Iceland is cold, but I like where I’m living (…there’s music on Laugavegur all through the evening…)

I’m calling it right now. Iceland Airwaves—highlight of my semester. In the five days of the festival I saw twenty-four bands, and while a couple were mediocre (I’m looking at you, Bang Gang), many of them were, like, life-alteringly good. With the exception of Seabear, Tunng, and Mugison, I hadn’t heard any of their music before, so this was a great opportunity to discover some wonderful new music. All the groups listed here are Icelandic, unless otherwise indicated. Also, this is a hella long post, so get ready!

Kind-of Meh

Agent Fresco and Bang Gang were both groups I only saw because I wanted to make sure I would be able to see the act coming on after them, so they almost shouldn’t be on here. Agent Fresco are supposed to be very talented, but they tended towards screamo (not my style), while Bang Gang was just emo (and took themselves waaaay too seriously).

The 59ers weren't great, but this was one of my favorite pictures I took. They want to be a rockabilly band, but they were too much like a group of guys playing at being rockabilly, rather than the genuine article. Also, the double-bass was a mega spotlight-hog, and I felt really awkward on behalf of the singer, who was very young and actually pretty good.

Samúel Jón Samúelsson Big Band were billed as funk, which I’m not sure they quite attained, but as general jazz, they were—well, they were okay. They started out merely adequate, but they started to really bring it in the third song, and their energy and improv-ing skills were much higher in the second half of their set.

Good Show, But Wouldn’t Buy the Album

(Most of these are the DJs or electronica groups, which obviously are just by nature a much different experience when you see them live. Some were actually incredible; I just don’t feel that their studio recordings do them justice.)

Mammút is an almost-all-girl rock band that put on a fun show. (One of my friends described them as “like an Icelandic Paramore, but good.”)

The Vandelles (US) were the lead-in for Mugison, and I didn’t think I would like them, but there was NO WAY I was missing Mugison, so I was there for their set, and it was not bad. They’re kind of going for a really hardcore surf-rock thing.

Klassart could actually go either way for me. Their show was mesmerizing, really soulful blues, but their studio recordings have a snoozier alt-country sound, which is unfortunate. Listen to “Bottle of Blues” or “Orlaga blus” (“Destiny Blues”) for something a little closer to their live sound.

Bloodgroup was amazing, but the tracks I’ve listened to on their MySpace just don’t have the magnificent power of their live show.

Hercules and Love Affair (US) were solidly in the top five performances. They were dynamic.

DJ Margeir and his Symphonic Orchestra was an interesting concept (DJ plus live string quintet), though sometimes the strings felt redundant and/or too repetitive.

Dan Deacon (US) was SO much fun. He’s hilarious, and his music is crazy. I just wouldn’t be much interested in listening to it outside of the dancing-at-a-concert context.

FM Belfast seemed like they might have been cool, but they were the last set of the festival and were right after Dan Deacon, so I was pretty much moshed-out before they even started. As we all know, I’m KIND OF SHORT, so these sort of sardine-like conditions are kind of miserable for me. When it gets to the point where you can’t actually dance because you’re just trying to keep stray elbows from smacking you in the face, it stops being fun and starts being really stressful. I was digging them for a little while though, and I can’t blame them for people like Dude With The Camera Who Thought My Shoulder Was A Good Armrest and Girl In Heels Who Kind Of Destroyed My Boots By Repeatedly Stepping On My Feet.

The Glorious

Honorable Mention: I loved what I heard of Sing For Me Sandra online, but I never managed to catch one of their shows. Check ’em out anyway! Favorite Song: “Fangorn”

Lára wins the Craziest Outfit award (Björk would totally approve). She gave an energetic, fun performance, and her lyrics are goofy and sometimes sweet. She’s kind of like a really peppy, Icelandic Regina Spektor. Favorite Song: “I Wanna Be”

I only caught half of singer-songwriter Snorri Helgason’s set, but what I saw was really lovely. Favorite Song: “Freeze-out”

Múgsefjun was absolutely in my top-five favorite shows. They’re basically indie rock, but otherwise kind of hard to categorize. Much like Lára, a good part of the pleasure in their performance came from seeing how much fun they were clearly having. Favorite Song(s): “Lauslát” and "Hagsmunatíkin"

LCMDF (Finland) were giant buckets of fun—it’s a shame they were in tiny bar Sódóma, because they would have been better suited to NASA, the larger club where most of the other electropop types were performing. Their MySpace is apparently dedicated solely to promoting their new single right now, but my favorite songs were “Cool and Bored” and “Take Me To the Mountains.”

