Reykjavík Adventure

Yesterday mornig I had an adventure finding a breakfast shop called Grái Kötturinn (Gr-ow-ih (not like grow by ggggrrrrr and "ow!") Cu(h)tter-in, The Grey Cat) on a street called Hverfisgata. More on that later. I went because I couldn't sleep the night before because of a rash, and wanted a breakfast that wasn't bread and cheese/milk and cereal.

So I got there walking in knee deep snow and half falling over, ordered bacon and eggs with toast and potatoes (true American breakfast!). I ordered in English because there were some English speaking people there and I decided if I was going to start a conversation it would be a good segway (I never did, but I thought about it). I got a book from the many book shelves lining the dimly lit basement restaurant and started reading about an Icelandic artist living in New York (Louisa Matthiasdóttir), and one of the paintings was titles "View from Hverfisgata." Heh, cool. I was on Hverfisgata looking at a painting of the view on Hverfisgata.

So, ordering in English was also a good idea because the Icelanders sitting next to me didn't know I knew what they were saying. It's fun to listen to Icelanders make fun of Americans putting soy in coffee. Then I paid in Icelandic, and I'd like to think they got a little bit quieter.
Here's some info on Grái Kötturinn.

I went home, most of my upper body covered in a rash now and quickly went to the doctor, then once the medicine kicked in, the rash keeping me awake went away

Earlier this morning (since I forgot a few things in Reykjavík) I was talking with my sister saying I forgot a few things, she answered in Icelandic, then I answered in Icelandic, then we kept talking in Icelandic and I didn't realize it until halfway through the conversation. Woah.

That's all I've got so far. Christmas was me sick in bed for 2 days lamenting the smell of skata (rotting slate fish) and puking. Lots of fun.

Mmkay, takk fyrir að lesa og eitthvað.
Gleðileg hátíðar!

Long time no post!

This is true!

My english has slowly ben degrading. I don't know whether that's a side effect of the amount of sleep I've been getting, or the amount of Icelandic I've been speaking. I'm gonna go with sleep, because I haven't been speaking all that much Icelandic.

I spent all of tonight sitting amount some friends talking with people on facebook chat only in Icelandic, constantly asking questions like "How do I say, "I should"?"

I don't know if they find this annoying, but I'm gonna keep doing it anyways.


In recent world news, Christmas is coming. You may have heard of it, and it comes at almost at a surprise that Icelanders celebrate Christmas much moreso than Americans do. Let's go into some examples:
My town (Borgarnes) decided not to fun the Christmas decorations around the town, much to the dismay of many many people. So, all the businesses of Borgarnes pitched in and paid for the decorations.
I went to IKEA (aka House of Crying Children) last Sunday and bought a bookshelf and other things, and while we were there, there was a full on choir singing in the store decked out in traditional Icelandic lopapeysa and Satna hats. And it was loud too.
Christmas decorations in Reykjavík went up at the end of October.

I've done most of my Christmas shopping, but have yet to send anything. I don't really know what I'm waiting for. I need to do that soon! I'm pretty sure everyone will like their presents :)

Last weekend my school had a 24-hour knitting marathon (maraþon haha) to help raise money for their Spain trip. I stayed for that and messed around on my computer the whole time, drinking energy drinks and talking too much English. By 9 AM it felt like a cat had crawled in my throat and died while I wasn't looking. I slept until 11 PM that night, and had to stay up another 24 hours to get my sleeping schedule back on track.

It started snowing last week, and it was as if the snow was saying "Sorry I came to the party so late, but I'm gonna make up for it! Promise!"
Consequently... too much snow. Some piles are 6 or 7 feet tall! Every once in a while you can see kids sliding down them. Hmm.. that reminds me, I need to go sledding sometime soon.

Other than the annual Christmas business, nothing much has transpired in the meantime. Skyrim came out, if that counts as a major event. Oh what am I saying, of course it is. That's kind of where my social life went for a week.

I haven't taken any pictures in the last few weeks because the sun rises at 11am and sets at 3pm. Lots of fun waking up in the morning.


