I can’t believe that it is my last day in Iceland. As excited as I am to see people at home, I am terribly sad to leave. Right now, I am sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by the smell of French toast, Libby, Dom, Alex, James, Dom’s friend from Australia, Camilia, Liam, and Constantinos. Everyone from all floors has to use the third floor kitchen (my kitchen) as all of the other kitchens have been locked in preparation for the building’s transition into a summer hotel. It is such a sad transition to watch. Yesterday, Libby, Alex, Constantinos, Christian, and I came home from four days driving around the island to the sight of beds and desks littering the hallways and the smell of paint covering up all of the damages we have inflicted on the building throughout the course of the last year. It is too bad that they can’t wait just a little bit longer so that we don’t have to witness the change--- the building feels like it is being killed! My packing is coming along. So far, I have a densely rolled layer of clothes on the bottom of my duffle bag and have begun to work on fitting in my shoes in the most efficient way possible. My room looks messy, much to my despair, but my wall decorations still are cheerfully adorning the wall.
Wow. So much has happened in the last couple of weeks. We have been going NON stop! After 10 days of hanging around Reykjavik, taking care of various city-based things I had been meaning to accomplish, we set off on our glacial geology field course. Amazingly, we had STUNNING weather for the entire course! I was in a short sleeved t-shirt for a couple of minutes one day! It was unreal! The first three days of the trip were dominated by driving, walking around glaciers, talking, stopping for ice cream (our professors seem obsessed with ice cream and candy), and worrying about not having enough food. We were told not to bring our own food, that there would be plenty at the hotel, buttttt there was not. The first night, I resorted to mixing sugar with powdered creamer to fill up after dinner… not a good sign. I guess I don’t really feel like going in to all of the details of the trip, but in essence, I had an amazing time. I learned quite a bit, met a lot of really, really sweet people (who, unfortunately, had been in class with me the entire semester without me knowing just how cool they are), basked in the sun, and went on some fantastic morning runs. I got up at 6:15 each morning to fit in a run, and was pleasantly surprised each time by the calm, cool weather and light skies. As weird as the 24 (essentially) hour light can be, it sure makes it easier to get up. Man, this is making me sad to write about!
After the glacial geology course, we returned to Reykjavik for one night, before taking off again for a 4 day trip allllll the way around the island and a bit into the West Fjords. It was tons and tons of driving, but I think that it was totally worth it. We saw lots of the stuff I had been itching to see, including Myvatn, Akureyri, the East Fjords, the West Fjords, countless waterfalls, and endless amazing views. We were fairly packed into a little car, but people were in high spirits, so it didn’t seem to matter. We had been planning on staying in the car or sleeping right outside the car, but one of the boys didn’t have a sleeping bag, so we wound up staying in little hostels every night. We got an amazing deal at a little hotel in the West Fjords the first night, stayed with a friendly old Icelandic/ Faroese couple the second night, and then stayed in a tiny old church turned hostel for the last night. The final night’s setting was definitely my favorite—I had been intrigued by the cute little churches that litter the countryside, so it was great to get to sleep in one for a night. While it was definitely a functional little hostel, they had left some of the pews, the alter, and other little churchy bits intact, which made it especially quaint.
Oh man, I need to go close my bank account and take care of some stuff downtown, so the rest of this may have to wait. Maybe I will write an extensive and reflective post in an airport on the way home. All of this is just so, so surreal. Didn’t I just get here?! Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
School's Out!
After an intense finals week (actually, weeks), I "wrote" my last exam this morning! They definitely stuck it to us in terms of school work for this last little bit, but I suppose that 2.5 weeks of hard work is better than lots of hard work all semester while trying to fit in traveling and experiencing the country. Now, I have 10 days off before leaving for my glacial geology field trip. I was really hoping to get in some serious traveling during this time, but that is beginning to look more and more unlikely. Everyone's schedules are so variable due to continued finals and visitors that it is really hard to find a reasonable number of people to travel with. Because of that, I think we have settled on accomplishing everything we've been meaning to accomplish right around Reykjavik and then doing a whirlwind trip to the north after we return from our field trip, but before we head home. I can't believe that home is about three weeks away. I don't think I am going to truly believe it until I am in my bed. Even then, I imagine that I am going to wake up and expect to be in my cozy, little, heart covered bed in Gamli!
