3 posts tagged “iceland”

So...I'm finally updating.  I apologize for the severe lack in update, but I wanted to wait until I got settled. 

New York & The Plane:

The drive to New York went much better than I expected.  We only got lost once and it was very easily corrected.  When we arrived at St. John's my mom and aunt had to leave before I could officially sign in.  At that moment it still hadn't really hit me that I wouldn't be seeing these people for 11 months.  I said goodbye with ease and went to find my room for the night.  I met the two other Americans headed to Iceland and many other exchangers headed to Finland, Sweden, and Latvia.  The orientation flew by.  We talked about rules, safety measures, culture shock, and our respective host countries.  We did exercises about communication when you can't speak the same language.  And so on and so forth.  It was all pretty redundant.  I just wanted to get on the plane and go.

That night however I felt the depth of what I was doing.  I just wanted to rewind and give my mom a big big hug.  I talked to the other girls in my room though and felt a bit better.  The next day at noon the three Iceland-bounds said goodbye to the other outbounds as they went to the airport for their flight to Stockholm (some would stay in Sweden and the others would catch connections there).  We would be departing much later (5 o'clock to be precise) to JFK to catch our flight to Keflavik. 

My suitcase was indeed 2 kilos over the limit, but the nice lady at the check-in counter just let me put 2 kilos of stuff into one of the other exchange student's suitcase.  It was quite convenient.  Our flight was short and a little turbulent but altogether not bad.  When we landed in Keflavik we navigated our way to passport regulation where we only met a bit of questioning and then onto the luggage carousel.  We made it through customs fine and out into the reception area where we were met by (pause for dramatic effect) no one.  There was no AFS sign waiting for us, no smiling face, no "Velkomin Til Íslands," nope nothing.   So we sat, and sat, and exchanged money, and sat, and went to the bathroom, and sat, and sat, and checked out the convenience store, and sat, and sat, and called the AFS Iceland office (unfortunately it was not open until 10), and sat, and played cards, and sat some more, and then finally after 3 hours of biding our time a smiling face approached us and said "AFS?"   Já Já!!  You have to understand that I was dead tired by now.  I did not sleep at all on the plane nor much the night before.  I was about to pass out right there.  So seeing an AFS volunteer was like seeing God descend from the heavens.  I just wanted to get to orientation and sleep until the cows came home.

Orientation & The Drive Home:

The first day of orientation was just the arrival day.  We waited for all of the other exchangers to get there, because we were (of course) one of the first groups to arrive.  We walked into downtown Kopavogur, ate, and slept.  Later in the day I got to meet some of the other exchange students and chatted with them.  Then we went to sleep.  The next day we went to the pool which was right next to the orientation site.  It was so nice to get clean.  My hair had been crisco central.   The rest of the day we broke into groups by countries (I was with the two other Americans, Taylor & Euan, A crazy funny guy from Australia, Oliver, and a girl from Venezuela, Adriany) and discussed Iceland, its customs, its language, etc.  We also prepared for the evening's talent show.  Taylor, Euan, and I were doing a rendition of Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry."  Taylor would be on the ukelele, Euan vocals, and I would be fulfilling the ever important role of the spoons.  It actually went over rather well.  The talent show in general was a blast.  After the show we walked outside a bit so that we could see the fireworks in Reykjavik because it was a culture night festival thing.   Then we headed back and slept.

The next day we talked about adjusting to Icelandic life and met with Rosa, the head honcho of AFS Iceland.  We were all pretty jittery because we would be meeting our host families that afternoon.  I was kind of sad that I would be leaving the exchange students.  I had made a lot of friends.  Fortunately I had found out the day before that two of the Italian students would be at my school in Keflavik.  So we would see each other within the next week (school started on the 22nd).  Slowly the host families started to pour in and I said goodbye to the friends I had made; promising to e-mail and assuring them that I would be at the 6 week camp in September.   Then I recognized my pabbi and brother Julius from the pictures they had sent me.  It was a little nerve-racking as I got into the car. 

The drive home was good though.  Sandgerði is about a 40 minute drive from the greater Reykjavik area.  Along the way pabbi pointed out certain places and told me about them.  It was nice. When we arrived I got to meet mamma, who welcomed me with open arms, and Gunnar (my other host brother).  I unpacked my stuff and moved into my bedroom.  I wasn't all that tired as I had caught up on my sleep at orientation.  We had a nice dinner together and I felt good.

