture. Might be interesting.

Þingvellir og ný batterí

Sory I have not posted in a while. I´ve been getting ready for school, keeping busy and being exhausted.

Stebbi and Gunnhildur took Tom and I to Þingvellir on Sunday, a national park where the european and american continental plates collided with each other, causing an earth quake where large rock formations were created here. There are even some pools of water that are so clear you can see the bottom, and people throw coins in there to make wishes (I hear that in 5 years the government will collect all the money and give it to charities). It was quite beautiful, I don´t have any pictures, but I will get them off of Tom.

So the battery of my camera cracked. Right when I got to Þingvellir I dropped my camera when I was taking it out of my bag. I didn´t think is fell that hard, but my battery cracked. So today, my icelandic friend Hannes drove me around all over Reykjavik trying to find me a new one. We went to one store but they didn´t have it so sent me to another store. We went there, waited in queue (everywhere you go here you have to take a number to wait your turn) only to find out they also did not have my battery and sent us to another place. Luckily the last place did have my battery so I want then a happy camper. The ironic thing was, is I had been walking all around earlier today, doin some errands and stopped at a postoffice to buy a new phone card and send off some post cards, and the camera place was practically right beside the post office.

When I was doing my errands earlier in the day I was walking with Leif. We were changing our address for everything to Gamli Garður and trying to extend our visas only to find out we need to get a health check before we can get our visas. But on our journey´s downtown we stumbled on a street that smelt like pancakes or waffles. Smelt so good we decided to track this place down. We circled the block twice and did not find the source of the sweet sweet smell. Leif asks a random icelandic girl on the street if she could smell it and where it was from, and she did smell it but wasn´t sure where it came from and suggested a bakery down the street. Leif then comments on how all most icelandic women are attractive, and I agree but say the men are not as attractive and we continue on our way only not to find any bakery. I told Hannes about this and he said that he knew of the corner we talked about. He used to live in an apartment near there and also smelt the pancakes or waffles but also never found the source. So there is some mystery bakery or a porthole to waffle land somewhere downtown and I want to try and find it.

Speaking of pancakes, I had a conversation with the Swedes from my course about them. They had made pancakes the other week and were talking about how good they were, and it dawned on me that I had no idea what they ate them with because they did not know what maple syrup was. I found out they used jams, jellies and cream. Still would good, but nothing beats maple syrup... maybe a mixture of jam, maple syrup and whipped cream... oh man.. I am so hungry now... haha... Pancakes in Iceland are pretty much just crepes, but I hear they are good and want to try them sometime.

Another bit of Canadian culture.. I found out the word 'giver' is Canadian. All the Canadians know it and use it, but no one else does, EVEN the Americans. That was shocking because I just assumed most of our slang came from the States.

Icelandic music concert

Last night a few friends from rez and I went to a concert downtown at Grand Rökk, a pub type place. There were 4 sets. The first was a boy, who I think was like 12 years old, playing guitar and singing icelandic folk type music. He was really good actually and a few songs other people in the bar were singing along too.

The second band was two guys singing and had the music playing off their laptop. They were punk and sounded a little like the pixies (probably a bad way of describing them). Most of the songs they sang were in english.

The next guy, I think was from Japan, and he was using samples on a synthesizer, really weird music, mostly noises, but in the middle he was playing amazing grace on bagpipes, which was cool and then the song turned into completely electronic sounds and another guy joined him playing drums. At the end of the set he did a head stand on the table with his synthesizer and everything and fell over off the stage. It was crazy.

The last band there were two bassists, a drummer and some guy sleeping on the stage off to the side. There was a girl in a cap and black mask, and the other bassist was singing and had his face suran wrapped with his microphone, then he ripped holes for his mouth and eyes and looked like a scarecrow. They sang mostly icelandic but at one point they were singing an electronic version of Cocomo by the beach boys. Really nuts. Then near the end the guy sleeping got up and was singing and him and the other guy singer were suran wrapped to each other. Really weird. They also lit off smoke kind of bombs, and by the stage it was really smoky and hard to breath and the music was insanely loud as well.

After seeing that, Icelandic people must think Björk is normal. There is a thing about Icelandic that everyone wants to be unique, and so all the bands have something very different about them. It is kind of cool but definitely a lot of weird things come out of it. I definitely want to see more shows, and it would be good to see flyers so I know what the bands´ names are. Franz Ferdinand is playing tonight and a lot of friends of mine are going but was kind of too expensive for me (4750kr which is about $90 cdn). I want to save my money up for the Icelandic Airwaves festival in October, which should be neat, because there will be all icelandic bands.

It was the international students´orientation today and tonight is the party. Should be good.

sjáumst.