Because some people had already finished their finals before today and needed to get home for summer jobs, we have been watching the slow departure from the building. We had an intense good bye session for Jonathan, a second floor boy from Canada, who was the first member of my relatively central crew to depart. Tonight it Joel's last night, so we have two cakes to "celebrate" his departure. Joel and Jonathan are both dynamic members of the second floor, so their absence is going to be extremely noticeable. Sad. It is just really, really strange to not know when I am going to see any of these people again. I mean, the person who lives closest to me is Allie in BC, but BC is still quite an excursion from Walla Walla or Corvallis. Right now, we have grand plans about seeing one another again, and I am confident that I WILL see some people, but there are others that I probably won't, which is really too bad. I mean, I spent an entire semester of my life living with these people! There aren't THAT many people that I am going to live with for 5 months throughout the course of my life! Living in Iceland has been a totally unique experience, obviously. I mean, for the rest of my life, when I think back on my "study abroad," these are the people and this is the place that I am going to think of! How has this come and (almost) gone! I feel I pretty much take my life in Iceland for granted, but I really hope that I can remember for these last few weeks how wild it is that this has been my home. What a good home it has been, too.
There are so many straaannggee things about this country, but they all do so much to make it what it is. I feel like I have learned so much from being in a system that operates so differently than the systems I am used to in the United States. I've been here long enough that I have sort of stopped noticing the oddities, but I bet I am really going to miss them when I return home. What am I going to do when someone waves at me on a run?!
Actually! I got waved to REPEATEDLY the other day on my run! It was amazing! I couldn't stop smiling. When I left for my run, it was sunny and nice, but I could tell that I was running into a pretty severe cloud. As I neared the halfway mark the sky let loose in an intense hailstorm. I was running along one of the paths on the water, so I got the chance to intersect several runners. The first couple just stared straight ahead, as if they weren't being pelted by tons of little ice balls, but as the storm intensified, people started laughing and smiling! It was a pretty funny image. All of us running with our heads down, getting slammed by painful little beads. I couldn't remember the last time I had that much fun while running! I saw this one guy twice and both times he waved at me in a such a gleeful way. It made me sooooo happy. When I got home, I was completely drenched and my exposed skin was covered in little red bumps from the hail, but I was ecstatic. Joel wrote a little poem about all of his friends in Gamli (one line per person) and my line read "Sara the farm girl she just loves to run, I think she's a masochist because that's really not fun" and when I got home from that run, Dom said "Hmm... I think maybe you are a masochist" Ha!
Oh my gosh! The daffodils are finally blooming! I have to take a picture of them, because there are actually quite a few sprinkled throughout town. Let me tell you, they are certainly a sight for sore eyes. As sad as I will be to leave these people and this place, I am NOT sad about leaving the weather. I feel like I've been handling it a litttlee bit better than some people because of my western Oregon upbringing, but man, I am still ready for some warmth and sun.
On a completely different note, last Friday we went to a filming of the TV show "Icelandic Idol." It is just like American idol, but in Icelandic (and probably smaller scale). We were seated in the second row, which was pretty cool, because it really felt like we were in on the action. We had no idea what they were saying, of course, (except for when the hosts said two lines in English as a joke), but it was still entertaining. I felt SO bad for the guy who got voted off though. That is a hard thing for a person like me to watch in real life! We took a picture in front of the stage, so hopefully I get a copy of it to post on here! I had never been to a live TV show thing before-- it was really interesting to watch them do all the camera work. I never knew how many cameras were zooming around at any one time! It is sort of chaotic!