Well.. I'm sure there's lots more I could talk about, but I feel like this post will get dry without pictures, so I'm ending it here.

Kbi.
Takk fyrir að lesa!
Sjáumst á meðan!

Crazy Icelandic phrases!

Icelandic is a little bit like dividing by zero, in that... well, no, nevermind.

But really, Icelandic is made up of hundreds of phrases that make no sense by them self literally translated, but in Icelandic apparently they make perfect sense.

I may go back and edit some more in later, but for right now, SHORT POST!

Lýst vel á það - (Leesht vel ow tha(h)th)
Lit.: Described well on it.
Means: Sounds like a plan (Good idea).

Til á það (Till ow tha(h)th)
Lit.: To on it.
Means: I'm up for anything.

Þetta reddast (th-eh-tah red-ahst)
Lit: That fixed.
Means: It'll work out (eventually).
More: This is the mindset of the Icelandic people, really. They're very laidback and things will work out eventually, so don't worry. Right?

edit: litterally: it fixes itself.
My bad!

Til hamingju með daginn/afmæli (til hah-mi(n)g-you meth dah-yinn/af-mile-ee)
Lit: To happiness with the day
Means: Happy birthday!


Also, it's Winter now (well, the daylight is, it's been 46 degrees all day today! Hasn't frozen in over a week).The sun comes up around 11ish and goes down around 5ish. The time is quickly moving closer to 0 hours of daylight a day, and it's increasingly hard to go to bed (because the sun has been down for 6 hours before you actually try and sleep) and increasingly hard to get up (because the sun isn't going to come up for another 4 hours).

Jújú...
Þakka þér fyrir að lesa
Bæjó!

Whoopsie

I just realized my title has been misspelled for quite some time, but nonetheless it is appropriately changed!

I go swimming a lot here. Íþrottamiðstöðin Borgarnesi (Sport center place Borgarnes)

I'm having a wonderful time, although I now appreciate my alone time (recharge time?) much more than before. I also cannot stress the importance of vitamin D enough. I thought I was getting really homesick and introverted or whatever a few weeks back, and I forced myself to walk down to the drug store (the name of it is literally "drugs") and picked up a bottle of vitamin D tablets. After figuring out the appropriate dosage in units I understand, I took twice the recommended amount and felt exponentially better the next day. My mood improved over the next few days, and I returned, mostly, back to normal and sociable Aaron.

Incoming cowboy hat

Last night was the halloween ball with my school. I did not know I was going. I had an Icelandic class in a neighboring town (Akranes) and got back home at 10:10 PM to find a car of people dressed like zombies, butchers, and Paulie D (Jersey Shore) about to drag me to the ball. I ran inside, borrowed a pair of overalls, put on a plaid shirt, and went as an Icelandic hillbilly. I had a pretty good time there, the ball ending at 1 am (yes, on Thursday, and yes, I was incredibly tired the next morning).

I have no idea who the person is on the right or why she won something. Bárður, on the left, is dressed as Minecraft Steve. He won most original costume.

So, life in Iceland... huh. Well, first of all, life is life is life is life anywhere, to be completely honest. I still have trouble waking up in the morning (haven't been late to any classes!), I still go to bed too late, I still don't understand a thing in biology which can probably be attributed to my language improficiency – and speaking of language abilities, I'm understanding the majority of what is said (ideas, mind you, grammar escapes me). I pick up on all the words I know, and kind of guess what the rest means, which can lead to some pretty wacky sentences when I try and repeat them in English.

"... , að ég finn til í rassinum í dag."
Translate it yourself. This is my Icelandic class in Akranes.

