Swimming

Alright. Iceland is famous for geothermal activity, yes?? Yes. They sit on a rift zone and a mantle plume, for cryin' out loud. So they have a lot of hot water, and they make use of it by harnessing it for electricity, where the only by-product is hot water, which they use to heat homes, showers and pools.

Today, I'd like to take a moment to discuss the pools. First of all: they're wonderful. It can be -4 degrees (C) outside, and I can guarantee you that you'll want to be at the pool; they're warm and therapeutic and just the ticket for stressed out college kids, lemmetellya.

However... there's one tiny little detail that caught me off guard the first time I went: you have to shower naked before entering the pool. No swimsuit, no towel, and there are no curtains in the washroom (but there is often someone there enforcing the rule...). I am certainly not used to this, and I would imagine many Americans would equate this to some strange European ideology (like nuclear power or socialism), but comparing the condition of these pools to the public pools I've been to in Arizona... it's a policy I wouldn't mind implementing (at least the requiring people to shower part, not necessarily the naked part, since it is America, afterall...).

Anyways, here is the card I received at the front desk about showering:

"Welcome to the Thermal pools in Reykjavik

"Dear Guest,
"Hygiene and safety are out priority, so please observe the following rules:
"Please take off your shoes before entering the changing room, you can either keep them in the racks in front of the changing rooms or together with your clothes in your locker. Every guest is required to wash thoroughly without swimsuit before entering the pool and also to take a shower after using the steam bath.
"The hot water in our pools has a positive effect on body and soul, relaxes stiff muscles an joints and reduces stress symptoms. We hop that you will have a pleasant stay in the pools, relax in the hot pots an the steam bath. Enjoy swimming in the hot water and breathe in the pure and fresh air."

(A picture of the back of the card with a helpful diagram)

Svið

Are you ready for this? I ate sheep's head. 

(Pictures by Kara Woo unless otherwise noted.)

So after our trip to Gullfoss/Geysir and Rettir (which, at the time I am writing this post, has occurred ages ago), Kara, Edvardas and a few others got the brilliant idea to cook and eat a traditional Icelandic dish: Svið. Apparently we didn't see enough sheep that day. 

Nope, we had to see frozen, dead sheep too, just to round it all out. In the bus terminal down the road, as well as several restaurants downtown, you can find traditional dishes like svið, lifrarpylsa and hákarl, but from what I've heard, Icelanders don't typically eat this stuff. Only for really special occasions, like Christmas or Þorrablót, a traditional feast early in the year... I believe svið is supposed to be served with a brown sauce, or some such, but we were just in it to try it, so they only ended up being boiled and served with green onions and potatoes:

In all honesty, if you can get over the "I'm eating head" part, and can get some meat off the bone, it doesn't taste bad! I equate it to oily (or slimey) roast beef. And yes: the teeth and tongue were included, but the eyes were not (apparently they're a delicacy in and of themselves, somewhere...):

(Photo by Michelle Bethell)

In the immortal words of... whoever the marketing director of Cambell's Soup is: mm, mm, good! 

Obligatory Gratitude Post (Part II)

Part I is here.

Tomorrow I have the opportunity to have "Gamli-giving," which is the Icelandicized psuedo-Thanksgiving made in the style of the poor, displaced college students living here in Gamli Gardur. We've managed to find a turkey and there will be people and food and... well, I'm sure it will be a sight to behold and I will take pictures and post about it later--you know how I do.

Back in October, around Canadian Thanksgiving, I was asked what American Thanksgiving was about in relation to the date, since American Thanksgiving is observed in November. The askee figured it had to do with a significant event, like the "first" Thanksgiving or when our ancestors first arrived at Plymouth Rock. My answer? "It marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season!"

I stand by the answer, because it is true.

...and technically we should be giving thanks every day, not just the fourth Thursday in November or the second Monday in October (but only if it's a leap year and the Queen is alive; special arrangements are made for any years ending in "5" or have born witness to a "blue moon," or you know, however the Canadians do it...) but I will admit, it is a nice thought: that everyone you know is gathering around a table that evening to gorge on turkey in gratitude.

This year I am especially grateful: I have had the amazing opportunity to come to Iceland! And if that was not enough, I was further blessed to get to know some beautiful new people who've taught me much about myself and what lies out there in the world around me. Ryan and Michelle especially--they've helped me with those typical "struggling undergrad" troubles, made this place home, and made sure that I changed clothes every once in a while so I didn't stink! I can't help but to think about everyone else here as very spirited friends, and would list them all out one-by-one and give the psychoanalytical breakdown I have filed in my noggin for them  in an effort to tell them how much I appreciate who they are and that they chose to come to Iceland, of all places, but that might get a little creepy. Feel free to ask though!

I've also had the opportunity to hear first hand about war and oppression from those who grew up with it and are now fighting against it. I get to hear stories about regimes in the Middle East, including the Taliban, which has been referred to as "the shit-group" many times now, and the policies they've enforced, especially those impacting women. All I can say is that I am so grateful that I did not have to grow up in that environment and that I do not have to return to it... But that will never feel like enough.

This year... this semester... this Thanksgiving day is one I hope I will never forget. I am not one to hold hope for humanity, but if there is any hope in me left, it will be manifested tomorrow when I can stop and stare and truly focus on all that I have been blessed with and all that I can be doing to bless the lives of those around me...