Life Here:

I've been with my host family for over 10 days now.  I think I'm adjusting rather well.  Icelandic is difficult but I'm slowly learning phrases and words; the grammar and pronunciation will (hopefully) follow.   I've been to my first Icelandic football match (my pabbi is a big football fan so it is the first of many to come) and to the Sandgerði town festival.  I've attempted to fish (it ended very quickly as I got the line stuck on some seaweed) and I've seen the sun set at midnight (which is seriously really cool; you can see the sun over the horizon but if you look straight up you can see the stars plain as day).

Some differences that I've noticed here:
-You bag your own purchases at stores (I'm not sure if this applies to clothing stores, but anywhere else it's true)
-You are allowed to pee outside (I've witnessed my host brother taking advantage of this Icelandic law)
-You can leave school at pretty much any time throughout the day
-The cafeteria at school is ALWAYS open and there is ALWAYS someone eating
-You take your shoes off when entering a home
-If someone visits (or you visit someone) you will always ask them to stay for coffee (you will always be asked to stay for some coffee)
-If the show you are watching is on an Icelandic channel it has to be in Icelandic or sub-titled, 'tis law (even the music, which can lead to some horrible background songs)
-A lot of food products are imported like Haribo gummy bears from Denmark, Tom & Jerry crackers from Finland, Nesquik from Norway, and cheerios from the U.K.
-My host mamma has never heard of cinnamon sugar on toast (what a travesty!!)
-The Icelandic word for balloon and blister is the same

I can't really think of any more at the moment

School:

School is okay.  Manu and Alessandra (the two Italian exchange students) are in a lot of my classes which is good.  I am taking Art, Icelandic for foreigners, Danish, Photoshop, Math (something about vectors), and SAM (it's like a social skills/speech class).  My classes are pretty good, but I despise SAM.  It is the bane of my existence.  It is the epitome of all that is evil in this world wrapped up in a innocent little package gallivanting around disguised as a communications class.  Actually...it's not that bad, but it is pretty annoying.  I don't think anyone else would appreciate having to stand up in front of a class full of people, as a foreigner, having to make speech after speech.  But I digress.  School is alright and I will survive.

Tomorrow night I am going to a fundraising concert that pabbi is playing at.  I got to hear him play during the town festival (technically it was at the local pub, which I am not legally allowed in but, tee hee, I was with the band, tee hee) and he is really very very good.  He plays with a local band called Klassert who recently appeared in an article in an Icelandic gossip magazine because they won a contest and will be touring Europe (pabbi will not be going with them as his wife, my mamma, did just have a child).  Friday I am going to a football game with pabbi in Sandgerði and Saturday is Ljósa Nótt (Night of Lights), a big festival in Keflavik.  So, I hope to update soon with pictures and more stories about Iceland.

Hope you're all doing well!  Mail would be lovely (either electronic or snail, any word from you is appreciated)! 
Oh, I have uploaded some pictures so check the link on the right!

Bless!

So, it's (semi-ish) official, I'm going to Iceland in August and shall not be returning until June.  For those of you too lazy to do the math, it's around 11 months. Why, you may ask am I going to a country, slightly smaller than the state of Kentucky with a population just shy of 300,000, where I do not speak the language for practically a year? To study of course!

Iceland

It's amazing how much wanderlust one little brochure can spark in people, myself included. I never would have imagined 5 months ago that I would be studying abroad. I mean 5 months ago I had just gotten back from a two week stint in Japan, was trying to speak English normally (It's amazing what two weeks of trying to make your English understandable to non-native-English-speakers can do. I came back saying things like "This building have many floor." ...crazy), preparing myself for the new school year (sophomore year...what a drag), and trying to salvage what was left of my summer break. I was most definitely not entertaining ideas of spending my junior year in a treeless, sulfur-smelling country, that's for sure. But somewhere along the line I was sucked in to the ever-alluring life that is foreign exchange. Basically, an AFS (American Field Service) representative talked to some of the history classes about study abroad and I found out about the program by "borrowing" someone's brochure. Inside held information on practically every country you could ever dream of visiting each with various programs ranging from a semester, year, summer homestay, language plus, or community service.  Of course they had the big ones like France, Germany, Italy, and Australia but I was surprised at some of the other choices such as Latvia, Dominican Republic, and Ghana.  At first I wanted to go back to Japan because I missed it so much, but then I remembered how crazy (read: really competitive) their schools are. So then I happened upon Iceland, it had always been such a mysterious country in my eyes. And, how many times in your life do you get the opportunity to go to Iceland? Not many.

So, I filled out my application, got a teacher recommendation, had an interview and sent it off. My application was accepted and sent off to AFS Iceland. Today I found out that AFS Iceland has accepted me. Now they are searching for a homestay family.  I wish them luck, for that task could prove challenging what with my allergies to normal household pets (cats, dogs, rabbits) and just my complete lack of normalcy.

So begins my study abroad adventure.