I had a hell of a time getting in to the Seabear concert. I’m going to just give a shout out right now to the fellow who was working security at Iðno that night, because he’s pretty much a saint. I knew I would need to be at the venue early, so I got there around when the previous set started. I’d hoped to catch that one (folk singer Lay Low) as well, since it looked promising, but when I got there, the line had already started forming outside the door. For the next 45 minutes or so, the line inched along, and when Seabear went on stage there were only six people between me and the door. I could even hear them a little from outside, so I’m thinking, oh, I’ll get in soon, no problem. However, people with press passes and other VIP types with special wristbands kept coming and jumping to the front of the line, and then the security guards realized there were over 400 people inside, so they started only letting one of us in for every TEN people who came out.

Since I was in line for so long, I had the opportunity to take a picture of the venue. All the Airwaves venues were lit with these eerie green lights on the outside. It was kind of weird, but I guess it made them easier to find.

Oh, and then came Champagne Man. I was actually at the front of the plebeian line (though still getting cut off by people with cameras…argh), when Champagne Man approached St. Bouncer and informed him that he had a) just arrived from France; b) ONLY ten people in his party; and c) five bottles of champagne for St. Bouncer if he would let them in to Seabear. “Yeah, I can’t do that,” said St. Bouncer. “Ten bottles of champagne,” said Champagne Man. St. Bouncer proceeded to patiently explain that the venue a) holds only 300 people; b) could get shut down by the fire department any minute now; and c) does not look kindly on its bouncers accepting bribes. “I can give you ten bottles of champagne,” responded Champagne Man. The argument went on for AT LEAST ten minutes—Champagne Man offering the ten bottles of champagne, St. Bouncer calmly refusing to sacrifice his honor and the fire codes for fancy French alcohol. They were still going at it when I finally made it in myself.

It felt so good when I got to escape the mess outside and step into the lovely, soothing sound of Seabear. Worth it? Absolutely. They were positively transcendental. Favorite Song: “Wolf Boy”

Mugison is a badass like you wouldn’t believe. He’s got more soul and rocks harder than just about any other artist I’ve ever seen. He played this crazy electronic apparatus he calls the Mirstrument (“part space station, part instrument”)—I think he might have said something about it using sounds from the International Space Station, but he was mostly speaking Icelandic, so I’m not totally sure. Favorite Song: “Mugiboogie”

Hjaltalín might actually belong in the second category, sort of like Klassart could easily belong in this one, but they have this one song that I’ve become obsessed with, even though I’m less enthusiastic about the rest of their music. Gotta respect a pop band with a bassoon. Favorite Song: “Feels Like Sugar”

The phenomenal Jónas Sigurðsson & Ritvélar Framtiðarinnar I think take home the prize for Most Surprising Sound To Come Out Of Iceland. I’m not entirely sure how to translate the name of his band, but it’s something like Typewriters of the Future. “Hamingjan Er Hér” just makes me really happy. As it should, since the translation is, in fact, “Happiness is here.”

Tunng (UK) were magnificent, in spite of the questionable acoustics in the Art Museum, and I was really digging the guitarist’s hat. Favorite Song: “Bullets”

Basia Bulat (Canada) is old-school folky and very wonderful. She plays the autoharp, plus something more obscure called a hammer-harp, so you know she’s legit. Favorite Song: “In the Night”

I saw Zach and Foes play their third gig ever at an off-venue event for Airwaves. They haven’t been signed yet, though hopefully they won’t stay that way for long. They only played four songs, but all were winners, and the crowd was really into it. The lead singer looks like a hipster, but the mustache is a lie—he’s all about jumping on chairs and rocking alt-country without the slightest bit of irony. Both of the songs on their website are marvelous. I’ve had “Tears to Cry” stuck in my head all week.

Oh, and since I mentioned that Iceland is cold—woke up to spy snow on Mt. Esja this morning!

Hiking in the Krýsuvík geothermal area

A couple Sundays ago (WOW I am very behind on my blog posts) I went hiking with a few other people in the Krýsuvík geothermal area. It was a very nice hike, and I took lots of pictures, so here they are! This place is out on the Reykjanes peninsula, where Keflavík is, so remember back when I first got here and said that I was trying to take pictures of the desolation, but they were crummy because they were only through the bus window? Now I have real, live, nice pictures with no intervening glass!

RIFF

I was waffling for a while about whether to buy a pass to the Reykjavík International Film Festival, and then I thought, WHY THE HECK NOT? So I picked one up, and that’s one of the reasons why there haven’t been any blog posts in the past couple weeks. Overall, it was a good decision—I ended up seeing fourteen films, and they were mostly pretty worthwhile.