Gobble, Gobble!

Thingvellir (Þingvellir)

You know you are in one of the most beautiful places on the planet when your pictures look increasingly more terrible (terribler should so be a word) to you the longer you go without looking a them. No, seriously! I'm about to post a bunch of pictures of Thingvellir, the site of Iceland's first parliamentary gathering and the boundary where the North American and Eurasia tectonic plates diverge and I hate all of them. 

It's such a cool place! Essentially what you've got is this big rift valley where the sea floor is spreading--yes, the sea floor. Only above water. It's amazing! In fact, Iceland is one of two places in the world where we can see this kind of rifting, the other being the Great Rift Valley in Africa. In the above picture you can see that this is indeed a valley, and on the east you have the Almannagjá, which is the boundary of the North American plate. 

It's huge--it's just one big wall of basalt. On the other side of the valley lies Hrafnagjá, which is more or less the same thing only for the Eurasia plate. In between lie fissures, the result of faulting, etc. Some are filled with water from the nearby Lake Þingvallavatn:

It's just a spectacular area all around, rich with both Icelandic history and geologic history... A must see!

I See Candy Dinosaurs...

Okay, so not every trip I've been on here in Iceland has been to see waterfalls or volcanoes, and years from now when I'm recalling memories I am sure that it's nights like last night that I will remember the most... Seriously, the ab workout I got from laughing was painful!

As you've seen before, we all share a kitchen, so eating and cooking together is a pretty normal thing, and highly encouraged! "Social interaction is good, Leah?" Yes, social interaction is very good. Social interaction leads to geology t-shirt franchises, Raptor Jesus, zombies and mummification and gummy sharks...

Candy is 50% off in Iceland on Saturdays, so yesterday, during the course of eating dinner, we decided that at midnight we were going to go get candy, since candy beats going to the bars any day. The entire night we had some pretty interesting conversations, some of which I will list here so that I don't forget, cause they're just too awesome to forget...

• Jesus is my homeboy.
• Velociraptor Awareness Day is a totally legit (internet-inspired) holiday and everyone should just recognize my genius in celebrating it.
• Jesus Rocks. 
• Raptor Jesus is totally a thing.
• Pistachio ice cream is the best/worst thing on the planet, circle one.
• Ryan is going to be the best looking zombie around now that he only eats processed meats with a nice MSG dry-rub. Oh, and ice cream. And candy. 
• I see dinosaurs... candy dinosaurs.
• When I die and it comes down to figuring out where I went wrong in this life, I will be condemned for last night.
• What is douche? Is that where douchebag comes from?
• Flicking Ryan's ear isn't nice and making him pick up cards off the floor is sexist. 
• I'm going to come into your room at night and bite you. You won't know the difference!

Okay, so they may not sound awesome to you, but they're awesome to me, and downright HIGH-larious. :| Shuddup, this is mah blog. 

Commence normal programming in 3...2...

Gullfoss & Geysir

On the same trip as the sheep round-up I got to go to Gullfoss, or "Golden Falls," and Geysir.

Seriously, go look Gullfoss up on Wikipedia or Google Images (especially of those in the wintertime!!). My pictures do not do it ANY justice. It's a glacier waterfall, so the water is a murky color, for which it gets it's name from. There is also a story about a woman, Sigríður Tómasdóttir, walking all the way to Reykjavik in order to save this waterfall from being used to produce electricity like many of the other waterfalls in Iceland...

From here we went to Haukadalur, or the Golden Circle, where Geysir and Strokkur are located.

Geysir (from which the word "geyser" originates) has been extremely effected by tectonic activity over the years leading to periods when the watershed had to be manipulated by man-made ditches and soap for the geyser to erupt. Today, such efforts only happen on rare occasions and Geysir doesn't erupt. This is a natural process for any geyser--even the littlest of shifting can effect a geyser (or cause one), which makes them so important in studying earthquake prediction. Strokkur is the main attraction now in this particular geothermal spot as it erupts every 3-8 minutes. 

There are also several other smaller geysers and pools in the area...

Also... if they tell you not to climb around Geysir (in my defense, the ropes barely came to my shins) it's because of these guys:

Boiling mud pots. Yaaay! (More of these later!) But look... rocks... 

I like rocks.

Réttir

So for my first trip out of Reykjavik I had the opportunity to participate in an Icelandic tradition: Réttir, or the annual sheep round-up. Farmers all over Iceland go into the mountains where the sheep have been grazing for the summer and herd them back to their farms for the winter, and in order to separate which sheep belong to which farmers, they bring them first to these gigantic stone circles for sorting.

In Iceland, it is tough for farmers to make a living on farming alone, which is evidenced by the interesting characters you see at these round-ups. For example, we saw several people wandering around with a cigarette in one hand, a beer in another, and a sheep between their legs! 

There is a central circle where a portion of the sheep are kept while the farmer's families go around checking tags and marking to see which are theirs. Spectators stand on the walls, or sometimes get down and dirty as well!

It's chaos. At one point, one of the sheep jumped over the fence the farmers use to get in and out of the inner circle and proceeded to jump over the stone walls on the outside into one of the pens! 

It was a really fun experience, and supposedly the farmers really ham it up sometimes and sing some of the old songs for the tourists. That didn't happen this time, but I highly recommend attending if you're in Iceland in September!!