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!

Long Time No Blog

17/10/14

Yo, yo, yo...

Last night was Árshátíð, which I believe translates to ''annual festival/celebration'', and it's supposedly the equivalent of homecoming in the US, except I've been to homecoming and this was about a million times cooler. But more on that later.

Since it's been nearly two weeks since the last post, I thought I'd give you guys a bit of an update on how things are going with adjusting to life here. 

• Contrary to what just about everyone--Americans and Icelanders alike--insisted, I haven't gotten sick of the weather here. Waiting for the bus at night can be a bit of a drag when it's windy and raining in addition to being dark, but I can say with certainty that I have a new-found appreciation for the indoors. And hot tea. So, so much hot tea. 
• Despite not speaking Icelandic very much (something I'm trying to change), I am understanding more, to the point where I can usually sort of follow along with what my class is talking about, which makes paying attention a lot easier, let me tell you. Also, my host mom and I went to a Swedish movie a couple of days ago (Turist aka Force Majeur) that had Icelandic subtitles, and I was surprised to find that I knew what they were talking about most of the time, so the progress is definitely there. The nice thing about learning a language is that the more you understand, the easier it is to learn more. 
• People here are so much more eager to go out and do things after work/school, often as a group, on a daily basis, which I absolutely love. And it's not because students don't have as much homework or material to study or whatever, as that's not the case at all. I think it's just in the mindset. I'm finding that the US in particular is extremely time-orientated. When is it? How long will it be? What are we going to do when we get there? Will we do something after that? What will we do, specifically? When will it be over? These are all questions that I'm learning not to ask, and I'm positive that I get more out of the experience for it.

Okay, that's all that comes to mind right now. I'll add something with pictures in the near future. :)

SLÁTUR!!!! (aka Another Short Post)

5/10/14

So, around the time of year when lambs are being slaughtered, it's traditional to eat the...err...leftover bits. This, from what I understand, includes the blood and liver of the sheep. Usually you stuff these goodies into the sheep's stomach before sewing and then boiling them, but this time we used a synthetic alternative and pins for convenience's sake. 

Basically I stuffed blood and guts into a bag and then ate it. Wanna see? (Trigger warning: obviously there will be blood.)

My mouth says I'm having fun but my eyes say, ''I just accidentally pinned my glove to the bag for the third time in a row''.

Fast forward through boiling them for three hours and...

Ta-da! The light brown ones are the liver and whatnot, and the almost-black one is blood pudding.

What would a traditional Icelandic dinner be without potatoes?

Q: So, how did it taste?

A: Surprisingly good. I liked the meat ones better than the blood, which is actually how most people feel--hence why there was only one blood bag among three meaty ones. The taste is kind of like a sausage or hot dog I guess, but it's definitely got a flavor all its own. It was very rich as well. As you can see, one pouch fed my host mom, sister, and me.

If you ever get the chance to participate in making/eating lifrapylsa and blóðmör, I highly recommend giving it a shot.