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.