I was sick from about Thursday until Wednesday, and this story happened while I was at the pinacle of throat pain:
Last weekend I learned how to use the bus in Reykjavík. The exchange students all went to Klifurhúsið (The climbing house, clibb-err-hoos-ihth) and I decided to go a day early and stay at my host-sister's house. Well, I missed the morning bus by about 2 minutes, so I had to stay in Borgarnes for about 4 or 5 more hours than I'd planned, and speaking of plans, I had to cancel all of mine. I finally got to Reykjavík and was dropped off at Kringlan, one of the biggest malls in Iceland (don't get any grand ideas, it's pretty small), and thought my first order of business should be to find my bus stop I would be taking at 5:30 PM. So I walked around Kringlan, studying my maps, wondering where this street I marked could be. After 30 minutes of walking around the mall, I couldn't find it, so I went and asked the mall information center where this bus stop is. The told me to go over the main road and then right and then left and down this road and then left and past the first bus stop then the second one and sfasdfasdf. So 20 minutes of walking from the mall I see a sign that says I'm in Miðbær (mi(h)th bye-r), a part of Reykjavík that is on a completely different postal code than where I wanted to be. I stopped at an ice cream shop and asked where I was, and where I was supposed to be. The man I asked's eyes got really big and said "You're really far away from there, they gave you really bad directions." He drew me a little map on a napkin of where I needed to go, and about 25 minutes of walking later my bus stop came into view.

Needless to say, I was cold, coughing, sick, and angry. I went back into Kringlan, bought an Icelandic-English and English-Icelandic dictionary and an Icelandic comic book, then sat in the book store reading "My first word" books. I got a few looks.

The rest of the journey was no problem getting to my host-sister's house that night, but my bus driver was pretty grumpy and I had no idea what to do, so he kept chastising me for trying to pay for the bus with a 500 bill.
The next day I went and toured CCP Headquarters (makers of EVE Online) where my host-sisters husband works :DDD
Sadly I didn't have my camera with me that weekend. Every desk had a Nerf gun on it, and they were really eager to show me their Nerf gun modifications. I met the CEO and he showed me his tiny little Nerf gun that fit in the palm of his hand ("I'm thinking about getting a bigger one, this one doesn't really do much for my self-esteem").
I boarded the bus not far from there, and everything was going fine until I got off at the wrong bus stop, had to walk about 1km back to the previous one, got drenched by a passing car, and spent about 20 minutes trying to find the entrance to Klifurhúsið.

Me, exhausted, after finally arriving at Klifurhúsið

Klifurhúsið! Nothing but exchange students in this picture

My parents drove into Reykjavík that night and picked me up, we went and had Subway, and went home. Then I spent the next 4 days in bed. Couuuggggghhhhh.


This page is now littered with various facebook pictures because I didn't take any myself.

This picture is now diamonds. Or on the school community facebook page

Sauðamessa

Sauðamessa (Soy-thah-mess-ah) (literally: Sheep mass) is a festival in my town that started about 7 or 8 years ago for no apparent reason. The most I could find out was that maybe it was to celebrate all of the sheep finally being into their respective farms from the réttir and léttir (sorting of sheep and gathering of sheep, respectively). Why is it in my town? Many years ago, Borgarnes used to be the slaughterhouse capital of the Borgarbyggð area, but now all the old slaughterhouses are being used as storage (although they look abandoned).

"Lokað Hjáleið - Closed Detour"

The festival starts off at 2 in the afternoon (if you notice the sky changing dramatically, it's because of the weather, not my camera exposure. It takes 4 minutes to walk to my house to the park, and in the time it started raining and hailing sufficiently enough to soak me and stop before I got there). Everyone gathers near the old folks home where sheep are penned in, then let loose to be chased down the street, hopefully staying on the street, and into the park, a 5 or 6 minute walk.

Everyone walks down the street after the sheep, then of course the sheep don't follow the road, so now everyone runs. It's quite hilarious, as you can see by this man's expression.

As you can see here (this is my host father, by the way) much waving of arms and shouting is involved in getting the sheep off of the hills and back onto the road – only to be chased back into the road because they just ran across it into someone else's yard.

The road pictured here is not even the right road they are supposed to be on.

Then there's a hill, and almost everyone sets at a dead sprint to keep the sheep from going anywhere else and into the pens at the bottom of the hill.

Finally.

Here I have a picture of lots of people. It's kind of ridiculous to see anywhere near this amount of people anywhere in Iceland at one time and place.

