Day 13

Yesterday (day 13) was the day that all participants split up to meet their Icelandic relatives they'll be staying with for three weeks.  Almost half the group is staying with relatives in Aukreyri (in the central area of northern Iceland).  The way it was scheduled with my first host, a woman who lives in Reykjavik, I was the last one to be picked up from the hostel.  So I was able to watch everyone else leave and share the sad feeling that we wouldn't get to see each other for another three weeks after spending these past two weeks so close together.  Finally after sitting for four hours in the hostel common room watching the others be taken to the airport or picked up by their relatives, I was picked up by my host.  My host is a woman in her 60s who lives alone and unfortunately is currently getting over a very bad cold.  Once we got to her apartment she set out a nice snack with bread and cheese that we ate while watching the Iceland-Nigeria world cup football game.  We were both sad to see that Iceland lost 0-2.
After the game finished, we drove downtown to a small bar/restaurant to listen to her son sing American jazz music as part of a band.  The music was very relaxing and started to make me a bit tired by the end of their performance.  At the bar, we met some of her son's friends as well as some of her other family members.  Once the performance finished, we came back to her apartment and picked up some quick dinner along the way.  Then I met up with another Snorri participant, the only one else who is staying in Reykjavik, at the pool Sundhöll.  We talked about our new host families at the pool then walked around and got gelato.  I really enjoyed seeing a familiar face again because I felt a little lonely as a result of not having a ton of people my age around me anymore after I had adjusted to living that way for two weeks.  It was quite a living environment change to go from taking classes with 16 other young people to staying with one woman who is much older than me and isn't the most active because of her cold.  Nevertheless, she has been a great host so far and has made fun plans for me to do activities with her other family members this weekend.  Yet, one of the many positives of meeting my host family was that I was finally able to do my laundry. I'm so thankful that she let me do my laundry at her place shortly after I arrived because I was almost out of clean clothes after spending two weeks in a hostel with no access to a laundry machine!

Here is a photo of my host, Svona, and myself:

This afternoon her sister is supposed to take me to a swimming pool that has a wave pool in the facility I believe.  Then we are going to see a movie that I'm hoping the other Snorri participants we will able to watch with us!
In other news, on Monday afternoon I will be picked up by my second host family who lives in Akranes!  I'm excited for this homestay because the town looks beautiful and the family I'm staying with as well as my volunteer placement has people around my age!

Day 12

Today was our last full day of staying at the student hostel on the University of Reykjavik’s campus.  After three hours of language class we said a nice goodbye to our wonderful teacher.  In the afternoon, all of us went to the Reykjavik swimming pool Sundhöll for the second time.  The rainy, overcast, windy weather made it the perfect day for relaxing in some warm geothermal pools.  Plus the pool area is huge, with full sized indoor and outdoor swimming pools as well as a steam room, sauna, cold and warm pools.  Several other Snorri participants and I even played in the kiddie warm pool for a little while.  It had a fun structure that looked like the nozzle of a watering can and had water pouring out over the top of the structure on all sides.  After enjoying 2+ hours in the different pools relaxing and swimming some laps we walked back to the hostel and checked out a few shops along the way.  One the stores, called IceWear, was like an Icelandic miniature version of an REI store, which I found very amusing to look around in.

For dinner, we were invited to have dinner at the house of our program coordinator Ásta Sól, which is conveniently located downtown.  We had a great dinner full of hot dogs, burgers, salad and potatoes while watching the Argentina-Croatia football game.  Amazingly, Croatia won with three goals and Argentina ended up with making no goals at all.  Tomorrow is the Nigeria-Iceland game that everyone here is SO excited for.  After the game finished, we watched a documentary Ásta made about the 2004 Snorri program which was very well done and made me sad to hear about the participants not wanting to leave Iceland at the end of the program. 

On a different note, tomorrow I will be meeting the first family of living relatives that I will be staying with.  The mother of the family will pick me up tomorrow afternoon and I will be staying with her until Monday in Reykjavik only a few blocks from where I’m currently staying.  Then I’ll be picked up by my second host family where I’ll be staying in Akranes a 40 minutes drive north of Reykjavik and volunteering with the municipality there for about three weeks!

Sadly, I have no new pictures to share today! But I’ll try to take one with my host family and some of the football game tomorrow!

Day 11

The weather was beautiful today in Reykjavik.  Clear, blue skies and so much sun!  Even though it was only 52°F the weather was perfect for walking around in a t-shirt with no coat necessary.

At the University, we had three hours of language classes and then a lecture on Icelandic society.  The lecture mostly focused on the 2008 economic crisis, including its causes and effects on Iceland, but the it also covered more recent political issues in Iceland.  Even though the lecturer wasn’t able go into great detail about the economic crisis, it was very interesting to hear the crisis described from an Icelander’s perspective.

