Big Stupid Grin

Well, I´m sitting here with a big smile on my face, courtesy of the Icelandic horses I just got to pet. I have several new friends and I couldn´t be happier about it.

I spent the afternoon and evening with Bryndís and her husband Gunnar. Bryndís is the sister of Lísa, the cousin I am staying with, which also makes her a cousin (4th cousin to be exact). She made me saltfiskur for dinner, and it is exactly what it sounds like...really, really salty fish. We also had boiled potatoes and rutabaga and brown bread and flat bread. For dessert we had vanilla skyr with cream on it. Soooooo delicious. Earlier in the afternoon, she sat me down for 'coffee' and fed me cheese and crackers, vinarbrauð, grapes, kleinur, bread and rhubarb sauce, etc. Seriously, everytime I turn around someone is setting an incredible meal in front of me. I haven´t been hungry for a moment since I got here. Bryndís had me look through a bunch of old family photes and she pointed out to me who was who. This was 95% in Icelandic mind you, but I think I got most of it. I even managed to string together a fair share of sentences that at least got my message across.

Her husband, Gunnar, handed me a book called Nýja Ísland (New Iceland), which was writted completely in Icelandic about the immigrants that left Iceland for North America at the end of the 19th century. I was looking through it and I found the name of my great great grandfather, Jón Hjálmarsson in the list of people that had left for North America! Amazing! I was pretty fascinated by this book and I sat reading it for almost an hour before setting it down. In my head I was wondering where I could find my own copy when Gunnar handed it to me and said in Icelandic that I should take it with me as a gift. This seemed like a really huge thing to me, and I am less than confident in my ability to understand Icelandic, so I checked with him and Bryndís about a dozen times that "It is a gift? For me? To keep?!" Sooo nice! There was a lot of "Takk fyrir," (thank you) coming from me after that. It truly warmed my heart that he would give me such a thoughtful gift. He told me that he had been given the book by his mother in law, Jona Björg, who was actually my 3rd cousin once removed (Bryndís and Lísa's mother).
So anyway, after dinner she asks me if I want to get in the car and drive out to Kirkjuból, Kolfreyjustaður í Faskrúðsfirði, which is where my great grandfather, Kjartan Sveinsson worked/lived before he moved to America. It is just on the outside of town. I actually got really emotional on the drive there, thinking about how that was the spot where he once spent his time. I feel so lucky to have gotten the chance to stand there myself. It is a beautiful spot at the foot of the mountain. The house that once stood there was destroyed in 1945, but there is a picture of it and the stone foundation can still be seen, although it is mostly covered by grass and flowers.

Gunnar´s sister is the one that owns the horses, so we stopped there on the way home and I got my fix of horses, at least for a little while. I´ve been told that there are plans in the works for early next week to get me out horseback riding. Hurray!

Just a Quick Note

Here are some weblinks that show off the surrounding area (photos by a local photographer) and also the link to the town website, particularly my family´s shop.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31144608@N00/
http://soluskali.123.is/

I had two jobs to do at the bank this morning. First, I alphabetized the packages to be picked up at the post office, and then later the branch manager gave me a little tutorial on how the computer system works. Not like I´ll need to know that, since I can´t do that sort of thing in Icelandic, but it was interesting at least. That took all of 15 minutes and then I was back to keeping myself entertained at my desk. I think I might take up online poker.
Lísa brought me for another little tour around town and pointed out who lived where at what point in the town´s history. Again, I was surprised at how much I understood.
Tonight I went with my cousin Halla (pronounced Het-la) and her 7 year old daughter to the French Museum here in town, and to the French fisherman´s graveyard. There were a bunch of French fellas that came here way back when to fish and make a living and it turns out Iceland was not Frechmen friendly because a bunch of them died. Their impact on the town is still felt today. The museum and graveyard are monuments to their part of the town´s history, and all the street signs are written in Icelandic and French. I can read the French way better than the Icelandic at this point. Thanks, Mme. Proulx.

After that little adventure we drove to her parent´s house where we were served a platter of lambs head (I´m not kidding), hangikjöt, mashed rutabaga, sweetened mashed potatoes, red cabbage, and peas. I ate part of a sheep cheek and then stuck with rutabaga and hangikjöt.

