First Day of School

Today was my first day of school in Iceland! I went with my 15 year old cousin to his afternoon classes at his school here in Fáskrúðsfjörður. Actually I went to one class...his English class...and he spent the rest of the time showing me around the school and introducing me to various staff, a fair amount of whom it turns out I was related to in one way or another. I didn't take any pictures, which was stupid, at least for blogging purposes, but there you have it.

It is a fairly large school building considering there are only 88 students in grades 0 (Kindergarten)-10 (15 year olds). There are another maybe 30-40 toddlers and preschool students in an attached building. They have plenty of room for more pupils, should any arrive in town. When I arrived I spoke with the headmistress/principal, a woman named Eyglo, while Stefan got permission from his teachers to miss his classes so he could show me around. I saw every nook and cranny of the school and was introduced to everyone as his frænka (cousin) that is a Vestur Íslendingur (Western Icelander- person of Icelandic heritage from North America). I actually knew a few of the people from previous visits to town, which was nice. Good to see some familiar faces. I'm pretty sure Stefan as not in any hurry to get back to class, so it was a nice, long tour.

As we popped our heads in and out of classrooms and walked down the halls I got a variety of different reactions. Some of the kids looked at me in fascination. I got some gap-toothed smile greetings of "HÆ!" from some cute little girls. Some of the small ones watched me with with wide, fearful "stranger danger" eyes, and the rest with what seemed to be curiosity or some manner of indifference. I guess on a normal day there aren't a whole lot of people in their school that they haven't known all their lives.

After the very thorough tour we went back to the office of the headmistress. She is also the English teacher, and was about to go up to teach Stefan's class. She asked if I would be willing to tell the kids about myself in English and answer some questions for them. Sure! English public speaking I can handle. And after 5 years of working with junior high students, that age group hardly scares me at all. Hardly.

I introduced myself and talked a bit about the Snorri Program and how it was I came to have people to visit here in Iceland. Eyglo talked about why so many people left Iceland for Canada and America in the past. Another student in the class said he had some relatives from Canada come to visit them last summer. The second half of the class was interesting (at least to me). The kids listened to a recording of a man lecturing (in English, with an Irish accent) about the Irish Potato Famine and the history of Irish independence, battles with the Church of England, etc. while they followed along with the text in their workbook. The teacher then asked questions about vocabulary words, what the main idea of the story was, and asked them other questions about the recording/text. It was not at all what I was picturing from an English language learning class, but sort of a cool way to fit English and world history all into one subject.

Moving backwards a bit, the last few days have been quiet and cozy for the most part. We have found something to do outside the house during the dim daylight hours each day, even as the snow falls around us. 

On Monday we went for a long walk around town, stopping to see Elvar's sister's chickens, and the fancy new Fosshótel where Bogga now works. 

She showed me around the hotel, which had just reopened after being closed over Christmas. There were only a few guests, so I got to check out many of the rooms and admire the beautiful views of the fjord. The hotel has been so successful that they are currently in the process of building a second "house" next door which will have an addition 20+ guest rooms. We got a behind the scenes peek at the construction. 

 

Our walk ended with a stop at the shop for lunch. Stebbi gave me a really cool pen/stylus/flash drive, preloaded with several thousand of his pictures. He is a wonderful photographer and it was a very nice and thoughtful gift. Bogga calls it my James Bond pen.

Yesterday, Bogga and I went for a drive, heading north around the edge of the fjord, past Vattarnes and Bogga's (any mine I guess) family farm, Kolmúli. It was snowing when we left the house, but as we got closer to the tip of the land, it cleared and a lovely bit of watery sunshine provided the perfect light for some really nice photos. It was a breathtaking drive. We stopped often to admire the scenery, check out abandoned farm sites, and take pictures. I think this is one of my favorite things to do in Iceland. Just explore and take pictures and see what we can find. We ended up on Reyðarfjörður where Bogga bought us a nice kaffi and desserts before heading back home, this time through the tunnel. See a select group of the pictures below. I took about a million more.

Tunnel to Fásk.

Today was my school day and tonight we are going to have dinner at the Fosshótel restaurant. Bogga is working all day, so we will meet here there at 6pm.

Tomorrow (Thursday) I'm not sure what I will do during the day, but in the evening I guess I am having dinner with Thorhildur's family and then going out to see the horses that I got to ride last time I was here. I'm not sure I'll get to ride, what with the snow and ice and darkness. I'll be happy to just go out and pet some of them and take a few pictures.  That will be my last full day here. On Friday morning we will drive back to the airport in Egilsstadir where I will meet Erin and we will board the airplane back to Reykjavik. We will only have about 24 hours back there before we have to go back to Minnesota and real life. Sob.