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Update and lots of pictures!
This was our dinner for the Fourth of July:
It was delicious. We also had a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence and sang The Star-Spangled Banner. And we took a group picture.
I'm on the left in the green shirt and dark sweater. (I think the guy next to me resembles Daniel Jackson. Yes/no?)
Then we were going to watch 1776, but we couldn't get the DVD to play very well or be loud enough on a laptop. At about midnight we went to the club - it is a very small club, and probably more than half of the people there were us. They have kind of a small playlist of music videos projected on a screen, and once the locals showed up the median age was probably 20. But I had a thoroughly awesome time, and that as much as anything tells me I made the right decision in going to UMass!
Today's our day off. We started (after I finlly got up at like 10:30) by going to the Auskaffe at Glaumbaer. Glaumbaer is a completely reconstructed longhouse and museum - the original longhouse is a few hundred meters behind the museum, and SASS excavated it several years ago. The inside of the house is layed out and decorated as an 18th-century dwelling, a bit later than we're interested it, but still good to see. And they have a completely delicious bakery and coffee house - which was the main reason why we went back this morning! Glaumbaer's claim to fame is that it was built by Snorri, the first child born in Vinland, after his return to Iceland. There's also a church there. It's located between several of the other farms we're looking at, and its placement plays into the theories about settlement patterns that we're trying to investigate.
Anyway, after Auskaffe some those who hadn't already left went off to a different city, but the car was full so I decided to stay behind and slouch about Sotharkrokur today, which I was sort of planning to do in any case. I climbed up the hill behind town to write this along with a post about the archaeology of Iceland. I think I might post it here as well as over on the SASS blog. And I'm about out of power on the laptop, so I think I'll continue walking, and eventually make it to the lab where I can post this and some pictures. Our conservator is working today, so I might also see if I can give him a hand washing artifacts. Then it will be shower time, dinner, and possibly Grettir's pool - and I've got another load of laundry going that I mustn't forget about! Oh, I need to write some postcards today too. And then tomorrow - back out to the field. I was ready for a day off, but I'm also ready to get back out there!
Pictures:
Kite aerial photography at Seyla! They're getting some pretty good shots to stitch together - you can see some examples here at the official blog.
Me taking points with the GPS at Jaðar.
Flags and a pile of turf at our 1x1 at Jaðar.
The turf house museum at Glaumbaer.
Here's the other side of it.
Cemetery and mountains at Glaumbaer.
Guðríður Þorbjarnardóttir and her son Snorri Þorfinnsson, the first child born in Vinland (America). I think there's another of these statues near L'Anse Aux Meadows in Canada.
Church at Glaumbaer.
Me at Glaumbaer this morning. I think those jeans have about had it.
Sauðarkrokur and the fjord. It is gorgeous out today.
More town. The purple flowers are invasive, but really pretty.
Inexplicable graffiti on the path to the cemetery on the hill behind Sauðarkrokur.
Cemetery gate and mountains.
See the road near the far left side? The big white house at the end of it is where we're staying.
My blog-writing spot.
Our pool! The hot tubs are the appendages at the far right. MMmmm. The big field beside the pool is full of campers; apparently most Icelandic towns set aside space for camping. I wish American cities did that.
Photo from the bottom of the hill.
These are þufurs. It's hard to see; they are tuffets of earth a couple feet tall wound through by lower ground. We try to stay on the low bit; þufurs have eaten people before. Yes, those are three-foot-tall dandilions.
Here's a picture I tried to get of a þufurs by itself. It all feels very Dr. Seuss.
Profile of the tiniest midden ever at Jaðar. You can see the outline. It's classic. But tiny.
We took cores in the cow pasture at Pafastaðir. One of them was kind of crazy (not this one; she was just interested in our flags.)
Me at Pafastaðir.
This is Buckets. (His real name is probably not Buckets.) He's a very good kitty.
This is the club where we went dancing. Next to it is the bakery; I haven't been there yet.
This is the restaurant where we had drinks outside one night.
It was delicious. We also had a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence and sang The Star-Spangled Banner. And we took a group picture.
I'm on the left in the green shirt and dark sweater. (I think the guy next to me resembles Daniel Jackson. Yes/no?)