She made a killer chocolate lava cake for dessert too. Halla´s mother makes beautiful woolen goods, and she gave me a little pair of mittens (like keychain or Christmas tree decoration sized) that have 2 sets of thumbs on each mitten. They are historically made this way so that when the palm of a mitten wears out you can just flip it around and use the other side. Waste not, want not!

The Training Wheels Come Off

Well, my safety net disappeared this afternoon. My English speaking cousins are going out of town until Sunday, so I´ll be sort of on my own as far as communication goes with my host relatives. I had a few moments of panic when Bogga and Thorhildur left today, but then Elísa (called Lísa) decided to make kleinur (like twisty little cake donuts for those of you who have never had them), and suddenly I had a foothold. Baking is something I can wrap my head around no matter where I am or what language is being spoken, it turns out. There was a lot of gesturing involved, but I was also thrilled with the amount of what Lísa was saying that I DID understand. It was in context of course, but still. I´m learning. I also went out on a limb and tried to actually speak Icelandic more than I have with my family up to this point. I´m sure it was pretty agrammatical and didn´t make sense a lot of the time, but I managed to communicate in a language I´ve only been learning for a short while, so I was happy. I had a lot of fun with Lísa and Stebbi (nickname for Stefán which is pronounced Stepi) making the kleinur, and then as a bonus we also made ástapungar which are sort of like kleinur, but have raisins in them and are a little sweeter tasting. I´m a big fan of both of them, and with a mountain of them in front of me, I may have gone a little overboard on the taste tests. It was soon after the kleiner binge that I made my first language faux pas. I told Lísa and Stebbi "Ég er full" (full is pronounced with a lateral lisp on the l´s, making it sound like futch). Both of them looked at me and Lísa laughed and walked away. Stebbi told me that means "I am drunk," not "I am full." Stupid Icelandic dictionary. I said it so confidently too, I was bummed that it backfired. It made me giggle all the way home actually, so I wasn´t too tramatized by the experience or anything.
The bank was low key again. I worked on my ancestry.com information and ordered my university transcripts to send to the school district where I´ll be working in the fall. So it was a productive work day in a bank, just not a productive work day working for the bank. I´m expecting more of the same tomorrow, but not sure what my time at the shop will hold in the afternoon. Lísa and Stebbi have the running of the place down to an art, so so far I´ve just been trying to stay out of the way. I was able to be useful a couple of times today, which felt good. A busload of Italian tourists came in and I made hot chocolate, and I helped with the baking and cleaning up too, of course. I´m hoping to build on that as the weeks progress.
I think I might step outside and go for a little walk around town now. It stopped raining for the first time in a couple of days and I feel like I should take advantage of it. There are more big clouds coming in, so I better act fast.

Stebbi at the shop

Lísa making kleinur at the shop

Lísa and Stebbi´s house, where I am staying

Kleinur og mjólk, the best combination

Fresh out of the kettle

More pics

The south side of my town

Little cousin Eiður out at the farm. This kid is adorable

The mountain road between Seyðisfjörður and Egilsstadir

Horses at Skálanes

Fáskruðsfjörður

Working Girl?

Well, here I am at the bank. Working hard, as you can plainly see. Strangely enough there is nothing for an English speaking, banking world ignoramus from Minnesota to do at a small town bank branch in Fáskrudsfjördur. Shocker. I had to sign a privacy agreement and then was promptly settled at a computer and told to ask if I had any questions. Questions about what, you may ask. I have no idea. My cousin Halla (sounds like Het-la), works here and is very nice. She showed me a few jobs I can do occassionally with the attached post office and also said it is usually pretty quiet here so it is ok to use the internet. Thank god. Actually I think I will bring my Icelandic textbook and use the time to study each morning. That would be a good use of my time.
At noon I will walk back to the shop where Elísa and Stefán work and help out around there from 1 to 5 o´clock or so. I´m not certain what I will be doing there either, so that will be another adventure. I´ll be fine back in the kitchen cooking or washing up, but I think I will be pretty useless up front with customers and the computer system.

