In A Land Far, Far Away and My Sincerest Apologies for the Delay

14/9/2014

Okay, so my bad for kind of leaving you guys hanging, but things did not go according to plan. I thought I'd finish my final installment of the New York trip (which I'm still working on, but hopefully will be up in the near future) after the departure orientation, but it went on for several hours, and we were expected to be up early the next morning, so I decided to catch some sleep instead. LAZY!, I hear you shout at your monitor. When did you think you'd get another chance?! Well, worst case scenario, a day later. As you can see from the date, that did not happen. For whatever reason, the internet at my host family's house didn't work for my computer, and since that's where all of my pictures are...yeah, I had a bit of a dilemma. Not to worry though, all is well. Now I am both online and dozens of pictures richer, though most of those I'll save for a later entry, or this is going to turn into a novel. So, below, a brief FAQ:

• Laura, what was your first thought when you got to Iceland?

My first thought when I got to Iceland was from the plane, so technically I wasn't even there yet. Nevertheless, I remember looking out of the window, feeling grubby and exhausted from the 6-hour flight, and thinking that it looked like a different planet. You can see why:

This...

...is quite different from...

...this (which is somewhere around JFK Airport, by the way).

• Laura, how is the food?

As I told my biological parents, anyone who says Icelandic food is disgusting has never been to Iceland. It's different, for sure (see: harðfiskur), but delicious.

• Laura, how is school?

Well, I go to Menntaskólin í Reykjavík (MR), which is pretty highly ranked--basically, it's the snob school. This also means that we get a lot of homework. Other than that, though, it's about as good as school gets; my classmates are all friendly (and girls! I think we're the only all-girls class), the math is easier than last year, class periods are only 40 minutes long, and we're in the middle of the city, so on breaks we can roam free, much like the sheep.

• Laura, what's your host family like?

Fun. I've mentioned in an earlier entry who all it consists of, but to give you a better picture, my first night here we played Yatzee around the kitchen table very competitively after a lamb dinner, and then I watched them all poke fun at each other in Icelandic, which I quite enjoyed. My Icelandic mom is really spontaneous, which I like, and has been an excellent teacher...which is probably because she's a teacher. 

• Laura, are you going to go to bed?

Yeah. I have school tomorrow. I'm going to try and upload the rest of the pictures I have throughout the week, but, like the weather, I make no guarantees.