And here's me in my just-finished Icelandic wool sweater (lopapeysa). I swear I was much happier than my face shows (my butt was not, I just ripped a huge hole in my pants and the wall I'm sitting on was terribly wet).

Also, here are some socks in a tree. I don't know.

Sauðamessa is basically the best thing ever, because once the sheep are all in the pen, free kjötsúpa (kyuht- soup-ah, meat soup, very traditional) is served, and a sort of talent show starts in the park right on the other side of the wall I'm pictured sitting on. Traditional Icelandic wool products are sold like sweaters, gloves, and hats, all hand made. Then they sell waffles and homemade hot chocolate which are amazing, even if you do spill your hot chocolate ALL over the table. Somewhere, someone is getting that joke.
My school did a sort of fashion show where they put on accessories and walked around the stage. There was an eating contest (I heard my host father won 3 years in a row, but for some reason didn't enter this year), it rained some more, and there was some traditional Icelandic singing. After this there was some sort of event at the high school back down the road. I'm not really sure what was going on there, but I know there was a bucket of blood, tractors, forklifts, and more sheep.

Afterwards my parents had a gathering and there were way too many little screaming kids, and I met one of my host-cousins, Védís, who incidentally is the coolest nerd ever. She is fantastic, seriously, go look at her artwork here. We got along really well.

Thhheeeeeeennnn there's the Sauðamessaball. It starts about 10 PM, I got there at 11:30, and by then almost all of the 200+ people there were drunk beyond belief. It must have been a logistical nightmare, because the barn it was held in is about a 10 minutes drive from Borgarnes. There's lots of hugging, apparently I made an "Icelandic Oath" as soon as I got there, then I never saw the guy again. No more details, because if I say more it will make Icelanders look like gross drunks that like to party in barns and roll on the ground. Which is partly true, but shh, forget it, I didn't say anything.

The next day is spent sleeping and eating left over kjötsúpa.

Last week I went to Reykholt, the home of one of the famous saga men, Snorri. We spent most of the time just driving around. There isn't much of a story there, so I'll just put some pictures.

Of Monsters and Men

Remember that video I posted called Little Talks?
Yeah, well good.
Remember how I wasn't sure if Icelanders were into it yet, or something like that?
No? Well I'm sure now.

I went over to my AFS contact family's house and the mother was humming Little Talks. She was kind of surprised when I said "hey!" really loudly while she was humming.

Anyways, go check them out for real this time. They're starting to play all over the radio here, and bound to jump across a sea or two in the bear future.

Just sitting at school now, typing, browsing the internet. I am sorry to admit I am not going to continue with my dance class (shortening my schedule even more, lol). I don't need to take it, and, honestly, I'm a horrible dancer. It also didn't help that the teacher would walk to the other side of the room when I ask for help (and when she does she speaks Icelandic).

I would go to the grocery store (Netto) and get a little something to eat but the rain is a little too horizontal for my tastes. I think I would fly away. Maybe I should have packed those bricks in my backpack...

Iceland Culture Review #1

There's quite a lot to say here. Quite a lot. I'll say a lot here, then make another later with everything I forgot in a few weeks or when I learn more. Probably both.

Let's talk a little bit about the habits and behavior of Icelanders (stereotype time!)

Icelanders take off their shoes when they go almost everywhere. I know this is commonplace in many, many cultures, but I thought I'd mention it. you take off your shoes before you change to go into the pool, when you go into a house, and when you enter your school (if it's not too reasonably big, and elementary schools (grunnskólar) always take off shoes). This can lead to shoe-related complications if one does not have easily put-onable shoes.

Icelanders say "yeah" a lot, but right before there do it they inhale very loudly and try and say "yeah" as they inhale. I can't find a video, but if you want to look it up, go for it. Send me a video if you find it.

There is lots of nose and mouth tobacco. While this is considered "redneck" in some parts of the States, it is quite common here.

