Iceland - First Day
Backing up a little ...
After mom and![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
melannen dropped me off, it wasn't long before everyone else showed up and we got checked in. My second suitcase counted as a carry-on, so that was good. Then we went through security, and some of us sat around and chatted and watched the luggage while others got dinner. There were TSA agents everywhere. But eventually we boarded.
The flight was only about 5 hours. The plane had touch-screens in the back of the seats, so I played with that for an hour or so, and then spent the rest of the flight reading books on my iPod. After landing, we went through security again, gathered the rental cars (Skodas!) and drove the five hours or so from Rekjavik to Sauðárkrókur, stopping a couple of times on the way. The second stop was for lunch at an N1, which seems to have a monopoly here on gas and food for travelers! I spent the drive finally getting a bit of sleep, finishing my book, and chatting with my car-mates.
When we finally got to Sauðárkrókur, everyone was exhausted. We got room assignments and unpacked and moved furniture, and then we had dinner and went to the computer lab and slept. It's all a bit of a blur; I was definitely dropping by that point.
Sauðárkrókur is a quiet little town; it gives the impression of being a bit dreary, which isn't helped by the cold and the near-constant clouds. It's summer, so there is no night. I don't think it will made it hard to sleep, though; I expect we'll come home tired every day! But I do think the constant sun contributes to making the town feel a little faded and strung-out. (We've heard there's a club in town that is "sometimes almost fun." I expect we'll check it out this weekend!)
Our dinners are catered by a guy who serves us buffet-style at the local Rotary Club. It is completely delicious. I might even like fish by the time I get home. We'll see about that. :D
Odd sculpture at Keflavik (the airport).
View from the airport. Iceland reminds me a lot of Arizona, oddly enough: flat, rocky, mountains in the distance. The climate and vegetation and rocks are completely different, of course, but other than that ...!
This plume of steam had been visible from the plane. It's not a geyser.
It's the Blue Lagoon.
We went there after the flight, and showered, and swam in the steaming hot mineral water in the near-freezing air, and rubbed white goo on our faces, and had breakfast.
It is a little scary to be bathing in the waste pond of a power generation plant (!!!!). It's also kind of strange to have a swimming pool in the middle of a huge field of black volcanic rocks and no plants. But it was still kind of awesome.
A representative Iceland picture, shot from the road. There are no trees!
There are, however, rivers and waterfalls.
This is the house where we're staying.
A photo of the town.
Here's my room. It's a triple; I'm on the left.
This is the view from the window.
Here's another picture of the town. It's all decked out in blue ribbons for some type of sporting event going on.
Flowers blooming in the town square - at 9 PM! It's not going to get any darker than this.
After mom and
melannen dropped me off, it wasn't long before everyone else showed up and we got checked in. My second suitcase counted as a carry-on, so that was good. Then we went through security, and some of us sat around and chatted and watched the luggage while others got dinner. There were TSA agents everywhere. But eventually we boarded.The flight was only about 5 hours. The plane had touch-screens in the back of the seats, so I played with that for an hour or so, and then spent the rest of the flight reading books on my iPod. After landing, we went through security again, gathered the rental cars (Skodas!) and drove the five hours or so from Rekjavik to Sauðárkrókur, stopping a couple of times on the way. The second stop was for lunch at an N1, which seems to have a monopoly here on gas and food for travelers! I spent the drive finally getting a bit of sleep, finishing my book, and chatting with my car-mates.
When we finally got to Sauðárkrókur, everyone was exhausted. We got room assignments and unpacked and moved furniture, and then we had dinner and went to the computer lab and slept. It's all a bit of a blur; I was definitely dropping by that point.
Sauðárkrókur is a quiet little town; it gives the impression of being a bit dreary, which isn't helped by the cold and the near-constant clouds. It's summer, so there is no night. I don't think it will made it hard to sleep, though; I expect we'll come home tired every day! But I do think the constant sun contributes to making the town feel a little faded and strung-out. (We've heard there's a club in town that is "sometimes almost fun." I expect we'll check it out this weekend!)
Our dinners are catered by a guy who serves us buffet-style at the local Rotary Club. It is completely delicious. I might even like fish by the time I get home. We'll see about that. :D
Odd sculpture at Keflavik (the airport).