Some of the highlights (I included a link to the trailer, when possible):

Soul Kitchen (Germany) I would not say that this German comedy was a great movie, but it was a nice movie. One might go so far as to say, “cute.” The plot is predictable, but I enjoyed its goofiness, and the opportunity it gave me to refresh my Deutsch a little bit.

Fake Orgasm (Spain) Spoiler Alert…this film is not actually about fake orgasms. There was a Q&A with the director after this one, and he said that he had wanted it to be called “Faking It,” instead, which really would have been a much better title. The actual subject of this documentary is a female-to-male transsexual who uses various forms of performance art to raise awareness about society’s attitudes towards gender. As long as you’re comfortable with the vast amount of nudity, it’s a pretty fascinating piece, and certainly thought-provoking.

Kings of Pastry (US/UK/Netherlands) I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone eat a cream puff with so little joy. This doc follows three men competing for the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France—a three-day ordeal in which they create fabulous, creative, and horrifyingly fragile works of art in order to join the ranks of the French pastry chef elite.

Big Man Japan (Japan) Well, it’s a mockumentary about a schmuck who periodically grows into a giant to defend Tokyo from giant monsters. That’s all you need to know. Probably the strangest movie I have ever seen. Loved it.

Oil Rocks: City Above the Sea (Switzerland) I only saw this one because it was paired with The Mermaid’s Tears, but it turned out to be quite fascinating. Oil Rocks is a town the USSR built out in the middle of the Caspian Sea to drill for oil, complete with apartments, restaurants, a casino, and a public pool. It’s an incredible work of engineering, and I had no idea it existed until I saw this film. Kind of like Tipoca City, only dingier and with more Soviet propaganda.

The Mermaid’s Tears: Oceans of Plastic (France) This movie will break your heart. It’s about how much plastic is being washed into our oceans, and the effect it’s having on the animal population. Recycle, kids.

Earth Keepers (Canada) This documentary followed a young Canadian environmental activist as he traveled the world learning about what different cultures are doing about sustainability. I’m not sure how I felt about the intense French environmental aphorisms that get chucked up on the screen every few minutes (you can see some of that in the trailer), but overall the graphics were very slick and it was a nicely executed documentary, with a lot of interesting ideas. Also, Wangari Maathai was featured—she spoke at Wooster last year, and I can say that she is probably one of the coolest people in the world.

No one in Scandinavia has swagger like us

I just finished reading The Saga of Gunnlaug the Worm-tongue for Icelandic Culture, and enjoyed it immensely. This is the first saga I’ve read to the end—last year I started reading Egil’s Saga, but I had to abandon it about half-way through on account of homework. One thing I learned from the Egil’s Saga experience was that making family trees is key to keeping track of what’s going on. Sagas will sometimes span multiple generations, and Icelanders are big on geneaology, so a large part of the sagas is devoted to describing the lineage of various characters.


What follows is a summary of Gunnlaug’s Saga.

Gunnlaug is a young fellow who sets off on a journey to see the world and prove himself a worthy man so he can marry Helga the Fair. Helga’s father tells Gunnlaug that if he returns within three years, having done proper manly things, then Helga will be his wife. “Nice,” thinks Gunnlaug to himself, and embarks on Gunnlaug’s Northern Europe Tour ’06. (That’s 1006.) Gunnlaug, like many Icelandic heroes, is a poet as well as a warrior, and he spends quite a lot of his time freestylin’. Wherever he goes, he wows heads of state with his sick rap skillz, and in return gets all manner of bling. At one court he shows up with a boil on his foot. It’s oozing, you know, as boils do, and everyone wants to know why he’s still walking. “It’s because I’m a bamf,” says Gunnlaug. One courtier remarks, in my #1 favorite sentence of the saga, “He swaggereth hugely, this Icelander!” Yeah he does.

At the Swedish court, Gunnlaug meets Raven, another young Icelandic poet, and the two of them have a rap battle in front of the Swedish king. Raven disses Gunnlaug (“It is a song full of big words and little beauty; a somewhat rugged song, as is Gunnlaug’s own mood.” Hiyo!) Gunnlaug replies that the length of Raven’s song compares unfavorably with his own. Raven swears vengeance against Gunnlaug for mocking him in front of foreign royalty, and goes back to Iceland in a huff.

