Presents Are Here and Christmas Is Near

22/12/14

I received a delightful surprise in the mail today:

PRESENTS!!!!!! I was going to be a naughty child and open everything at once, but after I opened the birthday stuff my host mom asked me if I'd like to put the Christmas ones under the tree, and I couldn't exactly say, ''No thanks, I'd rather tear open everything right now alone in my room.''

I will say that everything so far has been great! I now have an entire shoe box full of tea, which I'm pretty happy with.

I'll probably have another post like this after jól/Christmas, so keep an eye out the next few days. Until then, I'll leave you with what I was drawing when the package arrived:

Snjókorn Falla

5/12/14

SNOW!!!!

As someone who has spent their entire life in the southern US up until now, snow is something of a big deal. It's a treat, actually, because it typically means there's no work or school that day, and since the roads are iced over, we get to lace up our boots and hike to everyday places (unlike my parents, I thoroughly enjoy this*) instead of driving there. Basically, snow is somewhat nostalgic to me, and it snowing regularly now has put me in a very jolly mood.
*My mom emailed me after posting this saying that she, too, enjoys trudging through the snow, so my bad.**

**Turns out that my dad finds the task pleasant as well, meaning that I am a 100% purebred homogeneous snow-trudger, which seems odd given where we've lived for the past fifteen years. Sincerest apologies for the confusion, Mom and Dad--I had no idea I got this trait from you guys.

(P.S. The title is both literal and based on this Christmas carol.)

Upcoming Milestones

25/11/14

It's three weeks to my birthday, one month until Christmas, and less than two months until my stay is halfway over. I'm looking forward to finding out what will happen in that time.

A View of My Apartment Building On Three Different Zooms

23/11/14

...since I couldn't pick just one.

Nóvember Update

23/11/14

It appears that I lost track of how long it had been since my last entry. Well, seeing as it is Sunday, and therefore my plans are basically just to stay in my pajamas all day, I think I'll add some photos that have been stored in my camera for some time now. As for what I've been doing, I've been spending time with friends after school, went to a birthday party with the rest of my class, have continued with hoop/pole every week, did a lot of Christmas shopping for both of my families yesterday (still not completely done after browsing Kringlan for something like 4 hours, but I've got a good start), and basically waiting to get Christmas exams over with already. Oh, and I get to go to a Thanksgiving lunch at the US embassy tomorrow afternoon, which is pretty cool. 

Battle Wounds

4/11/14

So, yesterday evening were my first pole and lyra classes, and while I had an awesome time, my hands aren't exactly accustomed to aerial gymnastics (especially when one class is right after the other). Pole wasn't too rough, but I could see red lines on my palms where I was gripping the hoop after the session. The classes are on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then there's open classes on Fridays where you can try new tricks and stuff. Super excited to improve--and hopefully get some calluses soon.

How NOT To Hike Esja

2/11/14

First of all, holy crap it's November. I remember when I was imagining how cool it would be to go to Iceland Airwaves last year, and now the festival is in 3 days! (Unfortunately, I can't go to the venues because I'm under 20, but some of the bands do off-venue concerts when they're not performing on stage, which anyone can attend, plus they're free.) 

Okay, story time: on the fifth of September my host mom, her niece, and I drove to Esja to do some hiking. In hindsight, there was no indicator that this was going to end well, and many suggesting the contrary. Particularly the weather. But what can I say? Our trio was determined.

Upon arrival:

''Well. That's not good.''

The hills were still breathtaking, though. Scenery like that reminds me that the earth is really, really old, but at the same time ever-changing.

And so, the hike began:

The woman in purple is my host mom, and the woman behind her is Elísabet, her niece (or, as an Icelander would say, ''her brother's daughter'').

 Now for some landscapes.

If this is what the views are like on a rainy day, I can't wait to go when it's sunny.

It was one of those rock statue things that people make by balancing stones on top of each other. First time I'd seen one in person.

This stream looked really familiar. I think Esja might be where my old desktop background was photographed. Cool, right?

Aaand...that's all I've got. I think we were between the second and third checkpoint out of five (we weren't going all the way to the top, just to Steinninn--''the stone'') when it started pouring, so I shut off my camera and kept it in my backpack for the rest of the hike. The real fun began when we got near the last checkpoint, where it was both the steepest and rockiest. You know what's more slippery than wet rocks? Wet, mossy rocks. And if there's anything Iceland is abundant in, other than licorice, it's rain and mossy rocks. For the last part of our ascent and the majority of our descent I was just focusing on not dying. Still, it makes for a pretty funny story.

Thanks, Mom.

28/10/14

You did good.

(More posts coming soon.)

The October Dance and Giving Raving A Chance

20/10/14

Fast forward past finding something Bollywood (the theme)-ish to wear, taking 3 buses, and managing to talk my way into the venue despite not having a ticket (#justexchangestudentthings), and BOOM:

ÁRSHÁTÍÐ!

Left: Eva
Right: Kristín
Behind the lens: Me

I met Eva at the front door, so we walked in together, then met up with Kristín and the rest of our class at our table.

While we were waiting for entertainment and food, I decided to raise morale with a group photo.

FEAST!

Dinner was a three-course meal of lobster bisque; steak, the equivalent of approximately three-fourths of a serving of vegetables (seriously, who decided to give us one spear of asparagus? It's not gourmet, dude, it's just frustrating), and chocolate mousse with some kind of Pop Rocks topping, which was actually really good.

This was some sort of non-alcoholic concoction of Sprite, juice, and presumably fairy dust. Basically it tasted like strawberry sparkling cider.

Between courses there were speeches and giveaways, plus some pre-dance dancing:

Sorry for the stills interrupting the video, but I saw no other way to take pictures and record the whole thing at simultaneously.

Next, she got some of the other students to--reluctantly--come up.

Lastly, there were these guys.

 Oh, and go check out the Árshártíð promo video that Skólafélagsins/the school society made this year. It has the president of Iceland in it (1:38)!

There was also a hashtag for people to submit photos on social media that would then be displayed on these big screens in the dining area.

 The idea was to post cute/silly photos of you and your friends at the dance or earlier in the day (each of the classes had brunch together in the morning). 

For example:

The concept deteriorated gradually, first with really silly photos...

...then animals...

 ...and then, well, I don't really know:

I chose not to focus correctly because his eyes actually stare directly into your soul.

 And then we were off to the before-party. However, that's all the pictures I got because, as the title explains, I thought attending a dance where I didn't spend the whole time taking pictures might be a nice change of pace, so I gave the coat-keeper my camera bag as well. I ran into withdrawal symptoms before I was even all the way upstairs, but I got over it.
Luckily, this time the dance was at the beginning of a long weekend. Looking forward to Jólaball!