On Saturday I went with Bogga and her son Stefán Alex to Egilsstaðir where we went to a party in the woods. There was free food and live music and people everywhere. We had pylsur (hotdogs) and pancakes with rhubarb sauce, and coffee made over a campfire - apparently here I drink coffee all the time, though I never touch the stuff at home. I was introduced to two different sets of relatives, one of which is going to set up an evening for me to go to Breiðdalsvik for dinner with his family. Another interesting thing about this festival, the Kókómjólk mascot was running around the whole time. This may only be amusing to the Snorris, or at least hold some special meaning for them. Kókómjólk.
Later that afternoon, Bogga and I made a last minute decision to drive to Seyðisfjördur to meet a relative-in-law at what was basically descibed as a gathering for Atheists. Our curiousity was peaked. The gathering was actually held on the cliffs at Skálanes /Scow-Lan-Es/ which is about 10 km past Seyðisfjördur (civilization). We forded 3 rivers and bumped along dirt roads in the Land Cruiser until we came to a beautiful, huge, red house which I guess is a hotel/restaurant/research base. We walked out to the cliffs, but just missed the presentation on the old gods. We were told it was pretty tame. No heathens running around naked or anything. We met the pair that was doing the presentation and they filled us in on some of the information from the presentation. Bogga and I ate a really nice dinner at the restaurant and talked to all the people staying at the hotel for the summer, working or researching. There were people from Scotland, England, Germany and Finland.

On the way home we stopped to pick up Stefán Alex where we had left him with Thorhildur (Bogga´s sister) in Egilsstaðir and then made another stop in Reyðarfjörður at Bogga´s other sister´s house to pick up her son Marteínn (Martin) for a sleepover with Stefán Alex. I got to meet that branch of the family then too. On the way back the two boys riddled me with questions in a mix of English and Icelandic. I think I could learn a lot from these 11 year old cousins. They asked if I had any pets and when I told them about Buddha, Stefán Alex thought it was hilarious to say, "Buddha the Bulldog" over and over. "That sounds like a cool name," he told me as he chanted it again and again, laughing.
Sunday morning I had my first bit of quiet time. Elísa and Stefán were at work so I slept in a little bit and then spent a leisurely morning on facebook. I went fishing with Bogga and the boys in the afternoon, which was fun, but cold. Then, we made a series of housecalls to meet other relatives. Being here with my family has been very busy. I have met so many cousins, aunts, uncles and the like that I can´t keep anyone straight except for the main cast of characters (Elísa, Stefán and their daughters´ families). Also, everytime I go to meet someone new they feed me the most wonderful desserts and coffee. I am going to have to increase my use of "Nei, takk" (No, thank you) when the dessert trays are passed around at these tea parties or else I´m going to have trouble fitting into the clothes I brought with me.

By request, slightly delayed.

Here is a group picture with names as requested earlier. These are the wonderful people on the trip with me, my fellow Snorris whom I adore and currently am without.

Back row, left to right: Theo, Stefan, Me, Alison
Front row, left to right: Stefan (called George), Janis, Michelle, Sarah, Anna, Amy, Thorin.

And another, better picture. This was on our last day of class with our Icelandic teacher.

Back row, left to right: Janis, Michelle, Sarah, George, Theo, Stefan
Front row, left to right: Anna, Alison, Sigurbörg (the teacher), me, Amy, Thorin

Thorin, Amy, George, Sarah and Theo are from Canada; Calgary, Winnepeg, Caledon, and the rest of us are from all around the US; Georgia, Nevada, Utah, Michigan, Minnesota.

Snorri Program- Part 2

My flight to Egilsstaðir in the East

Reykjavik from the air

Driving into Fáskrudsfjördur

Family church

Sheep rescue mission, commenced.



