After lunch, a professor from Iceland's school of renewable energy spoke with us about the school's classes and how the university approaches teaching sustainability. It was pretty interesting, but it kinda felt like one big sales pitch. RES is a private school, but our group leader, Caitlin, told us that to attend public university in Iceland only costs $300 per semester. That's crazy! I can't buy three school textbooks for that much money. The government pays for almost all of Icelanders college education.
Upon finishing our Icelandic class most of us went to the liquor store as some of the students wanted to stock up on alcohol since drinks at bars cost at least $8 a glass. Later that evening we met up downtown to go to a nearby bar. We have Thursday off since it's a national holiday(Iceland's Independence Day), so we all wanted to spend the evening downtown. We headed to a place called Cafe Amour at 11:00 pm and didn't head home until 3:30 am. It was still quite sunny when we all left and things were in full swing when we walked home.
The bar was fun, I just sat around and conversed while the rest of the group ordered beers, and later in the evening we all danced upstairs. At the beginning of the evening Icelandic dance and techno music was playing, but around 2:00 they began playing American pop. Iceland is very involved in American culture as all the people knew the songs (and at the cinema all but one movie showing was American). About twelve people from our group went to the bar, and two Danish guys who are staying at the same house as one of our friends came. I also met a guy named Johannas, a Swede who was traveling around Iceland with a friend from the area. Some Polish graduate students from RES also stopped and talked with us for a bit. Tomorrow is Iceland's independence day, as well as the high schoolers' graduation. At midnight tomorrow, all of the graduates don white hats. At the bar, several young looking Icelanders were wearing similar black hats (they looked like pilot's hats). Apparently the fresh graduates will wear white hats on their graduation night, and past graduates wear black hats and come to town for a reunion and to celebrate Independence Day. The other day the past graduates were running around town doing a scavenger hunt. They were all wearing mustaches, which threw us off until we figured out what was going on.
The evening at the bar was very entertaining, and it was nice to mingle with some of the locals. I'm sure we'll be going out again soon.
Thursday I slept in and woke up around 10:30. My host mom had made cake to celebrate Independence Day, so I had cake for breakfast. It was a homemade gluten-free chocolate cake. Her littlest son, Ari has an allergy to gluten so most of the stuff she makes is gluten-free.
Nina's host family who lives across the street from us left for their vacation today and will be gone for 10 days. Apparently Nina's original host family backed out of hosting the day before we arrived, and my neighbors were kind enough to let her stay at their house. She'll just be living there alone with their dog Tira and eating dinner with us.
After lunch my family, Nina, Tira (a border collie mix), and I headed down to the town center. Walking into town there were some booths with carnival games for the kids to play and some moon bounces. In the town center a stage had been erected, and there were many different bands throughout the day as well as Hans Klaufi, or Hans the clown. He had an acting troupe that put on a play. I believe it was "The Princess and the Pea," but I had no clue since none of it was in English.
Nina and I walked around town and run into some other students from our SIT group and ended up just watching some of the bands until Tira got too restless and we went home.
At home, I finished my homework for tomorrow and around 7:00 pm, Nina came over for dinner. We had a delicious feast with lamb, potatoes, cole slaw, and salad. We had the cake for dessert and some really tasty ice cream that had toffee in it I believe. When Nina went home I finished reading my book, Jar City. It's a "Reykjavik Thriller" that centers on Erlendur, and Icelandic detective who has to solve an unusual murder. I recommend it because not only is the story suspenseful and intriguing, but you learn a lot about Iceland.
Some of the people in our group decided to meet downtown again at 9 pm so enjoy more holiday festivities, so we met in the town center and enjoyed more live music. There was one rapping duo which was pretty entertaining. At one point we went to 1011, a little mini mart to get snacks and I tried a Yankie, an Icelandic candy bar that is similar to a Milky Way.
Returning to the center, we stayed there until midnight so we could see the high schoolers' graduation celebration. They had graduated at noon that day, but right after midnight, they all filed into the town center wearing their distinctive white hats. All of the guys were in suits, and the girls were wearing nice dresses. A guy and a girl (maybe the class president and vice president?) walked to the middle and gave a speech. Then, another pair walked to the middle and started talking. Then the girl mentioned the hokey pokey. So...all of the graduates did the hokey pokey together. It was very strange, but so fun to watch. I'm glad I got to experience their celebration, and kind of wish I did the hokey pokey at my graduation. After dancing, all of the students filed out and the band continued. It was about 12:30 am by this time so our group departed since we have class early tomorrow.
Today was really special and I enjoyed celebrating Iceland's independence from Denmark. Tomorrow after school I plan on going to the town's used book store, and on Saturday some of the other students and I are going to a Hjalmar concert to see Iceland's one and only Reggae band.
I must go to bed now, since tomorrow in class we have a debate about the implications of the dam and aluminum smelting plant I mentioned earlier. Goda Nott!
P.S. ---> some fun things I learned.
- The high schoolers graduate at age 20, and are only called students after graduation.
- Icelander's love their licorice. Half of the candies at the mini marts have some kind of licorice in it.
- Icelander's who speak English often mix up their v's and w's. Maybe it's because there is no letter w in Icelandic?
Also, I found a 10k that I'm going to participate in next Saturday, wohoo!
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