After classes finished, most of the Snorri participants walked to Nauthólsvík, a sand beach with geothermal pools and a colder lagoon to enjoy floating around in.  The beach was located in a beautiful bay with small sailboats and other watercrafts zipping around.  There were quite a few people at the beach, locals and tourists alike, enjoying the amazingly warm summer weather.

After hanging at the beach, another Snorri participant and I decided to try some Icelandic pastries at a local bakery.  We walked to Brauð & Co. where I bought some Happy Marriage cake.  A traditional Icelandic treat served at birthdays and other events, Happy Marriage cake is made with oatmeal and rhubard jam.  Rhubard was traditionally used because it was one of the only vegetables that Icelanders could grow.  The cake was delicious and I highly recommend that everyone tries it if they are ever in Iceland.  From the bakery, we headed to Reykjavik Fish Restaurant next door where we split a plate of great cod fish and chips. Coincidentally, when we were leaving the restaurant after our meal, we noticed that the house of the Snorri program coordinator Ásta Sól was across the street of the restaurant.  She called out to us and said hello.  After our encounter, we returned to the hostel to eat leftovers for dinner.  Overall, the day was amazing because of the great time we had at the beach and the fact that it was the warmest weather we’ve had so far during our stay!

Day 10

Today we listened to a lecture on the history of feminism in Iceland.  I learned that midwives, instead of doctors, are who primarily deliver newborns in Iceland.  After class, I went inside the tall church buidiling in Reykjavik called Hallgrimskirkja (shown below).  The church has a huge set of organs (I think something like 5000+ pipes).  Yet, interestingly the inside was not as elaborately decorated with painting as other European churches.  I also went to the concert hall, Harpa, that has very detailed architecture that creates a cool effect from light reflecting off the outside of the building.

Later in the afternoon, I met up with my distant cousin, Kent and went on a tour of the Icelandic peninsula that Reykjavik is located on to see where some of our common ancestors emigrated from.  We drove through Vogar, Grandavík, and Þorlákshöfn.  We also walked around the hot springs at Seltún.  We went to where my great great great grandmother Herdís Hannesdóttir used to live with her family as a child and later in life.  The farm that used to be her family's is now on the land of the facility where Ícelandic Glacial water is bottled.  On the trip, I saw many different types of landscapes from lava fields that can be very jagged when more recently created to the smoother older ones, grass fields, and volcanoes.  I was surprised to see at least four different golf courses that we passed on the trip - apparently golfing is more common in Iceland than I thought.  We also passed by miles and miles full of lupine - a non native purple plant that grows widely throughout Iceland.

The inside of Hallgrimskirkja:

The concert hall Harpa:

My cousin Kent and me:

Some landscape photos from my mini tour with Kent:

The areas where my great great great grandmother Herdís lived during her life (including her family's farm next to the bottled water facility):

The Seltún hot springs:

Day 9

Today was not a very busy day unlike this past weekend.  It was mostly filled with Univeristy of Iceland classes.  I went to the pool Vesturæjarlaug that is close to the hostel to try to practice Icelandic with locals at 7:30 this morning.  However the attempt to practice was unsuccessful since there weren't many people who seemed social enough to talk to strangers.  However, we did get to watch a group of elderly people being led through stretches on the pool deck by a leader yelling out instructions in Icelandic.  From the pool we went straight to our regular Icelandic language classes where we learned how to have a generic conversation in Icelandic for ordering drinks at a coffee house.  Next, one of Asta Sol's cousins came to play Icelandic folk music, tell folk stories, and teach us about Iceland's oddly dark sense of humor.  After lunch, we were given an Icelandic cultural lesson where we learned about how Iceland's national identity is coping with their multicultural population.  Then after a couple hours break to explore Reykjavik by ourselves, the participants were split up into groups of two or three and each group went to dinner with different Snorri board members and alumni.  I had a delicious dinner at the house of one of my distant Icelandic relatives and later figured out that he was my uncle 4th removed!
I'm looking forward to going on a trip with my cousin Kent tomorrow to an area near Reykjavik where some of our common ancestors emigrated from.
I have no new photos today unfortunately! I spent the afternoon practicing Icelandic at the hostel then getting groceries as well as accidentially getting 10x as much money as I had intended from an ATM. Oh well, I'll spend most of it during my trip through Europe after the Snorri program.