Gunnlaug, meanwhile, visits his buddy King Ethelred in England, who, for the record, is my pick for bim of the saga. Ethelred is paranoid that Denmark is going to attack England ANY MINUTE NOW, so he makes Gunnlaug stay and protect them from the Danes. (With his rhymes? Like one guy’s going to make a difference if the Danes actually bring the full force of their Viking might against little old England. Ethelred, YOU ARE SO UNREASONABLE.) This makes Gunnlaug late to marry Helga, and the Danes never show up anyway.

Gunnlaug gets himself back to Iceland as quickly as possible, twists his ankle in a wrestling match right after he lands (What’s up with this guy and random foot injuries?), and then finds out that, while he was protecting England from the non-existent Danish threat, Raven married his woman. The three of them meet again at a wedding, and Gunnlaug and Helga instantly reconnect. Gunnlaug and Raven throw down some more rhymes, Gunnlaug makes some vague threats, and “Raven had nought of Helga’s fellowship” from then on. Ouch.

The next time they see each other, bleep gets real because Gunnlaug challenges Raven to a duel at the Althing. “This Thing,” we are informed, in my second-favorite sentence of the saga, “was the third most thronged Thing that has been held in Iceland.” [Historical Context: The Althing, as I mentioned before, is Iceland’s parliament, and in the old days, this is something like how it worked. Once a year, the leaders of the country would gather at Thingvellir, and all citizens (read: free men) could come attend the assembly and present ideas, complaints, etc. Disputes would be settled, the law would be revised, probably there was a lot of partying, and then folk would go back home.] This duel is so intense, that the Althing makes a law that year forbidding these duels from taking place anymore. Of course, they’re too late to stop Gunnlaug and Raven, who, after some preliminary rapping, start going at it with actual swords. The duel ends in a draw, because the men’s fathers are so upset to see them fighting that they break it up.

But if there’s one thing Gunnlaug and Raven agree on, it’s that one of them has to die, and they run off to Norway so they can hack each other to bits where it's still legal. And hack they do! Gunnlaug whacks off one of Raven’s legs, and you’d think that would be the end of it, but you’d be wrong, because Raven, I kid you not, goes all Black Knight on us. Gunnlaug tells Raven to give up, because he’s not about to fight a man who only has one leg. Raven steadies his stump against a tree, and says, “Tis but a scratch! I’m pretty sure I could keep going if maybe someone brought me some water.” Gunnlaug, because he’s a hero, brings Raven some water, and says, “Wait. You’re not gonna, you know, run me through with your sword when I give you this water, are you?” “Who, me?” says Raven. Gunnlaug gives him the water, and Raven, because he’s a tool, stabs Gunnlaug in the head. And you’d think THAT would be the end of it, but YOU’D BE WRONG AGAIN, because the guy with one leg and the guy who just took a sword through the skull start going at it all over again. Gunnlaug wins, to the extent that Raven dies first.

After that, there’s a feud, more senseless revenge killings, and Helga marries a nice man but spends the rest of her life pining for Gunnlaug anyway. It’s all very tragic.

‘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.

Réttir and the Golden Circle

I’m just going to skip right past Week 2—the short story is, I went to some classes and they were mostly pretty interesting and I’m really excited to read all my new books.

Instead, I’m going to write about the thrilling adventures we had on Saturday! With many pictures! Mostly of sheep! A large number of international students piled into four buses at 8:00 yesterday morning and drove out to the countryside to see the annual Réttir, or sheep round-up. Iceland is famous for its wool (and also for traditional dishes like boiled sheep’s heads and ram’s testicles) so sheep are kind of a big deal here. In the summer, the shepherds just let the sheep roam free wherever they please, but in the fall they herd all the sheep together into a big pen, then each of the farms goes through and sorts out which sheep are theirs, by reading the numbers on the ear tags.

Unsorted sheep.

There’s a large, circular pen in the middle, and then several pie-piece-shaped pens radiating out from it, one for each farm.

Sorted sheep!

In-the-process-of-being-sorted sheep.

When someone finds one of their sheep, they pull it over to their pen, then wade back into the sea of livestock to find the next one.

Check out THIS one. I think it looks a little evil.

It was a crazy scene, and what was even crazier was that they actually let us get down into the pen ourselves to touch the sheep. While I did not personally try my hand at wrangling a sheep, several people did, with success!

Edvardas, Derek, and Kara show us how it's done.

This was while one batch of sheep was dwindling down, and then suddenly everyone started clearing off to the sides. We complied, and soon saw why. Icelandic sheep are actually pretty small, as sheep go, but they do have impressive horns, and when hundreds of them are running towards you, it’s a little alarming.

!!!

At that point, we felt we’d had enough of sheep, and found an opening and escaped back over the wall.