Then we were going to watch 1776, but we couldn't get the DVD to play very well or be loud enough on a laptop. At about midnight we went to the club - it is a very small club, and probably more than half of the people there were us. They have kind of a small playlist of music videos projected on a screen, and once the locals showed up the median age was probably 20. But I had a thoroughly awesome time, and that as much as anything tells me I made the right decision in going to UMass!
Today's our day off. We started (after I finlly got up at like 10:30) by going to the Auskaffe at Glaumbaer. Glaumbaer is a completely reconstructed longhouse and museum - the original longhouse is a few hundred meters behind the museum, and SASS excavated it several years ago. The inside of the house is layed out and decorated as an 18th-century dwelling, a bit later than we're interested it, but still good to see. And they have a completely delicious bakery and coffee house - which was the main reason why we went back this morning! Glaumbaer's claim to fame is that it was built by Snorri, the first child born in Vinland, after his return to Iceland. There's also a church there. It's located between several of the other farms we're looking at, and its placement plays into the theories about settlement patterns that we're trying to investigate.
Anyway, after Auskaffe some those who hadn't already left went off to a different city, but the car was full so I decided to stay behind and slouch about Sotharkrokur today, which I was sort of planning to do in any case. I climbed up the hill behind town to write this along with a post about the archaeology of Iceland. I think I might post it here as well as over on the SASS blog. And I'm about out of power on the laptop, so I think I'll continue walking, and eventually make it to the lab where I can post this and some pictures. Our conservator is working today, so I might also see if I can give him a hand washing artifacts. Then it will be shower time, dinner, and possibly Grettir's pool - and I've got another load of laundry going that I mustn't forget about! Oh, I need to write some postcards today too. And then tomorrow - back out to the field. I was ready for a day off, but I'm also ready to get back out there!
Pictures:
Kite aerial photography at Seyla! They're getting some pretty good shots to stitch together - you can see some examples here at the official blog.
Me taking points with the GPS at Jaðar.
Flags and a pile of turf at our 1x1 at Jaðar.
The turf house museum at Glaumbaer.
Here's the other side of it.
Cemetery and mountains at Glaumbaer.
Guðríður Þorbjarnardóttir and her son Snorri Þorfinnsson, the first child born in Vinland (America). I think there's another of these statues near L'Anse Aux Meadows in Canada.
Church at Glaumbaer.
Me at Glaumbaer this morning. I think those jeans have about had it.
Sauðarkrokur and the fjord. It is gorgeous out today.
More town. The purple flowers are invasive, but really pretty.
Inexplicable graffiti on the path to the cemetery on the hill behind Sauðarkrokur.
Cemetery gate and mountains.
See the road near the far left side? The big white house at the end of it is where we're staying.
My blog-writing spot.
Our pool! The hot tubs are the appendages at the far right. MMmmm. The big field beside the pool is full of campers; apparently most Icelandic towns set aside space for camping. I wish American cities did that.
Photo from the bottom of the hill.
These are þufurs. It's hard to see; they are tuffets of earth a couple feet tall wound through by lower ground. We try to stay on the low bit; þufurs have eaten people before. Yes, those are three-foot-tall dandilions.
Here's a picture I tried to get of a þufurs by itself. It all feels very Dr. Seuss.
Profile of the tiniest midden ever at Jaðar. You can see the outline. It's classic. But tiny.
We took cores in the cow pasture at Pafastaðir. One of them was kind of crazy (not this one; she was just interested in our flags.)
Me at Pafastaðir.
This is Buckets. (His real name is probably not Buckets.) He's a very good kitty.
This is the club where we went dancing. Next to it is the bakery; I haven't been there yet.
This is the restaurant where we had drinks outside one night.
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I know in my head that this isn't right, but for some reason I think "Iceland" and I think frozen, barren tundra of Antarctica, so that when I see pics of just normal grass and such I'm like, "Oh."
but I have to say, I must really love you, Stellar, cos it took me 87 tries, on my slow-ass computer, to get this comment to go through, and I had to change my password cos it wouldn't work. I'm not impressed with Dreamwidth!
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As the saying goes, Iceland is green and Greenland is icy. *g* I can't get used to the lack of trees though. Visibility here is just amazing.
Sorry about the commenting issues!
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That has to be the smallest trench I have ever seen in my life haha - how big is it? The smallest I've done is a 1x1m test pit in a military latrine...
lovely pictures! Iceland looks amazing
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