It is completely normal for a ~25 year old man to date a ~15 year old girl. This happens quite a lot, and puts my dating range down to the 10 year olds, sadly. No, I will NOT be dating any ten year olds. Ever.




Now, onto food.

Icelanders eat skyr a lot, which is a sort of jogurt, only thicker, usually mixed with sugar and fruit, as I've heard the original, plain, skyr is pretty bad, even for Icelandic tastebuds. I like this a lot.

Hot dogs. Oh my God. Hot dogs. They are everywhere, served at every gas station (bacon wrapped hot dogs as well), and almost everywhere else. Almost everyone eats them almost all the time. The preparation are as follows: battered and fried onions (think french friend onions, y'all) on the bottom of the bun, if ketchup and remolaði (remoulade) are to be added, these go on top of the onions. Then comes the actual hot dog, which is a lot like any other hot dog except it's not quite as disgusting when you think about it, and the skin is a little bit thicker, giving you a little "snap" feedback when you bite down. Mustard is then to be added, if desired, on top of the Íslensk pylsur. There are many different types of synnepsósa to be put on top of your hot dog, namely hot dog mustard (pylsur synnepsósa), a sort of brown thing. I don't like mustard in any circumstance, so I can't give you any insight.

Speaking of sauces, there are rediculous amounts of sauces for everything, and many are not to be used on certain objects. People look at you funny if you put vegetable sauce on a hot dog or hot dog remolaði on a hamburger. Usually one would put kokteilsósa on a hamburger, possibly with hamborgarasósa. Garlic sauce (which is pretty much mayonaise, a little mustard, and garlic) is a usual combination with hot and cold sandwiches - it is one of my favorite sauces so far.

On to candy. This is something that fascinates, as well as excites me. The Icelandic culture is obsessed with candy and icecream, MUCH moreso than in the States. It is completely normal to see 40+ year old men sitting around a sjoppa (hot dogs, candy, food, sometimes movies) eating hot dogs, licking ice cream cones, possibly eating bragðarefur (icecream and various candies mixed in, literally means tasty fox. wat), and buying mixed bag candy. It is completely normal to see 40+ women walking their dogs at night eating icecream. On Saturday at almost EVERY store that sells mixed bag candy, the candy is half price off. So that means you can stuff a pillow sized sack full of gummy worms, licorice, and chocolate for about the price of a nice coffee. This candy fetish the Icelanders have has not been doing wonders for my skin, but it's oh so good.

Also on candy, there's licorice in everything, and it annoys me. A typical candy tasting experience goes along the lines of:
"What's this?"
*takes a bite*
..
*is licorice*
I bought a huge bag of candy last Saturday, getting about 3 of everything Hyrnan (a gas station/food store thing) had, and, I kid you not, at least 80% of the bad must have been licorice. And the remainder was chocolate that had licorice inside of it, cleverly hidden.

Then there's this stuff.

Svið

Hákarl

Skata

No really, the food is really good, just not that stuff.



GROUND BREAKING NEWS
Most Icelanders don't like Sigur Rós (or say they're "okay"), and even less Icelanders like Björk. They think she's crazy.

And on the topic of music, go watch this video:
It's kind of like the Icelandic Lonely Island, except more crass, often singing about transvestites and priests that do cocaine.

Yes, there are swear words in there. No, I don't know what they are. If you get bored after 2 minutes feel free to stop it (if you don't want to see the singer get his arm chopped off, that is).

Also, there is this new Icelandic band popping up on the global music radar that I find is too good to share. It's very upbeat, catchy, and in English.

All the exchange students are pretty fond of it (I think), but I really don't know about the natives. It's bound that I'll hear it in the next few weeks somewhere around my school at least once.




And of course: Icelanders love to drink. There is no "it's 5 o'clock somewhere" funny business here, it's "go hard or leave our country." Totally normal for people to be wobbly at 11 am, drinking from little aluminum flasks most likely filled with the famous Icelandic brennevín, commonly known as black death, but literally translates to something like burning (or furnace) wine. I don't know why it's called black death, but I am curious. For more information, see the wiki.

Bless bless, takk fyrir að lesa!