Well, I was able to part from my fellow Snorris without having a complete meltdown, but it was a near thing. I was more than a little heartbroken to have us all be splitting up for a whole 3 weeks while we go and stay with family. There was a solid sense of security among each other, not to mention a pile of good memories from the past 2 weeks. I have to say, I can't wait to see them all again when we reunite in 3 weeks.
I got to Egilsstaðir yesterday with no problems at all. The plane was small, but not as small as I had feared. In my head, I was imagining myself and the pilot crammed in a plane large enough to hold him, me, and maybe a couple of sheep. That, thankfully was not the case. There were probably about 50 or more people on the flight and there was hardly a bump the whole time we were in the air. There were some breathtaking views from the air as well. I was met at the airport by my cousin Thorhildur. I met her little son, and apparently he told her later that he loves me. Mallory Swanson, charmer of 6 year olds across the globe. She is one of the adult daughters of the couple I am staying with, Elísa and Stefán. I got a tour around the town after the 45 minute or so drive into Fáskrudsfjördur and then went to the shop where my family works to meet them. They are very nice, all of them. I spent the afternoon with another one of Elísa and Stefán´s daughters, Bogga, and her 11 year old son, Stefan Alex. I had a great dinner with them and then Bogga and her husband drove me around to look at some of the old family farmsteads in the area. It is absolutely gorgeous here on the coast. There are sheep everywhere, and at one of the farms we stopped at we had to rescue a lamb that had gotten caught in a fence. Rescue team! Yeah!
We got back to Elísa and Stefán´s house and had an impromptu coffee party at about 11:30 at night. I was dead on my feet, so when it was bedtime I was out like a light. I mananged to oversleep due to having set my alarm in a sleep deprived stupor last night, so that was less than ideal this morning. No harm done though. Bogga is going to pick me up at noon and I´m going with her family to Egilsstaðir where there is a festival of sorts. Something about free food for all, so I said I was all for it.
I think it will be an adjustment being here alone, where some of my family do not speak English at all, and others not very much. I wish we had been able to do more than 8 days of language classes before leaving Reykjavik, but I know even another month (or 6) would not have been enough for me to be competent in Icelandic. I toss words and phrases out occassionally and am mostly met with confused looks. But I will keep trying. Makes me wish I had my Snorris by my side to keep up with our studies.

On to the Next Grand Adventure

Tomorrow I will be taking a tiny little plane across the country to Egilsstadir. Once there my family will allegedly be picking me up at the airport and driving me to their home in Faskrudsfjordur. (Keep in mind that my nook does not have the copy/paste abilities for me to add in the correct accents and pronunciations to these places names. Or at least, I have no idea how to make that happen). I will have the weekend to get to know my family and settle in and then I start work on Monday. I will be working at the local bank branch in the mornings and at my family's shop in the afternoons. I think it will be really cool, especially since one of my cousins works at the bank and I guess is not too far from my age.
These last couple days with the Snorris have been great. We had our language classes and some other interesting lectures and tours, including the National Museum yesterday. Dad, this place was right up your alley. We will have to make a trip back there. Tons of cool stuff and I made sure
not to look at anything too closely so I didn't get sick of it. I also made a culture-filled trip to the mall and got to go on an interesting visit to the Canadian Embassy. They had good snacks.
Tonight we had a BBQ at Asta Sol's house (lamb chops!) and then went to feed the ducks at the pond with the leftover toast that Stefan made for Icelandic Night last night. I tossed my camera into the pond on a particularly enthusiastic bread toss. Whoops. Due to my lightening fast reflexes I was able to fish it out and remove the battery quickly. Let's all cross our fingers that it makes it through with no ill effects. Speaking of ill effeccts, there was a glorious array of traditional and popular Icelandic foods for us to eat at Icelandic Night yesterday. I ate sheep's head jelly, hangikot. Icelandic cheeses and candy, skyr, brown bread, and rotted shark. All chased down with a healthy dose of Brennevin. Gah. It was something else, I tell you.
Well, I'm gonna call this good for now. I want to spend a few more minutes with my friends before we are scattered to the 4 Icelandic winds in the morning. Sooooo sad!

