A lot has happened since my last post... I have been so busy and my life has been really great but just with many complicated things in the mix (like uhh, what country am I in?) so I´m sorry it´s taken so long for me to post. Last time I posted was June 23... since then it would be an understatement to say a lot has gone on. The 23rd to 25th I went camping with some of my best friends from my school; it was really really fun. We ended up camping for free because the guy to collect the fees each night never came, and we were the only ones there. So it was a really peaceful getaway; we were in a clearing in a little "forest", with mountains surrounding us and a river right nearby. It was about an hour away, so it was like a fun little road trip to drive there and back.
I am pretty busy right now packing for a camping trip (I´m going camping for 2 nights with school friends as a goodbye trip) but just to fill people in on my past week...
Sorry it´s been so long... I´ve been REALLY busy doing all sorts of fun things and kind of in denial that I leave so soon and just trying to enjoy my time and not worrying about updating a blog. But since I last updated this I´ve been doing a lot so...
I am so bad at keeping this blog updated! This month of May so far has been pretty eventful. April 30th was my last day of classes, so I started off the month with summer vacation and playing in a parade for Labor Day. The parade was a demonstration as well... people were marching with all sorts of signs displaying their political views and what organization they work for and what they want changed in their work, and also things like gay pride and women´s rights. The parade started at Hlemmur, the main bus terminal in downtown Reykjavík, and then went down Laugavegur, the main street, and ended up in Austurvöllur, a square where there were bands performing (including mine) and political speeches made and lots of booing and clapping based on who had what views on what issue.
Saturday, April 25 was a pretty awesome day, personally for me, and also for all of Iceland. I went on a horseback riding trip with AFS, and it also happened to be election day where all the seats in the Alþing (parliament/legislature) were voted on.
Lara, an exchange student from Austria living in a town an hour outside of Reykjavík, came to my house the night before so she could stay here and be able to meet in Reykjavík for the horse trip. Then we woke up pretty early (like 7:30) on saturday morning so we could get to the AFS office at 9 for the trip. Then we met there, and got in cars to go to Hveragerði, a town like 45 minutes away. When we arrived in Hveragerði, we went to Eldhestar (the horse company which means like “fire” or “volcano” horses. There, we were a group of people from maybe 15 different countries, taught by Swedish people how to ride Icelandic horses. Icelandic horses are REALLY special. They are pony-sized but really strong and with a thick mane for cold winters. They have 5 walks instead of just the typical 3 (trot, cantor, and gallop) of other horses. They have never been crossbred, and it will remain that way, as it is illegal to bring international horses into Iceland. It is also illegal to bring your Icelandic horse home even if it only went to 1 competition in another country. Mine was named “Lýsingur”, which means “description”. Icelandic names are weird (other Icelandic names [for people!] are Ljótur/Ugly, Dagur/Day, Grímur/Masks, Steinn/Stone, Saga/Story, Víkingur/Viking, Björk/Birch Tree, Harpa/Harp, Björn/Bear, Örn/Eagle, yeah, funny stuff). The horses on the tour don´t go so fast, so it wasn´t like very thrilling compared to my horse trip in summer 2007 in Rincon de la Vieja National Park in Costa Rica, where I was helmetless riding through a rainforest with an uncontrollable horse who ran in front of the tour guide, who said not to worried and went on to tell me about a time where he went to Amsterdam and smoked weed, all in Spanish. (But now I´m in Iceland where most things don´t run like that and most people aren´t like that!) But what was really incredible was the breathtaking nature, and seeing everything so empty yet so rich. Empty because there are close to NO trees in Iceland, so one can see the landscape to a really far distance. Yet rich because the ground is mostly composed of volcanic rocks covered by only the strongest mosses and grasses which can survive the Icelandic winter, and the mountains slice into the horizon in every direction, and the horses are so strong and beautiful.
[(wanted to have a pic here of the horses but it won´t upload...)]
When we were done riding, we went to the pool, which is always awesome in Iceland. We played basketball (Americans vs others, which ended up being 4 vs like 10) and an Italian smashed my hand into the edge of the pool so I still a week later have a gross cut from it. The AFS volunteers pretty much had to drag us out of the pool becaue the weather was so nice and we were having so much fun. Also because it´s cold out and we prefer being in the warm pool over being in the cold outside air. When they finally got us to leave, we went to get ice cream (which is also really special in Iceland, just so delicious). Then after a long tiring morning & afternoon, we got home to Reykjavík around 4 and Lara and I returned to Frostaþing. There we relaxed a little bit, ate dinner, and then went out to a café to meet the family of Marije, a Dutch exchange student. It really made me look forward to my family´s visit in the end of June, because it just seems so nice to be reunited with family after a long time!
