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!