Almost gone with the wind

Last week was rather quiet since I caught the flue or a rather unpleasant cold, as you probably figured out from my latest blog where I was just feeling sorry for myself. I had fever, muscle pains, knee pains, a running nose, couch, stiff neck, etc. you name it. On Tuesday I crawled then to the nearest pharmacy I knew and asked the clerk there to give me strongest couch medicine they have. He gave me some random bottle with just Icelandic on it. But hey, if a handsome Icelandic guy tells you to drink from a bottle of whose content you have no clue 3-5 times a day, then you'll of course do as he says. ;) (that stuff is actually pretty good)
Fortunately I didn't die as opposed to my wish last Monday and I do feel much better though I'm still coughing like a 90-year old who smoked for 100 years.
So last week was really uneventful since I didn't go to class until Wednesday and I only have two classes on Wednesdays (of which one I skipped) and one on Thursdays. Fridays are always off. Wooo! But I got to read a lot and watch Scrubs. That's always good.
It snowed on Thursday and everything was pretty for 3 hours, then the snow had already melted again and turned into ice on the streets. But on Thursdays the Lebowski Bar in town has a Movie-Quiz going on and I went there with a few housemates and other people I know. You had to guess a bunch of different movies from just seeing a small scene or part of the movie poster etc. It was great fun and I'll definitely go there again! Though I definitely knew way too many movies there and made me worry about my social life history. :D And my throat felt after an evening at the bar like the Sahara itself....
Friday I and two other exchange students had been invited for dinner at my mentor's and her boyfriend's place. The food was incredibly good with sweet potatoes, some Mexican cheese, mushrooms, and other things I had no idea what they were but they were delicious! And it was an overall a fun evening. I hit the jackpot with my mentor I'd say. :)

Saturday my housemates and I hit the road again. This time to the south of Iceland. Luckily we got the day where was a big storm warning and that storm was actually real. So strong wind all the time but it was a fun experience. We went first so Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall. It's one of the best known waterfalls in Iceland and it's truly beautiful. One special thing about it is that you can actually walk behind it. It's funny how none of us thought that you could actually get wet when going behind a waterfall but after we were soaking wet it made perfectly sense. Thank god, I had my waterproof outdoor clothes on (though I put them on so I wouldn't get cold...).
Our next stop was Skógafoss. Another waterfall! Iceland is kinda full of waterfalls. It's situated by the cliffs of the former coastline. So you can walk there where hundreds of years ago used to be only the Atlantic. It's as well one of the biggest ones and legend says that the first Viking settler Þrasi Þórólfsson hid a treasure behind it but nobody so far has found that treasure. There was a staircase going besides the waterfall up the cliffs and from up there you had a magnificent view over the landscapes. And nothing for anybody who's scared of heights. But I am scared of heights and I went up there because I'm just dumb like that! But it was worth it. :) You see the wast emptiness of the land and the untouched nature. Since there are no trees anywhere in sight you can see incredibly far and it gives you some kind of respect to your surroundings. Next we came to Dyrhólaey, the place everybody always sees on the postcards and travel books from Iceland. It's with the famous cliffs and rock formations right by the Atlantic. And I have to say it was breathtaking! Not only because the wind was going probably something like 30m/s, tried to push you off the cliffs (literally) and made it impossible to open the car door on certain moments. But because it is so incredibly beautiful especially if there is a storm going and the waves of the Atlantic or so big and powerful. You have there nature in its purest form. The colors, the smells, the sounds...everything is just unbelievable. A place I can highly recommend and will have to come back to! After this we went to Vík and looked at the black beaches there and the Reynisdrangar. The famous rock formations of which is said that those were actually two trolls dragging a three-masted ship to land but then the sun came up and they turned into stone. Because trolls turn into stone when touched by the sunlight. As the final stop we went to a huge lavafield and you can't even see the volcano who caused it because it's so far away. So that eruption back in the 18th century was quite a big one. Good thing I wasn't back then in Iceland.
(text continues after pictures)

 
    

 

And now something for a good laugh: One of my housemates and I decided on knitting our own lopapeysas (Icelandic sweaters)! We should start this weekend. Looking at the instructions I feel more like "Good lord, why the hell did I ever think this could be remotely easy?!". But now it's out there and I have to do it! I have to proof to you, my anonymous readers, that I will actually finish this plan of mine.