More pics

View from the Perlan

Kerið crater

Vinarterta

Statue at the Perlan

Neighborhood cat

Trying Not To Call It A Countdown

This was Day 10 by my count, which I cannot believe. I feel like I have been here for ages and yet no time at all. I have 2 more full days in Reykjavik before I'll be flying across the country to the East Fjords where I'll stay with my family for three weeks. I'm looking forward to this a lot, but in part am already dreading leaving my fellow Snorris for 3 weeks. There might be some tears. Maybe not from me, but I think Stefan and George might get a little emotional. I think I would be perfectly happy to stay here at Guesthouse Odinn with my friends for the rest of my time here, and then some. Amazing how fast ties can bind.
I had a great weekend doing all sorts of different things. You've all heard about the Golden Circle tour so I won't go any further into that. Sunday we all got to sleep in a little and then at 1 pm we met a fill-in-coordinator in front of the office and she walked us to the beach at Nautholsvik. We were supposed to take a bus, but there was a mix up with the schedule or some such thing. Most of the girls wore beach shoes, which were not practical for hiking around. This might not sound so interesting now, but keep it in mind for later. I'll get back to it.
It was a beautiful, sunny and warm-ish day in Reykjavik and we were all ready to see the beach and do some swimming in the heated pools we had been hearing about. It turned out that there was a heated pool, and another sort of heated pool...and then there was a lot of ocean where some of the warm water dripped into the bay to "warm" up the water. A few brave souls jumped into the ocean and did a full body freeze swim. I spent a healthy amount of time in the hot pool and then got in knee deep to the cold stuff. That was plenty. We got to lay in the sunshine and soak up the lovely Icelandic summer day. I actually got a sunburn on an Icelandic beach. Not something I would have predicted.
We wanted to stop at The Perlan on our way back from the beach, so we hoofed it in that direction. The Perlan is located at the top of a wooded hill overlooking Reykjavik. To get to it we were going to take one of the paths up the hill through the trees. Seemed simple enough to begin with, but fellow Snorri, George, who was leading the group up the hill promptly turned Mountain Man and abandoned us in the deepest, darkest part of the Icelandic forest. To put this into perspective for you, forest are not common in Iceland. Trees are few and very small, as a rule. There is a popular joke here that goes, "What do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic Forest?...... Stand up." Har har har. This, forest was not in standing with that joke and was actually pretty well grown, so standing up wasn't an option. So we trekked. And trekked. And twisted and turned to stay on the "paths" that led up hill, all the while tripping and slipping in our sandals and flats. Poor footwear choice for a spontaneous hiking trip. There was a fair share of complaining from the ladies in the group, though all in fairly good humor. George's name was not said in kind terms during that little jaunt. Long story short, we made it to the Perlan and climbed up to the top where there are breathtaking views of the city and mountains below and around. Worth the climb if you ask me, sore feet or not.
More walking on the way back to the ranch. I made mashed potatoes, gravy and pork loins for the group when we got home and two of the other girls made a glorious salad with feta cheese. Stefan stepped in as gravy stirrer and was top notch at the task. Nice home cooked meal with the family.
Monday we had class until noon, then went to Landsbanki (the largest bank in the country) and had lunch and were given a lecture on Iceland's current economic status and banking system. After the crash in 2008 there were a lot of changes made, so this was actually really interesting. Lunch was delicious as well, so that helped. After lunch we opened up accounts with the bank for use during our trip and in future trips as we so desire. That's right folks, I have an Icelandic bank account and an Icelandic ID number (sort of like a social security number in the US). Be as impressed as you want.
Monday evening we were broken up into four groups and picked up for dinner with the various chairpersons of the Snorri Foundation. George, Alison and I went to dinner with Johan and his wife Anna Sophia at their house in Hafnarfjordur. They had a beautiful home and prepared a wonderful meal of salmon, salad, potatoes, and a strawberry skyr tort that was to die for. It was a really fun evening and very cool to get to spend time that much time with a family that are interested in the Western Icelanders (North Americans of Icelandic descent) and so willing to be part of a program that fosters ties between Icelanders and Western Icelanders.
Today we had class until noon, at at the cafeteria on campus and then went to the Althingi, which is the current location of the Icelandic Parliament in Reykjavik. We got to talk to one of the Parliament members, a woman who is in the social democrat party, and then we got a tour of the building. After all that learning it was time for a small cocktail break at a patio bar in the main square. A person has to take a break sometime, right? A bunch of us shared a couple of pitchers and then headed back to the ranch to prepare for a trip to the mall, Kringlan. It took longer than it should have to figure out the bus schedule, but we made it to the mall. I forgot to get the one thing that I had wanted to go there to look at: a hair straightener. I fried mine the first time I plugged mine in on the first day here. Not so smart. So...I might be making another trip to Kringlan before I leave Reykjavik. Wonderful.
By the time we got back to the ranch, dinner prep was in full swing and the house was about 2 million degrees. Sarah rocked the lasagna making and Alison made a wickedly good chocolate cake with skyr frosting. We have not been suffering from lack of great things to eat on this trip, that's for certain. However, tomorrow is Icelandic food night and I'm strongly considering eating before I go. Sheep's head, rotten shark and ram testicles don't really seem like my kind of ideal dinner. I'm holding out hope that there will be plenty of hangikjöt and Icelandic brown bread to help me keep up my strength. Can't let yourself get too weak and hungry in a foreign land, you know. Never know when you'll have to hike through a forest or push together a couple of tables on the patio for happy hour. Takes a lot out of a person.

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