Even after almost a month in Iceland I still haven’t gotten
used to the hot water smelling like sulfur every time I use it. Sigga claims she is so used to the smell that
she doesn’t notice it anymore. I guess I
am not at that point yet. On Monday
while working with Sigga at the museum we had an amusing conversation with the
painters about Eurovision and its’ significance in European culture. We watched videos of the most hilarious
Eurovision performances over the years and listened to the British commentator
Terry Wogan’s notes on them. Siggia is
big fan of Eurovision and keeps trying to convince me to watch it next year but
it hasn’t worked yet. I’ve really
enjoyed talking to the painters at the folk museum and am sad that they have
finished their work here. They still
come by to talk with us while drinking the coffee and eating the kleina that we
set out each day. One of the painters
has lived in Iceland for his entire life and went through a near death
experience during a heart attack that has made him a more spiritual
person. The other main painter is from
Manchester, England but has lived in Iceland for 18 years with wife and
children and has picked up the language very well. He also has seen ghosts growing up. These painters and the “haunted” house at the
museum make for frequent conversations about the paranormal experiences that
they’ve had. The painter from England
and I often talk about life in England compared to Iceland. It is amusing to hear the joking formality he
uses when talking about England’s nobility and
his polite English phrasing in general.
I will definitely miss these two characters who have made my time volunteering
at the Akranes folk museum more interesting and enjoyable.
On Tuesday at the museum I asked Sigga about the economic class
structure in Iceland. She told me several
locations where people in the lower and upper class commonly live in Iceland. She said that immigrants, young Icelanders,
and homeless people make up most of the lower class. Then she explained how difficult it is for
young people around the same age as herself to fully support themselves. Many of them struggle to save up enough money
to be able to afford renting or buying a place of their own since living in or
around Reykjavik is the most desirable and expensive location for them to
live. Yet, Reykjavik is the location of
two of the major schools in Iceland: the University of Reykjavik and the
University of Iceland. Not all students
are able to commute from home to school like Sigga has done in the past. Even in her situation, bus fares made it
expensive to commute each day. Kids
raised in the eastern side of Iceland don’t have any universities over there so
they are forced to move away from and either pay for student housing or
buy/rent an apartment if they want to attend a university.
On a different note, while Sigga and I were cleaning the
museum today I was telling her how much I miss eating Indian, Thai, and Mexican
food back home. So we started chatting
about common dishes that we eat at home growing up. I was trying to talk to her about soups that
I often eat but I couldn’t remember the name of chili so we spent 10 minutes
googling names of soup dishes until I finally found chili which is technically
a stew not a soup so I had been looking up the wrong type of dish. I couldn’t believe that I had forgotten the
name of such a common dish.
Tuesday evening, once I got off work and biked to Þorunn’s
house we departed on a car trip to a lava cave I’ve been wanting to visit to
the east of Borgarnes. Þorunn, Anna,
Linda, and I left the house around 5:30 pm and drove up north pass Borgarnes
towards the lava cave. On the way we
stopped at Hraunfossar and Barnafoss on the Hvítá river which had a nice walking
path next to it. Hraunfossar is a series
of waterfalls streaming out of a lava field into the Hvítá river. Just up the river from these waterfalls is
Barnafoss (Children’s waterfall).
Although I didn’t see the waterfall itself, I saw the region of the
river below the waterfall that accounts for its name. This part of the river is very narrow with
sharp rock edges going reaching at least 20 feet above the river on each
side. The high volume of glacial water
flowing down the river at a high velocity in this section makes it very
dangerous. The area is called the
children’s waterfall from of a story of two children whose family lived near
the waterfall. One day the two children were
playing on a natural arch that crossed over the river when they fell in the
river and drowned. Such a sad story associated
with the name that serves as an accurate reminder of the danger of getting too
close to the edge of the rocks on each side of the river.
Pictures of
Hraunfossar:
A picture of
Barnafoss:
Next, we continued on our drive to the lave cave. It took Þorunn a couple wrong turns but
eventually we made it. To get to the
lava cave we had to drive 8 km through a massive lava field that all looked the
same. We only knew we had found the lava
cave from a sign with the correct name since there was no one else there. The sign informed us that Surtshellir was the
longest lava cave in Iceland and it formed from an eruption about 1100 years
ago. As we walked along the designated
path through the lava field we passed by several wide openings in the ground
where you could see the huge cave that lay underneath the lava field. It was an amazing sight to see the cave. We struggled to walk in the strong winds that
swept over the lava field as we moved along the path to the different cave entrances.
After feeling cold from wind and content that we had seen enough,
we got back in the car to start driving in the direction back to Akranes. On the way back we stopped at several
places. First, we stopped at a
restaurant in Húsafell to eat a late dinner. Husafell seems like a popular spot for
Icelander’s to vacation and tourists to visit with its hotel, swimming pool, summer
houses, and golf course. The next place
we stopped was Reykholt to see Snorralaug, one of the oldest hot springs used
by humans in Iceland. Snorraluag is
thought to have been in use as early as the 10th century according
to historical Icelandic texts. In was
here in Reykholt that the famous historian, politician, and poet Snorri
Sturluson lived in the 13th century.
Although there wasn’t much to see except the spring and the entrance to
an underground tunnel that led to nearby houses, it was interesting to learn
that it was one of the first archaeological remains recorded in Iceland. There was a church with a historical exhibit
nearby but it was closed for the day by the time we arrived.
After visiting Snorralaug, we drove a few minutes until we got
to Krauma. Located next to the
Deildartunguhver thermal springs, Krauma has natural geothermal baths and a spa
that looks very fancy and expensive. As
Þournn and I walked up to the building for a peak, we could see the luxurious
looking geothermal baths where there were people drinking alcoholic beverages
and vaping. Next to Krauma were several greenhouses
where tomatoes were being grown. As we
walked around Deildartunguhver thermal springs, we passed through clouds of
sulfur smelling steam and saw pools of boiling water. We walked by the building where the
geothermal heated water is collected and sent through a pipeline to towns in
the west. This pipeline, which we saw
the start of, carries hot water as far as Akranes 74 km away making it the
longest pipeline of its kind in the world!
It takes about 24 hours for the water to travel from the facility to
Akranes. Next to the sign describing the
thermal springs and water pipeline was a stand where tomatoes were for
sale. No one was attending the booth, there was only a wooden box with a money
slit where you can pay for the tomatoes you take. Þorunn decided to buys two bags of tomatoes –
she claims these ones are wonderfully sweet!
Our next stop was at a small hut on the side of the road
where fresh produce like lettuce, cucumbers, basil, and strawberries were being
sold in the same manner as the tomatoes at Deildartunguhver. All the produce was grown in greenhouses near
the hut. We bought three packs of
strawberries.
Our last stop before Akranes was Rock’n’ Troll, a small
country hotel with cute individual camping pods and hiking trails on which you can
learn about Icelandic trolls and folktales.
We finally returned to Þorunn's house at almost 11:30 pm. It had been a long, fun adventure and all of
us were tired and ready to go to sleep.