I think this was all for day. I should write more because here's so much to tell and I really do enjoy writing this here. Yay or nay? :)
Are you done laughing yet?

Because it's not always fun and play

Being abroad isn't all the time just fun and with this post I want to show that I myself have hard times here. Yes, the chick who has moved 11 times in the past 7 years and has usually no bigger issues in adapting to a new culture, is having a shitty day today.
I get homesick too, like everyone else. Though I am probably one of those lucky ones who only has to fight them with for a short time with period (max. a day, usually only a couple of hours or until something else occupies my mind). Those moments come suddenly, just at the most random moments and you are hit with this absolute feeling of loneliness. The only thing to do then is to shake off those bad thoughts and focus on something else, the things you love in your new environment and the new things waiting ahead of you.
But there are days where you can't do that and those are most of the times the ones where you are sick. I came down with a fever last night, not sleeping any at all, shaking a lot which caused my muscles to tense up and now I'm just in excruciating pain. Plus I have a neck pain, headache and problems with swallowing food. The fever seems to rise now as well again. My right knee is really amused about all of this, the fever caused the muscles to tense up in the legs too and right now I'm hoping somebody would come and cut my leg off.
These are the worst days. You wish you were in your own apartment, in your own room with your pillows and blankets. No cars outside, only the constant quiet humming of the fridge, which brings you into sleep. I wish I had my sweatpants with me so I wouldn't have had to change into my normal clothes for going to the nearby store to buy ice cream. I wish I had taken my medicine with me which helps when swallowing is the most difficult thing in your life. I just wish I was at home in my own bed which makes me feel safe.
I wish I was in Finland. But I'm not, so I'm hoping for a better day tomorrow.

There you go, it's out there! I feel like shit! I'm homesick! Now everyone knows. And I know tomorrow things will hopefully look better. Because that's what it is all about.

Testicles, hopefulness and penises

The title is lovely, isn't it? :)
So this week wasn't as uneventful as I thought it would be. You never get truly bored here!
On Thursday I went on a spontaneous trip to the Blue Lagoon with two of my housemates, a classmates and his visitor. The Blue Lagoon is a man-made lagoon in a lava field close to Grindavík, about 40min by car from Reykjavík. It's called Blue Lagoon because the water is blue, obviously. It's said to have positive effects on the skin because it's full of silica and sulphur (silica gives it the blueish color). It was actually very nice and relaxing just to swim in the water. You had the wild nature around you and even had the chance to buy smoothies by the bar in the water. We spent I think two hours in the water where we got at one point, while goofing off with the little bridges over the water, the object of some woman's camera. The camera actually looked kinda decent and she was having huge blast taking pictures of us. I asked her if it was possible to see the pictures she said it's not since she's leaving the next day for New York. So maybe one day we'll find ourselves in some art pictures in a gallery somewhere in the world! :D

On Friday was an event by ESN Reykjavík where they served traditional Icelandic food. You know, the Vikings had a really nice time for the first 200 years in Iceland, it was fruitful, full of trees and here was actually some decent agriculture. But then they kinda used too many trees and a mini ice age hit Iceland in the 13th century so it wasn't such a pleasant place to be at anymore and they had to eat whatever moved and ALL of it, since there wasn't much left anymore on a godforsaken island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean (how did anybody of them ever think that this was a great idea?). So now traditional Icelandic food consists of rotten shark, whale, sheep testicles, sheep heads, smoked sheep and blood sausages etc. I tried all of them, except the whale. And I already had the rotten shark before so I didn't want to do that again my senses. The sheep testicles were disgusting, I found the sheep head actually even more disgusting, smoked lamp was pretty good, so were all the different kinds of bread. I loved the blood sausage and the sweets of course. My German housemate couldn't even eat the blood sausage she found it so disgusting and you can guess how my French housemate felt about the food. ;)