View from the airport. Iceland reminds me a lot of Arizona, oddly enough: flat, rocky, mountains in the distance. The climate and vegetation and rocks are completely different, of course, but other than that ...!
This plume of steam had been visible from the plane. It's not a geyser.
It's the Blue Lagoon.
We went there after the flight, and showered, and swam in the steaming hot mineral water in the near-freezing air, and rubbed white goo on our faces, and had breakfast.
It is a little scary to be bathing in the waste pond of a power generation plant (!!!!). It's also kind of strange to have a swimming pool in the middle of a huge field of black volcanic rocks and no plants. But it was still kind of awesome.
A representative Iceland picture, shot from the road. There are no trees!
There are, however, rivers and waterfalls.
This is the house where we're staying.
A photo of the town.
Here's my room. It's a triple; I'm on the left.
This is the view from the window.
Here's another picture of the town. It's all decked out in blue ribbons for some type of sporting event going on.
Flowers blooming in the town square - at 9 PM! It's not going to get any darker than this.
no subject
(The eternal day is kind of awesome- had a little of it in Scotland, the sun was only properly down for about 4-5 hours in July. I sure wouldn't want to live in Iceland in WINTER though!)
no subject
Yeah, I think winter would be pretty awful. Northern lights though!
no subject
1. How do you pronounce Sauðárkrókur? I don't even know what the letter "ð" is or would sound like.
2. What language do they speak in Iceland? Did you learn any of it? Do most of them speak English also?
3. What's the temperature like? You said it was summer, but you also said the air was near freezing when you went swimming.
4. Daylight all the time! This is not a question, just an exclamation. That would be SO WEIRD, especially when you're also dealing with jetlag.
5. What's the food like?
6. What are your classmates like? Your roommates? Are they near your age, or younger, or all different ages, or what? Is the whole group from UMass? You haven't said much about the people you're with.
Sorry, I'm just curious! I love living vicariously through people traveling overseas. :D
no subject
2. Icelandic! I don't know any of it, but it's sort of like German in that if you look closely at the long compound words you can sometimes break them down and figure them out! There's only a few people with me that speak it well. And yes, most of the people here speak English as well, so it's pretty easy to get around.
3. The forecast today was from 10-25 degrees Celsius, which is a ridiculously huge range. The sun came out for a few minutes and it was probably about 65 F. And sometimes it rains for a few minutes and gets down to about 45. Normally it's probably around 50ish. But we're working really hard, and it's actually really nice, because we *could* be on a dig in the jungles of Mexico ... The weather changes all the time though. Today it's been foggy and cloudy and sunny and drizzly. I'm not sure exactly how cold it was when we swam, but it was about 7 AM and we'd just got off the plane, so it might have seemed a lot colder than it was! Also it was a couple hundred miles south of where we're staying.
4. It's odd! I woke up at 2 AM the first day and thought it was 7 already. But I actually think it helped with the jet lag, since there's no day/night cycle to mess with our expectations! There is apparently a really cool sunset/sunrise at about 1 AM; hopefully I'll get some pictures of that at some point!
5. For breakfast we have fruit and cereal and milk and coffee and toast and stuff, and we lunches to the site of basically normal sandwiches, fruit, and water. And cookies and coffee. Dinners are catered by a cook in town; every night there's been really yummy bread, local butter, salad (without dressing), macaroni salad with some kind of fish in it, cold spiced rice, water, and coffee. The first night there was rice and meatballs, then fish in some kind of cream sauce, and tonight lamb and brussels sprouts in sauce. Oh and every night there's been a different kind of soup, all of them yummy. I've tried everything, and so far the only thing I haven't been able to eat is the macaroni fish ... They are threatening that one night we'll go out drinking and everyone will have to try fermented shark cubes. D:
6. I haven't wanted to say to much in an unlocked post, but they're all cool! One of my roommates is another incoming grad student. Most of the other people have been to Iceland in previous field seasons, or are starting their second year of school, or other things. There's a range of ages; I'm probably about in the middle, maybe slightly on the old side. But it does feel like everyone else is more experienced than I am! And of the students there are way more girls than guys.
I lived vicariously through your cruise recaps, so it's fair. :D And I like answering questions, so ask away!