Flying Home

As I flew towards home yesterday, I had 5 hours of absolutely nothing to do. So between bouts of reading “Independent People” by Halldór Laxness, talking to the people next to me and staring at the ceiling, I read through Icelandair’s magazine Atlantica. From this I learned quite a few bits of interesting information that I think everyone would be interested in. So it here is:

The Most Expensive Cities in the World are
1. Olso
2. Tokyo
3. Reykjavík

See More Here

There are just over 300,000 people in Iceland and 75% live in Reykjavík.

Of these 300,000, 88% belong to The National Church of Iceland, which is Evangelical Luthern. There is one Roman Catholic Catherdal in Reykjavík.

There is a pilot in Atlanta who will take you up in his private plane so you can join the mile high club and not have to worry about those pesky flight attendents yelling at you to get out of the bathroom.

Edda (my cousin's name) means very old.

There is a travel guide for the country Phaic Tan, which doesn't exist.
Sorry Melly, It's already been done.
See More Here

And that "There is nothing more Icelandic than the shape of Iceland." Or so says the Sage Boutique catalog trying to sell me "The Icelandic Icecube Mould."

Enjoy!

My OC Moment

During my trip out into the country this weekend I had a moment that could only be described as OC like. A band played in a little hut on the beach. While I've never seen this actually happen in The OC, it most definitely had that feeling. Sadly no Seth Cohen to be seen though....tear.

Icelandic Landscape

Just as the capital city offers a special something, the countryside offers something totally different to the visitor. The Icelandic landscape is the most alien landscape I’ve ever seen. Driving through countryside this weekend, I saw barely any trees, yet that was the least of it. Lava fields stretched for miles, covered in a thin layer of a moss that must have fought like hell to claim its spot on the hard rock. Mountains rose out of the ground all over, and hot springs just hung out on the side of the road. Caves litter the landscape, and if you come to the beach beware of one of the most amazing ocean scenes ever. I wish I could better explain the awesomeness that the Icelandic landscape fills you with. But I can’t. It’s too amazing, too beautiful, and too alien to even attempt past this. You must see it to believe it.

Reykjavík as the Top Summer Party Spot

As I was singing into my Hotmail account the other day, I noticed a link in the corner of the page where they have a selection of the articles offered on MSN that day. This one was entitled “Top 10 Summer Spots.” As I clinked on the link, I just knew that Reykjavík had to be one of them, I just knew it. And it was

“Of course, our list had to include Scandinavia's coolest summer capital, where midnight golf, mineral spas and hopping nightlife are just some of the season's
remarkable bounty.”

For those of you who haven’t wandered downtown Reykjavík in the wee hours of a weekend morning, it most certainly is a sight to be seen. Just as the light is just as bright at 3 AM as it was at 3 PM, there are just as many people out in the 3 AM timeslot as the 3 PM, if not more. The streets are crowed with Icelanders and visitors alike, wandering from bar, to café, to club, most of them with a certain about of alcohol in their bloodstreams, and everyone having a good time. In Reykjavík you can visit many places in one night. Most of the Reykjavik nightlife is enclosed in the downtown area, with your next stop being no more than a 5 minute walk away. As the clubs and bars overflow with people, the street almost become a new party place, with people drinking, walking to their next stop and all with music pouring out of several different places along the streets.

Reykjavík at night is most certainly a place to experience, and as one of the top summer party places, I certainly recommend it.

Light, at 11:30 at Night!

Ode to The Darkness

If I could write a poem about my love for darkness, I think it would go something like this:

Oh darkness, how I miss thee...
Thy night and thy dark
Thy stars and thy peace
Oh I miss thee...
Thy ability to give me an internal clock and help me get over jet lag
Oh I miss thee...
Thy ability to let me fall asleep at night and not be waken up at 4 in the morning
Oh darkness, how I miss thee...

While it is no Robert Frost, I think it gets my point across, transforms a thought of mine into expression.

Seriously, lots and lots of light doesn't help you sleep and gives you no sense of time what so ever. Right now its 11:30 and its not getting any darker then this.

Oh darkness, how I miss thee.....

Ĕg heiti Nina Soley

Today was my second day of Icelandic language class. What do I have to show for it? I have the ability to say hello and my name, the beginning of Icelandic sounds, the knowledge that Icelandic grammar will be as hard as German, if not worse, and a few vocabulary words.

Luckily my class is very small with there only being 10 of us in the class, and my teacher is very nice and smiley, even though she wants us to sing some songs, that make me feel like I’m two. The other people in the class seem very nice, three of them moving over to Iceland for their Icelandic boyfriends…hmmm…Icelandic men huh?

Now I have to work on my pronunciations so that my Icelandic sounds actually make sense. In order to that I have to get over my fear to actually speak Icelandic out loud. I’ve been around Icelandic my whole life, heard it spoken at the dinner table for as long as I can remember, so I know when I’m not saying it correctly. That is the problem; I know that I’ll make a mistake even more I say anything.

I’ve always been obsessed with the Icelandic accent. How Icelanders have the ability to spit out these truly foreign words in such an amazing way, making it sound like music. Well maybe if I can get over my fear, perfect my pronunciations and speak Icelandic, then I can fulfill my lifelong dream of being an Icelandair Stewardess (okay maybe not my life long dream).

Reykjavík At Two In The Morning

On Friday evening my sister and I tired to learn a little bit more about Iceland, more along the partying scene. So my sister’s friend took us to a birthday party a few miles out of the city. The party was in a barn, a horse barn to be exact. It was actually pretty nice, with lots of people in a big open space. So as I sat drinking my half liter of Carlsberg, I thought about what I did last weekend, and realized it was pretty much the same. Last weekend I was at a party in a barn, just back home, thousands of miles over the ocean. Maybe Iceland isn’t that different from home….

Afterwards we went out dancing at this club called Oliver’s. So here comes my question, in the summer, in Iceland, the sun never sets. At two in the morning it is pretty much just as light as it was at two in the afternoon. So how do you know when to go home after a night out? If the sun never goes down, it means it never comes up, meaning your whole “OMG its dawn I better go home” thought never kicks in. Hmmm oh well…I guess you just keep going.

Well class starts tomorrow, so I can start learning how to pronounce things. Wish me luck!