After that I ended up first trying to find a decent party going on in town for two hours with the girlfriend of one of my housemates but in Iceland one really shouldn't bother going out before midnight. It's empty! Nobody there! Icelandic people start coming in to town with their big cars and causing traffic at Laugavegur around 1am and at 2am they will be in the bars. The bars close all at 4am or 5am. Makes sense.....right?....right? I had a nice night anyway. I ended up in Danske Kro where a live band was playing. Though here are EVERYWHERE live bands playing all the time, this is really an artistic nation, they are like weed, just freaking everywhere. After that I was in b5, apparently THE CLUB to be in Reykjavík. Well, it was small. But there was music you could somehow dance to. I have to say I liked the nightlife here (except for the part where you don't show your face in the bars until 1 or 2am). The people are so easygoing here, just happily singing with the live bands (and the live bands are a plus too because they are actually good!), talking to everybody and being drunk but not in an aggressive way as in Finland. Example, I was waiting in line for the toilet in a bar (Hresso) and some Icelandic girl just randomly started talking to me! After she found out that I don't speak Icelandic she just continued chitchatting to me in English. Would that ever happen in Finland? Hell will freeze before that. :D

At Danske Kro I was waiting in line for the restroom again (ok, maybe Icelanders just like to talk while in line for restrooms?):

Icelandic guy: "*says something in Icelandic*"

Me: "Sorry, ég tala ekki íslensku." (I don't speak Icelandic)

Icelandic guy: "Oh, ok!.......You are cute!" *and just walks away* 

Just like that! I love it! The Icelanders are as random as their way of deciding where to built their houses or what color to paint them in. :)

Today I took a nice long walk with one of my housemates trying to find the lighthouse somewhere. We never made it actually to the lighthouse since we took the long but beautiful zic-zac way and were too tired to walk the last 1-2km to the lighthouse. But it was so wonderful just walking right by the sea, hear the majestic waves hit the shore, touch the black sand and look into the big world. It made you feel tiny, powerless and lonely but at the same time hopeful. Yes, I'm weird like that. You see just the big wide Atlantic in front of you and you see how small you are on this earth. It makes you wonder how lonely the Vikings must have felt when first arriving here, abandoned in a small island somewhere in the world but full of hope for a better life there. Just hoping that they will survive and thrive one day. Maybe that's why the houses are so colorful? To show some hope and joy for life in a place where you might not expect it. I really love Iceland.

 

Then we went as well to the Phallological Museum! A museum dedicated to penises! .... And that is it, a museum with penises. They had a whole bunch of penises of different animals and some casts of human ones and even a real (I must say small) human one. It was just weird...I still don't understand it how somebody could come up with the idea of it and why I was so stupid paying entrance to it.
There is really not much to say about it....it's a place full of penises. And this is probably the most amount of times I've used the word "penis" in a piece of writing. I as well hope the last time...

 

I suck at uploading pictures to my blog...

Last week was eventful. So therefore I am now pretty bored because this week feels to empty. haha
I tried on Wednesday with some housemates the Icelandic Brennvin. It's also called "Black Death", which is funny, because it's neither black nor am I dead. But I got drunk, though managed without a hangover. So that drink isn't really bad nor does it have a special distinguishable taste (sorry Icelanders), but I still like it.
Friday I went to a "science field trip" from the English student union here at Arion Banki (a bank). Icelandic companies will invite students to visit them on a Friday evening and advertise themselves on them in order to win new customers, employees or potential partners in the future. In exchange the students get free booze and food (pizza!). There was an one hour long presentation going on about the bank....in Icelandic. I was so bored that I started translating the easy Icelandic words on my Coke bottle. I know now what "calorie" is in Icelandic. :D But else it was nice.
The next day I and my housemates had then our big Golden Circle road trip! After some issues with the car rental company for an hour in the morning we finally got ourselves to squeeze into a van. 7 girls in one van and we did great!