After the Réttir, we went on a tour of the “Golden Circle,” which is a driving tour that stops at a few of the notable sites in the center of Iceland. Our first stop was the Haukadalur geothermal area, where we saw the Strokkur geyser—over 100 feet tall! There is also another geyser, called Geysir (which is where we get the word! Fun fact: Geyser is the only Icelandic word in the English language. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.), but that one isn’t currently active, so we didn’t get to see it.

I climbed up a little ridge and got some pictures from above!

The downside to the geothermal area is the smell of the sulfur in the water. Though the odor was particularly strong there, even the hot water that comes out of our faucets at the dorm smells vaguely like eggs—just something you have to get used to in Iceland.



Next up was Gullfoss (which means golden waterfall), a gigantic waterfall in a glacial river. When the sun is shining (which it was!) you can see a lovely rainbow. We actually had incredible luck in the weather yesterday—it was bright and sunny everywhere we went (or at least as bright and sunny as it gets in Iceland), and only ever started raining after we’d returned to the bus.



The last stop was Þingvellir (that letter at the beginning makes a soft ‘th’ sound), the site of the original Alþingi. The Alþingi is Iceland’s parliament, and sometimes called the oldest parliament in the world. As our history lecturer professor pointed out last Thursday, this is technically not true because the current version of the Alþingi is not the same as the old one, but it’s still pretty cool. It was founded in 930, and the parliament continued to meet at Þingvellir (Parliament Plains) until 1799. There isn’t anything left in the way of buildings; instead it’s a national park, and very beautiful.




I probably would have been more excited if I hadn't been so tired, and ready to go home and stop smelling like sheep and geysers.

After all the excitement of yesterday, today is much more mundane—just grocery shopping and homework. Fun fun!

Orientation and Week One!

I’m sorry it took me so long to get this post together—the last couple weeks have been very busy!

The first Monday I was here we had registration and orientation. One of the first things we all discovered is that the university is maddeningly bureaucratic—pretty much the whole first week was spent running all over the campus and all over the city signing forms and waiting for paperwork to get processed so we could actually start going to classes. See, classes for the School of Humanities and the School of Social Sciences (where all my classes are) started on the same Monday we had orientation. BUT even though I registered old-school style on Monday morning by writing down classes on a sheet of paper, the registration is not considered official until you get your intranet username and password. The intranet is also where you get your timetables to find out where and when each of your classes is held. So, I didn’t get my login information until Wednesday afternoon, and at that point I’d already missed three classes, which was very frustrating. Also, once I got my timetables, I found out that two of my classes met at the same time, so I had to drop one and add another. I will say that this was much easier than it is at Wooster. At the University here there doesn’t seem to be any limit on how many students are in a class—if more people sign up for it, they just move to a bigger classroom. Anyway, it all worked out for the best, because I have a VERY exciting schedule! My classes are:

Icelandic Vocabulary I (Crazy language! So many vowel sounds! I’m really excited for it, though!)
Icelandic Culture (Every week we have one lecture by our professor and one by a guest speaker on some aspect of Icelandic culture.)
Icelandic Folk Tales, Beliefs, Customs, and Identity: Ghosts, Sharkmeat, Mountain Women, and Alcohol (I think this one’s pretty self-explanatory. And awesome.)
British Literature II (Misleading title? It’s actually the first half of British literature, from Beowulf through pre-romanticism.)

All of the classes meet for double sessions twice a week, which means that the way my schedule worked out, I only have class on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Hopefully in the future I’ll be able to use those long weekends to do some traveling!

Orientation was interesting, mostly just to see how many other foreign students there are. I think they said there are over 500 of us? I might be wrong about that, but regardless, there are quite a lot. The vast majority are Europeans; I think there are only about ten of us from the U.S. As international students, we can join the Erasmus Student Network, which is a club for international students that throws parties pretty regularly, and also organizes trips for us to go on—most of them sound like a pretty sweet deal!

Later that day there was a meet-up for the international students at a bar downtown, where we got discounted beer, which naturally made many people quite excited, because the government taxes alcohol like no other, so prices are NUTS. It was really nice getting to meet more of the foreign students, and some people had participated in a photo scavenger hunt earlier that day, and we got to see a slide show of all their wacky pictures.

The rest of the first week was mostly uneventful (like I said—lots of trekking all over Reykjavík to fill out forms), and then I finally got my internet set up on Thursday, and suddenly my journaling became much more irregular…I DID, however, get to attend my very first class, which was Folk Tales! It’s starting out a little slow, but is otherwise very interesting, and I’m really looking forward to the rest of the semester!