The Weekend

This is a friend that I made when I was out for a walk one afternoon.

I had plenty of down time this weekend to read and relax. It has been cold and raining solidly here for the past 4 days and it supposed to keep it up for another 4 days or so. Lovely. It has been so cloudy and foggy that I can barely see the mountains that frame the town. It is as if the world ends where the fog cuts in. Saturday I had the whole day to myself until about 6pm when Stebbi stopped at the house to bring me to the shop. I spent the whole day looking at stuff online for my new job at Capitol Hill Elementary, browsing facebook, and reading on my nook. In a moment of desperation I even decided to attempt to figure out the TV and DVD player so I could watch Mamma Mia. When Stebbi showed up I was starting to go a little stir crazy so I was happy to go and help with the cooking and cleaning at the restaurant. At one point, Lísa jokingly told me in Icelandic, "Það er gott að hafa góða vinnu konu hér," which means something along the lines of "It is good to have a good working woman here." I felt pretty good about that once I realized what she meant. Closing up the shop was really nice because there is lots to do. I didn't feel like I was in the way because there was a lot of little jobs that I could actually do. It was nice to feel like I had contributed to the shop instead of just adding to the work that needed to be done.
Yesterday (Sunday) I had the morning to myself and then at noon Stebbi came and brought me to the shop. I ate lunch (lamb, yummmmm) and then Bryndís and Gunnar picked me up and took me to Egilsstaðir with them for the day. We were on a hunt for a pönnukökur pan, but as it was Sunday many of the shops were not open. We found an overpriced, cheaply made one at a supermarket, but Bryndís told me with disgust that it was "ekki gott" (not good).
We visited an old slaughterhouse that is now a co-op musuem (Kaupfélag Héraðsbua), featuring the meat and dairy production history of the area. It was actually interesting to see some of the old machinery and pictures, although whoever was in charge of setting the mood in the exhibit got a little carried away with the fake blood. I get it, its a slaughterhouse, but enough with the blood spatters.
After that we checked out a couple of beautiful gift shops that had pieces of art and clothing that were way over my budget, but that were just beautiful. If I had a million dollars... I enjoyed looking, but couldn´t find it in myself to buy a pair of mittens for 90 dollars. Even if they were really nice mittens.
Bryndís tried to explain to me where we were going next, but aside from "driving to a place with good coffee" I didn´t exactly know what to expect from our next destination. It turns out we drove all the way around Lagarfljót, which is the lake on the West side of Egilsstaðir. Legend says Iceland´s equivalent of the Loch Ness monster lives in these waters, a giant worm called Lagarfljotsormurinn. I admit I kept a close eye on the surface as we drove along, just in case. On the drive I got to see Hengifoss, which is one of the tallest waterfalls in Iceland and lots of other beautiful things.

Hallormsstaðarskógur is the large forest that surrounds the lake. There are actually a ton of trees in this area and several times I found myself thinking, "What in the hell are all these stupid trees doing in Iceland? I can´t see a damn thing." It is just like my dad says, all trees are are scenery blockers. We stopped at the East Iceland visitors center in Vatnajökull National Park. It was a beautiful building with some neat exhibits. http://www.vatnajokulsthjodgardur.is/english

Just down the road from that was a building that I had seen in my Iceland guidebooks but didn´t think I would get a chance to see. It is called Skriðuklauster and is a beautiful stone building that now houses a musuem of sorts, and has a wonderful coffee and cake selection in the afternoons. When you are offered a plate at a cake buffet in Iceland, take my advice and just say yes. You won´t be sorry, at least until you try to squeeze into your skinny jeans. Skriðuklauster was the home of Icelandic author Gunnar Gunnarsson and was built in 1939. Just down the hill from the house are the remains of a 16th century monestary. There is currently an archeological dig happening there and I actually got to see a skeleton exposed in the earth, waiting to be removed.

Even further down the road we drove quickly past a hydroelectric power plant that is a total eyesore, but provides energy to a big chunk of East Iceland. All I know is that I would have been ticked if some big energy company came through and planted massive, ugly, metal power poles on the Utopia-like farm that my family had lived on for generations. Just saying.

Our final stop was at a family friend´s summer house up in the mountains on the east side of the lake. I think actually she is a several times removed cousin, but I couldn´t quite track how it was that we were related. She kept calling me "frænka min," which poorly translates to English as "my aunt," but actually means any female relative that isn´t close enough to describe as mother, father, sister, brother, husband, or wife in Icelandic. You can have frænki (male relatives) and frænka (female relatives). I find it sort of funny that in a country whose national pastime is to track who is related to who, that they don´t have specific names for cousins. It ends up being a long process of saying, "She is the daughter of my sister´s daughter" instead of, "That´s my great niece." I am often met with confused looks when I use the word cousin, even with my English speaking cousins here. Aunt or uncle is the term they would use in English for relatives like cousins, nieces or nephews, no matter how old.

Anyhow, we had a nice visit with Lúla(a nickname for Lúvísa) who is on the right side of the picture (Bryndís is on the left) and her family. It turns out that she had gotten married on Saturday, and so we were walking in on a wedding party of sorts. Bryndís was thrilled with this, but I´m pretty sure the wedding was a big surprise. It didn´t sound like she knew that was happening this weekend. There was so much Icelandic being spoken at such a fast rate that I couldn´t follow any of it. I was asked a couple questions and was completely dumbstuck. All of the confidence I had in my language ability flew out the window. Apparently I´m still at the level of talking to a single person, in a quiet room, with them talking very slowly and simply. A group setting was not kind to me. We were there for over an hour, maybe closer to two. By the time we left I was exhausted, but managed to stay awake for the hour and a half long drive back home.
I was glad I got to go on that day trip to all those great places. It was very nice of Bryndís and Gunnar to bring me with them and to keep me entertained all day. I never know what to expect here from day to day, or sometimes even from hour to hour. This is not something I am used to, as in my everyday life at home I plan things down to the minute. Here I can´t do that, and I think it is really good for me. It is strange getting into a car, or walking into a family member´s home and not knowing where I am going or what I am going to do. It is sort of an exercise in trust in these people I am getting to know, and definitely a character exercise for me in learning to be adaptable.

Another pretty waterfall we happened across on our adventure.