The Golden Circle is an about 300km long route outside of Reykjavík and offers some big attractions. It's obviously very popular for tourists but we were lucky and only the Geysir was flooded with tourists. I really don't wanna see that place during the summer. We went counter clockwise as opposed most people do it and saw first the little town Selfoss and then the Geysir. The actual Geysir doesn't erupt anymore on a frequent regular basis but there was a smaller one right next to it which blows up about all 10 minutes. It looked really nice, but too many tourists there. Next stop was the Gulfoss waterfall and that one is just amazing! It was halfway frozen and you had this incredible power of the waterfall down there, the small canyon and just Icelandic nature around you. I could have stayed there longer if my legs hadn't started to turn into icicles as well. Our last stop was then the Þingvellir National Park. The sun was setting so we had our breath taken away like every other minute. Iceland just keeps topping itself over and over! Yea, we already know that you are freaking awesome! No need to show off more! But Iceland has a tendency to do that.... I will definitely come back to hike in the park and take a look at the town there where the first parliament in the world was formed. Yes, the savage Vikings actually formed the very first parliament of the world around 1000AD in Iceland. There is of course nothing left of it anymore but as an example in 1944 (yell at me if I got this wrong) the Icelandic people announced their independence of Denmark there and not at the parliament in Reykjavík, so it's still an important place, sort of.
We saw the continental divide there too (some liked it way too much) which is impressive when you think about it that you are this very exact moment standing on the European AND the American continental plate at the same time. Further more those plates keep on drifting apart and Iceland actually grows each year by about 5cm. Iceland is taking over the world! In like 100 million years.......

After this exciting day we got home and I was planning on resting and proposing drinks for the evening but my housemates had other plans! I actually was walked into a surprise birthday party! How lovely are my housemates?! Like the best ones in the world, I'm calling dips on that. They are the best ones in the world, really. We had good neighbourhood pizza, delicious happy pink chocolate cake and even got a small gift, which was the best gift ever! It's a magnet with an old Icelandic picture of sheep running through the Icelandic landscape, all in black and white. So this was overall just an amazing birthday and so many thanks again to the greatest housemates in the world! Couldn't have wished for better ones! :)

  

Vacation is over, you rotten shark!

No, I stil haven't started writing in a diary, so I'm probably forgetting half of the things again.

Last Saturday we were at the Fleamarket of Reykjavík, Kolaportið. It's down by the harbour and only open on weekends. You can get there secondhand clothing, lopapeysas too, and fresh fish! And the infamous rotten shark. Since one is in Iceland one has of course to try that delicates….it's disgusting. It is not as disgusting as you might think it is but it is disgusting. First you think "Oh, this isn't that bad" and then it just hits you. And the taste stays then in your month, for at least half an hour. Joy. 

Here you have the rotten shark and the market.

 

I did buy then some fresh (amazing) fish for only like 3e/200g. :)
While I was buying that fish and waiting to be my turn to pay (there was a line), the clerk turned suddenly to the other side of the stall and cashed the waiting customers there. I didn't mind since it was really busy and just started slowly walking to the other side of the stall. But an old Icelandic lady saw that who had been looking at the fish right next to me and fussed at the clerk angrily (in Icelandic) for not serving me first. It was cute. haha

Other big news: Vacation is over! Classes started for me today finally and first I was thinking "Nah, even though the course says 10 Credits, they can't be that much work". Well, they are. Only for my American Novel class I have to read 8 novels and write 4 essays about them, each 5-7 pages! Vacation is definitely over and I guess this means that I actually have to do some work now again and can't be the lazy bum I have been for the past week. :'D

Classes seemed at least really interesting but I do understand now why you can't even register here for more than 40 Credits….