Then Saturday the 25th was also election day. Not too exciting, but I guess a little interesting. The elections normally weren´t supposed to be this April, but after MANY angry protests downtown, the government decided to give the people what they want. I still don´t completely understand Icelandic politics and government (partly because I have little to no interest in politics, and partly because it´s not my own country where I would be able to vote, and partly because most Icelanders don´t even understand it enough to be able to explain it). But some differences are that the government is all national; there are no regions of Iceland that make their own laws. The country is divided into “kjördæmi”´s which are… uhh… voting regions (?) in English. There are 6: Reykjavík North, Reykjavík South, Southwest, Northeast, Northwest, and South. My town is in the southwest region (labeled "Suðvestur" on the map below). This election was not voting for president, but instead for the people in Alþing, which is similar to congress(wo)men in the House of Representatives. Instead of having just republicans and democrats, there are a lot of political groups here. There are Vinstri Grænn/Left-wing Green, Samfylkingin/Social Democrats, Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn/Independent Party, Framsóknarflokkurinn/Progressive Party, Borgarhreyfingin/Citizens´ Movement, and Frjálslyndiflokkurinn/Liberal Party. All of these groups have some seats in the Alþing. Iceland also has the world´s first lesbian prime minister, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir.
I know it is kind of late, but I´m going to write now about my easter break which I spend in Patreksfjörður and other parts of the West Fjords! I love traveling, which is actually a reason I wanted to live in a new country for a year, and at first I was a little reluctant on picking an island because I knew that I wouldn´t be able to travel internationally this year. But I´m actually really glad with this choice now, because it gives me even more of the opportunity to see everything that Iceland alone has to offer! It´s a small but incredible country. On tuesday morning, april 7, Maria´s host mom Helga and host sister Rut came with the car to Frostaþing (my street) to pick us up. We drove for about 3 hours up to Stykkishólmur, which is a small town on the Snæfells peninsula. There, we went to the supermarket (because there is none in Patreksfjörður) and then took a ferry up to the West Fjords. Now this ferry is nothing like the 10 minute ride from NJ to NY; this is a legitimate ferry. It was a 3 hour long ride, and cars go on it, and it´s huge. There is always a long line for the cars to get on it, so instead of just sitting there and doing nothing, Maria and I went exploring for a few minutes up on these really beautiful cliffs with a view of the ocean. Also, we are both Spanish students (nowhere near fluent, but understand and speak somewhat), and as exchange students we love to practice foreign languages! So we heard a group of guys speaking Spanish and of course I shoot one of them a "de dónde eres?" (where are you from) and so we met people from Spain and got to practice Spanish! I remember first coming here thinking how I would never know more Icelandic than Spanish, but that quickly changed and I almost don´t believe it myself, but also now my Spanish really sucks because I´m so out of practice and I kinda believe that my brain can only function in 2 languages at once.
So then we took the ferry... it was really cool! The view was beautiful, and there are like thousands of really little miniature islands off the coast of Iceland. One that we stopped at is called Flatey... there are very few people who live there, and the island is so small and old fashioned that there are no cars or streets and their only means of transportation is boat. The ride from Brjánslækur to Patreksfjörður was completely beautiful! The roads slice through the mountains and the coast is always visible because of how the land is just oceans then mountains and not much space in between. The roads can be really dangerous, especially in the bad weather; on the way down a mountain side there stands this statue made out of a bunch of rocks of a big man who is supposed to protect you on your journey down when you stop to acknowledge him. When we arrived in Patreksfjörður, we went straight to Maria´s grandma´s house for soup which was really nice. Then we went straight home to Maria´s house so we could catch a special on TV about my band. They interviewed Magga, another lady who plays the saxophone, and they also had shots of us playing and rehearsing and I was on the TV quite a few times. Magga is going to pick up a copy for me from the TV station so I can bring it home to America.
Then the next few days were nice and very easy-going, which is a big change from my life in the capital area. Here there are always a lot of things going on, but there is often nothing happening in such a small town (less than 600 residents). So we did things like go to the pool, walk to the store, meet up with her friends, meet up with the other exchange student there (Ulloriaq from Greenland), and seriously just relax. One night a week is volleyball in the sport house, so we went there and played. On Föstudagurinn Langa (Long Friday? Good Friday? don´t know the english name, just that it´s related to easter and a friday) nobody in Iceland does ANYTHING exciting, it is seriously a day to do nothing. But Maria´s host father had to go check on his brother´s summer cottage to make sure everything was good, and it was about a 45 minute drive away on the other side of the fjord. So we went out there, and then while we were already there we decided to make the trip to Látrabjarg, the western most point in Europe. It was unbelievably windy, so windy that I had to walk always with a distance of about 10 yards/meters between me and the edge of the cliff just because the wind was so strong that it could have blown me off into the rough and rocky ocean below me.