Day 8

Today was Iceland's national holiday!  We went to a national holiday ceremony that took place next to the parliament building in downtown Reykjavik, where a statue of Jón Sigurðsson lies.  Jón Sigurðsson was the leader of the Icelandic independence movement in the 1800s.  During the ceremony we heard the prime minister speak and saw the revelation of the new Fjallkona, who represents the female incarnation of Iceland.  There is a new Fjallkona each year and the identity of each one is kept a secret until the ceremony where their new title is announced.  The Fjallkona is typically a popular female actress.  After the ceremony, we joined the native Icelanders in following the marching band as they paraded to the nearby gravesite of Jón Sigurðsson where more speeches were given.
To celebrate the day, there were several bouncy houses and food vendors as well as a concert stage set up in the park around the Reykjavik pond.  We explored this area a little but because it was pouring rain on and off today I decided to go to an indoor soup restaurant for lunch instead of buying food at the park (where there wasn't a great selection besides hot dogs anyways).  After lunch, I got some delicious Rhubarb liquid nitrogen ice cream then walked back to the hostel to relax from the busy week I've had.  It was so nice to have more free time today since we walked a lot yesterday.
Also, a couple days ago I realized that I actually had a sunburn on my face which I didn't think was possible in Iceland.  Thankfully, now I've bought sunscreen so it won't happen again here but my sunburn did get made of by the Canadian ambassador because the other participants pointed out my sunburn to her somehow without my knowledge.

A bunch of fancy old cars that lined up along the bridge over the pond:

Finally, a pretty Reykjavik sunrise (although the sun never completely went down) around 3 am on Saturday morning.

Day 7

Last night the Snorri group ended up going to "the Lebowski bar" in Reykjavik which was super crowded compared to the bars on weeknights.  Also, the bar only played older music like Brittany Spears, Madonna, disco, and other past hits from the 70s-early 2000s which were great for dancing.  The music was very different than the typical American pop and rap music played at home in bars or clubs.  After losing my hostel room key at the bar I had to sleep in the common room last night while locked out of my room until the bar found my room key the next day.

As for today, most of the excitment was around the Iceland-Argentina Fifa world cup game.  The day was packed with activites from watching the world cup game to going on a mini tour in southwest Iceland.  First a group of us headed to a downtown flea market that had candy, meat, jewelry, books, and clothes.  The jewerly selection mostly consisted of small beatufiul lava rocks in the earings, bracelets, and necklaces on sale.  After the flea market, all the Snorri participants met up at a movie theater where the football game was being shown live.  Although there were outside locations where the game could be watched, the weather was consistently raining today making indoor conditions much more comfortable.  The game was very exciting and all the Icelanders around us were so into cheering for their team.  People kept yelling "álfram ísland!" which means "go iceland!" in Icelandic as well as doing a viking cheer that includes clapping and yelling "huh!"  The game ended with a 1-1 tie with both goals being scored in the first half.  All the Icelanders around us seemed happy with the result and simply excited that their national team had finally qualified for the world cup.

From the movie theater, we walked to Reykjavik city hall to go on a bus tour with the Njordjobb participants working near Reykjavik.  We hiked up a mountain in Úlfarsfell which had beautiful views with mountains and ocean that is in included the photos below.  On the hike I had the chance to meet Njordjobb participants from Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, and the Faroe Islands and learn about their diverse cultural backgrounds!  

After the hike, we visited a nearby swimming pool with three water slides that we could go down.  Even though the only other people going down the slides were children, it didn't stop us from trying each slide and having fun.  I loved sitting in the hot geothermally heated pools then going into the cold pool to cool off for a couple seconds before returning to the hot pool and repeating the cycle.  Next we a had quick dinner of hot dogs in a local park that had a grill and got back on the bus for the last stop on the tour: þingvellir.  Þingvellir is a beautiful national park in Bláskógabyggð (southwest Iceland, northeast of Reykjavik about 25 miles).  The original location of alþing, Iceland's parliament, þingvellir was chosen as a more central and accessible location for chieftains from each region of Iceland to gather as a general assembly.  This location was used from 930 until 1271 to pass laws and carry out executions as punishment for those who committed high level crimes.  At the time, men were executed by beheading and women by drowning.  None of the temporary turf dwellings made from the time period þingvellir was used remain there today.  A breathtaking landscape, þingvellir lies on the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates causing the landscape to change slowly over time due to frequent earthquakes and  the continental drift.

Here are photos of the movie theater where we matched the world cup game and wore matching world cup 2018 hats to.  The bottom photo is of the flea market.

Here are some photos of the hike up the mountain in Úlfarsfell:

Here are some photos of þingvellir:

Tomorrow, June 17th, is the national holiday of Iceland so it should be full of fun activities and there will be an outdoor concert!  Hopefully the weather will be better than today!