And a funny story for the end:

I was yesterday at the university's bookstore and bought my Icelandic language books. They are called "Learning Icelandic". It's written in huge letters over those books. But the person at the counter was just happily talking in Icelandic to me (Anything else? Do you want a bag? Do you want the receipt?). Dude, look at the books I'm giving you! Do I look like I'm just buying them for fun? (Well, I am learning Icelandic for fun, but…). I just found it funny. :)

Bye bye planned learning agreement and swimming outside

A lot has happened and because of my amazing memory I have forgotten half of it already! (A diary might be a good idea)
This week we had Monday the orientation meeting for the exchange students, there was the usual unnecessary bla. But the Háskóli Íslands has right now 1100 exchange student!!! That makes 8% of the whole student population, but this spring only like 100 arrived?
Some of my housemates already had classes this week since we got our Kennitala (hihi, ID number), passwords for the university and had the chance to register for classes. My classes don't start until next week but I changed my planned learning agreement completely and this is the new plan:
- Vocabulary 1 (Icelandic language course) (10 ECTS)
- Icelandic Nature and Culture Legacy (10 ECTS)
- British Society, History and Culture (5 ECTS)
- The American Novel (10 ECTS)
So with this I get my 35 credits. The classes sound like fun. For the Nature and Culture Legacy course we'll be actually going on small field trips. :)

The Icelanders like firework a lot. They have been shooting them off each night so far, even right now some neighbour just let some explode (it's 2:30pm). So I guess they'll have them used up until next new year's eve and then stock up again? :D

Yesterday I was as well with my housemates swimming in the outdoor swimming pool Vesturbaejarlaug (now say that 3 times in a row fast). The water was warm and they had 4 hot tups with much warmer water where you were able just to relax. It was really nice and great looking at the stars at the same time. It relaxes you, like the sauna. :)

The hobbit has arrived in Middle Earth

New years went by with an incredible party amongst friends and suddenly after a rainy night in Oslo I found myself in Reykjavik.
And I have to say: I LOVE it! Everybody told me to please come back from Iceland in the spring and I thought "Come on, of course I will."….yea, that's cancelled. Just kidding, still planning to come back of course in the spring. Before actually coming here I heard all those people just being so excited about Iceland, telling me how amazing it is and how I will love the country, but I wasn't quite convinced. Because it sounded too good to be true, no place can be THAT great, but I do understand those people now completely! The landscapes are breathtaking, just already the drive from Keflavik to Reykjavik is worth the money you payed. You just sit there for 50km in a bus and drive through lavafields right next to the sea and behind the see are mountains.
During my first two days now I've met a couple of my housemates, walked through the city, went to Hallgrimskirkja and was just stunned by everything. And today I bought myself a lopapeysa, the traditional Icelandic wool sweater. I bought it from Thorvaldsens Bazar. It's I think the cheapest and best way to buy a lopapeysa (except for fleamarkets). The Thorvaldsens bazar is special for it being the oldest store in Reykjavik, since 1903. And second is because volunteers make those lopapeysas and all the money goes into charity, mainly children in need. I rather see my money go to people who really need it than to some greedy tourist stores.
The house I live in is great too. Only about 200m away form Hallgrimskirkja, right next to Laugavegur, the main street of Reykjavik, you can see over the whole city and only about 1km away from the university. The house is cute, with a bunch of rooms over 4 floors. I'm the monster in the basement and the others live actually all upstairs. So now I'm the hobbit in a whole in the ground because I have to climb down some really steep stairs to get to my room. A hobbit in Middle Earth therefore! :)

And this i getting long, so let's make the rest short: Was at Perlan too (the music house), which is just beautiful, will have to go to concerts there. It is really windy here, especially if you are not on the streets protected by houses. The weather has been great, the prices are the same as in Finland. Icelandic people are really stylish (and here I come in hiking boots, jeans and t-shirts….) and seem nice and open.

More later. And pictures later too, maybe.
Takk!