Easter Sunday was really nice! Maria and I woke up early so we could make it to the "8:00 mass", as we wanted to see how Icelandic church services go. We left the house at 7:45, walked to church (and it was snowing on our way there... april 12!), got there at 8, and saw that we were the only people there besides the choir. At first we kinda laughed to ourselves and thought "oh it just goes to show that Icelanders have really poor church attendace!" and we were (pretty quietly) making some jokes about it. But then we were like oh hey the service hasn´t started yet! So we figured out that it actually started at 8:30, and by that time there were maybe 15 people watching the service. Nothing compared to an Easter service in the states, but still better turnout than just us! Afterwards was a nice breakfast for the churchgoers. Then we went back home where the best part of the day came... PÁSKAEGG! Easter eggs! Unlike the American tradition of getting an Easter basket filled with candy, here they get a hollow chocolate egg filled with candy. The eggs come in all different sizes... the biggest being 1kg/2.2lbs and smallest just like the size of a real egg. I got 2... 1 from my host grandfather (350 g) and 1 from María´s host parents (230 g). I ate 350g of chocolate in 1 and a half days, and that means I´m becoming Icelandic! The day after Easter, we went to visit her German friend Jantje on a farm 30 min away. It was a really fun day! We went to the beach (in winter coats of course though), pet the cows, milked the cows, ate good food, and played cards. We went home around 8 (Jantje driving), and about half way through the ride home we smell a burning smell, and then I look back and see smoke. We immediately stopped the car and got out, where we found something burning in the trunk. Thank god there was snow on the ground, so we took it from the side of the road to put out the fire. Then Marias dad came to pick us up and a farmer on Jantje´s farm came to get her, and they managed to get the car back. That was an adventure! Especially the standing outside in the cold for 30 minutes part. I think it happened because we didn´t acknowledge the statue on our way down the mountain (yes, it happened on that mountain). And we learned then that the man in the statue is the father of the main farmer on Jantje´s farm.
Then Tuesday the 14th, I had to wake up early for my "shuttle bus" to the "airport". I put them in quotations for a reason. The shuttle bus was one of those oversized vans for maybe 15 people. But I was the only one taking it. So I sat near the front and just talked to the driver about my trip in the west fjords and his job and skiing and just everything... Icelanders actually aren´t THAT cold if they have nobody else to talk to, and especially if you speak Icelandic to them. The airport was right outside of the town Bíldudalur, and he asked me if I had ever been in the town so when I said no he said "oh we have a little extra time, I´ll give you a tour!" He was very knowledgeable and it´s cool how just last minute I get a tour of another town of Iceland and get to see something else new. Then we arrived at the “airport” which was like the size of my living room. No security, no gates, no luggage check, barely even a check in… there was just an asking what my name is, I gave just my first name, and then they took my bag and said okay. There´s not even any announcements or loudspeaker… the plane from Reykjavík to Bíldudalur landed and everyone got off and then we got on. The way we got on was we walked outside and then over to the stairs which led up directly into the plane, kinda like how celebrities and presidents do it. The plane was so little…. had a total of 18 seats of which only 8 were filled. The flight only took a half hour… it took longer for me to get from the Reykjavík airport to my house a few miles away than to get from the West Fjords to Reykjavík like a hundred miles away. That is because the bus system is so messed up and there are no buses that go directly to where someone needs to go; they are always going out of the way to a million random places.
Then I started school that next Wednesday, and I was in school from Wednesday to Wednesday but not Thursday! (April 23, yesterday). This is becasue it was Sumardagurinn Fyrsta (the first day of summer). So Wednesday night, because of no school, it was like a Friday. A few friends and I went out on a “rúntur” which is where you drive around town with no real purpose but just listen to music and talk and have fun and make some stops to get ice cream or something to eat or go to a friend´s house. So we had a successful rúntur, and I´m glad I didn´t get home too late because I had to wake up early in the morning. Despite the horrible weather, there were various parades all around the Reykjavík area, and I was playing in 2 of them with my band. First at 10:00 we played in Árbær, which is a neighborhood in the corner of Reykjavík. This parade was pretty little… we divided into 2 groups to hit up different neighborhoods so it was just 12 of us in the whole parade. And here the parades aren´t like in America with the sidewalks crowded by people watching and just standing there; here people start watching the parade wherever and then instead of letting it just pass by, they walk down the sidewalk with the marchers and follow it to the end. Then we had a couple hours of downtime, so I went home with Inga who lives right in Árbær and we just chilled and enjoyed being inside where it was warmer than 4C/40F and not raining. Then we had to go out again to Vesturbær (an area very close to downtown, where the University of Iceland is) where our 2nd and bigger parade was. This parade had boy and girl scouts in the front carrying around 5 Icelandic flags, followed by us playing. I am a little disappointed that we play more American songs than Icelandic, but we got to play Öxar Við Ána which is a national song so that was nice… I think that´s only the 2nd or 3rd Icelandic song I´ve played with this band. Then after being out marching in the rain so much, I was pretty dead and just went home and chilled all day. Such a nice feeling! Gunna and the girls were baking so we got to eat some fresh baked stuff and have hot cocoa… totally not appropriate for the beginning of summer as I know it. But I´ve learned this year to expect the unexpected and really gone with AFS´s “it´s not good, it´s not bad, it´s just different” and so I accept the first day of summer the way it is, no matter how bad the weather.
