‘Bout That Time, Yes?

Things I Did This Week:

On Thursday I went to the National Museum with my Icelandic Culture class. We had a short tour, and then were allowed to wander around and look at stuff until the museum closed. As we’ve also been learning in the folk tales class, most of Icelandic history is pretty grim—the short story being, everyone lived in cramped and dirty turf houses, eating rotten food, and eking out a meager existence amid the glaciers and volcanoes until the Allies occupied them during WWII, bringing in their swanky American money and magically turning Iceland into one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And then they had a bank crisis. On account of all this, there’s not a whole lot of artifacts preserved in Iceland, because if it wasn’t made of dirt, it was made of wood, and either way it didn’t really hold up over the centuries. In spite of that, the museum has some pretty cool stuff. My favorite parts were the wood carvings that did survive from some of the early cathedrals. A lot of the wooden artifacts (there’s some paneling, also some pieces of altars, as well as chests and cabinets and the like) have very intricate and beautiful designs carved into them. There’s a lot of Celtic-style knot work, and on the panels from one of the cathedrals there are scenes carved, which served the same purpose as the frescoes and stained-glass windows you see in other European cathedrals—pretty much to teach illiterate folk stories from the Bible. I’m sorry there are no pictures, but we weren’t allowed to have our bags inside. I’d have taken a picture of the outside, but Icelandic architecture, in general, has all the grace and beauty of a state correctional facility. (For Marietta people, see: Walker. For Wooster people, see: Mateer Hall.) It’s not terribly exciting.

Guess what IS exciting? Free concert at an art gallery! (How hipster.) A group of us went to see Rökkurró at a tiny art gallery/record shop called Havarí on Saturday afternoon, and it was lovely! When I say tiny, I mean tiny, so it was a bit cramped. Being that close was very cool, though, and the music was beautiful. Another great thing that came of this experience was that I discovered an exciting new band while digging through a box of vinyl before the show. I came across the following album:

Let’s not kid around—I was attracted by the dragon. Reading the back, I discovered that Stórsveit Nix Noltes—that’s, “Nick Nolte’s Big Band” (What? I don’t even know.)—is sort of an Icelandic supergroup that does Eastern European-style music. Amazing, right? Who would have guessed. Anyway, I was QUITE excited, and I hope to acquire more of their music soon. Most of their songs are not played at quite the manic tempo of say, Fanfare Ciocarlia, but their sound is wonderful.

Classes are going well, overall. I enjoy the reading for British Literature (we’re covering Mr. Geoffrey Chaucer, my hero, this week, so I’m delighted about that), though the lectures are fairly uninspiring. Icelandic Culture, on the other hand, is quite interesting, and Folk Tales has picked up as well. Next week is when we actually get to the folk tales section of the class, so I’m looking forward to that. Vocabulary. Vocab is kind of rough. Let’s talk about some of the crazy things in the Icelandic language. Definite articles are expressed by changing the ending of the noun. There are about fifty bajillion different vowel sounds. (Ok, so maybe it’s more like 15. I still think that’s above average.) EVERYTHING changes depending on what gender you’re referring to, and of course that includes inanimate objects because Icelandic has three genders for its nouns, same as German. Even the words for numbers change depending on gender. 2 men are tveir, 2 women are tvær, and 2 houses are tvö. Telephone numbers are masculine, prices are feminine, and house numbers are neuter. Adjectives decline in all three genders, all four cases, singular or plural, AND depending on whether the noun is definite or indefinite. Is your brain exploding yet? Needless to say, it’s a lot to keep track of, and sometimes in class I feel very lost. I’ve been alternating between feeling excited for the challenge and feeling frustrated with having to start over from the beginning with a whole new language. My brain keeps wanting to substitute German words for everything I don’t know in Íslensk.