Well, I think I might head down to the kitchen for a last second floor hang out with Joel. Hopefully he sings along to lots of Neal Young tonight, since that is his specialty. He buys lots of Monsanto pesticides for his farm. Ha!
Because some people had already finished their finals before today and needed to get home for summer jobs, we have been watching the slow departure from the building. We had an intense good bye session for Jonathan, a second floor boy from Canada, who was the first member of my relatively central crew to depart. Tonight it Joel's last night, so we have two cakes to "celebrate" his departure. Joel and Jonathan are both dynamic members of the second floor, so their absence is going to be extremely noticeable. Sad. It is just really, really strange to not know when I am going to see any of these people again. I mean, the person who lives closest to me is Allie in BC, but BC is still quite an excursion from Walla Walla or Corvallis. Right now, we have grand plans about seeing one another again, and I am confident that I WILL see some people, but there are others that I probably won't, which is really too bad. I mean, I spent an entire semester of my life living with these people! There aren't THAT many people that I am going to live with for 5 months throughout the course of my life! Living in Iceland has been a totally unique experience, obviously. I mean, for the rest of my life, when I think back on my "study abroad," these are the people and this is the place that I am going to think of! How has this come and (almost) gone! I feel I pretty much take my life in Iceland for granted, but I really hope that I can remember for these last few weeks how wild it is that this has been my home. What a good home it has been, too.
There are so many straaannggee things about this country, but they all do so much to make it what it is. I feel like I have learned so much from being in a system that operates so differently than the systems I am used to in the United States. I've been here long enough that I have sort of stopped noticing the oddities, but I bet I am really going to miss them when I return home. What am I going to do when someone waves at me on a run?!
Actually! I got waved to REPEATEDLY the other day on my run! It was amazing! I couldn't stop smiling. When I left for my run, it was sunny and nice, but I could tell that I was running into a pretty severe cloud. As I neared the halfway mark the sky let loose in an intense hailstorm. I was running along one of the paths on the water, so I got the chance to intersect several runners. The first couple just stared straight ahead, as if they weren't being pelted by tons of little ice balls, but as the storm intensified, people started laughing and smiling! It was a pretty funny image. All of us running with our heads down, getting slammed by painful little beads. I couldn't remember the last time I had that much fun while running! I saw this one guy twice and both times he waved at me in a such a gleeful way. It made me sooooo happy. When I got home, I was completely drenched and my exposed skin was covered in little red bumps from the hail, but I was ecstatic. Joel wrote a little poem about all of his friends in Gamli (one line per person) and my line read "Sara the farm girl she just loves to run, I think she's a masochist because that's really not fun" and when I got home from that run, Dom said "Hmm... I think maybe you are a masochist" Ha!
Oh my gosh! The daffodils are finally blooming! I have to take a picture of them, because there are actually quite a few sprinkled throughout town. Let me tell you, they are certainly a sight for sore eyes. As sad as I will be to leave these people and this place, I am NOT sad about leaving the weather. I feel like I've been handling it a litttlee bit better than some people because of my western Oregon upbringing, but man, I am still ready for some warmth and sun.
On a completely different note, last Friday we went to a filming of the TV show "Icelandic Idol." It is just like American idol, but in Icelandic (and probably smaller scale). We were seated in the second row, which was pretty cool, because it really felt like we were in on the action. We had no idea what they were saying, of course, (except for when the hosts said two lines in English as a joke), but it was still entertaining. I felt SO bad for the guy who got voted off though. That is a hard thing for a person like me to watch in real life! We took a picture in front of the stage, so hopefully I get a copy of it to post on here! I had never been to a live TV show thing before-- it was really interesting to watch them do all the camera work. I never knew how many cameras were zooming around at any one time! It is sort of chaotic!
Well, I think I might head down to the kitchen for a last second floor hang out with Joel. Hopefully he sings along to lots of Neal Young tonight, since that is his specialty. He buys lots of Monsanto pesticides for his farm. Ha!
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