And today (Friday, the 2nd day of summer) I went on my way to school in the snow. Happy summer!
I just finished writing an entry about my Easter vacation and first day of summer, but first before I forget, I want to post some pics from my Árshátíð´s.
I'm deleting this blog soon
i just have nothing to write about!
I'll give it a week (cos i've got pictures linking off this site) and then it'll all be gone.
Go over and see my blogspot blog where i'll write stuff sometimes lol
There´s no English word for Árshátíð... when people try to (annoyingly) translate it, they say something like "prom" but its nothing like prom. Every school has árshátíð, as well as all clubs people are involved with (like band, chorus, sports, work, even small villages). It is this yearly dinner/dance/party that always comes in the winter or spring, and it is especially fancier than the other dances (which we just refer to as böll (or ball singular)). So as you can tell from my last post, I was done with the cultural weekend on monday, then I had a realllllllly busy week ahead of me. Tuesday and wednesday after school I went to Kringlan (the mall) to go shop for árshátíð clothing and stuff. So I got my cute black dress and gold necklace, and used whatever other jewelry and shoes and stuff I had here (the economy sucks, don´t wanna waste so much money). And then came thursday! I got out of school at 1:30 (as opposed to 4:30 normally) and went home, got all dolled up, then was the MK Árshátíð. At 6:00 the dinner began, which was at MK and prepared by the graduating students in the chef school. It was creamy lobster soup in a bread bowl for appetizers, chicken and potatoes and stuff for entrees, and French chocolate cake for dessert. We took many pictures and had really fun at the dinner... it was not only good food but also funny videos with some inside jokes about the school and teachers and social life and stuff. And of course no Icelandic dance is complete without a pre-party! So we just organized some small party at Grímur´s place while we were waiting for the time to come to go to the dance. Then the dance was super fun! It was at a hotel in downtown Reykjavík (Hótel Saga aka some Radisson Hotel) and 4 hours instead of the usual just 3. There were a few DJs and the live performers were AWESOME...Páll Óskar (Icelandic techno/pop singer) and FM Belfast (rock band), and of course as I become better friends with everyone it´s more fun and everything. Then friday was good... there was no school because of árshátíð the night before and so I got to sleep late yayy! Then I hung out with some exchange students during the day and at night Maria, an exchange student from Germany to a small town in the West Fjords, came to me to visit! (She is with me now too). So we went out and played soccer in the rain and got stuff to eat and you know, sometimes there´s not much to do in Iceland so we make our own fun like that. Then saturday was a really busy and really fun day! Woke up at 11ish, went out at 2 for rehearsal, and then at 4:30 played a concert with my band Lúðrasveitin Svanur. It was really awesome... we played like 8 songs or so and maybe 10 of my exchange student friends came and watched and then at the end they held up signs that they had made for me that said stuff like "Go Amy!" and that was really fun. Another cool thing... I saw a parrot outside, which is kinda impossible in Iceland because there are none wild, so I´m just going to take a wild guess that it escaped from some house. Then the concert was over around 6:30, and I had 1 hour to go 20 minutes home, get changed and put on makeup, and go 20 minutes to get to the árshátíð of the band. We were only 20 minutes late, gooo us! (We as in Maria and I... I managed to sneak her in, and it was so last minute they didn´t even know her name they just wrote "Amy friend" at her place setting... thank god Icelanders are so last minute with everything). This was a fish themed árshátíð! (The one at school didn´t have a theme). Nobody came in a fish costume, but we had fish for dinner and the whole place was decorated like some undersea thing. It was really fun and realllly good food! I tried WHALE MEAT! :O It is dark brownish blackish and not amazing but also not bad. Everyone looked really nice and we aren´t together all the time because it´s only once a week and we are all different ages and with different things but we all had a really fun time together.
So this past weekend was really fun and eventful! It was "menningarhelgi" aka cultural weekend which was a weekend for all the AFS exchange students. It involved many fun things like going to the museums, sightseeing, and meeting the president, and having permission to not go to school. I´ll explain now how it went day by day.
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