I´m just beginning day four in Reykjavik, Iceland and already I actually know what sounds the characters ð, æ and þ make! For those curious, þor is the Icelandic spelling for "Thor" - the head, supremo god of these here parts. "ð"is a softer "th" sound and æ actually makes some sense, it´s "aahhyeee".
Linguistics aside, my time here in Iceland so far has been great! Again, I´m on a mac, so I can´t quite give you photographic evidence from my trip here so far, but I promise that I will soon. In the meantime, I will do my best to describe it.
I landed at Keflavik airport, about 30 miles south of Reykjavik, 630 am Tuesday morning. My hosts live only about a mile from the bus station so it was an easy walk to their place. Pretty much everything is about a mile away in Reykjavik. It´s a small town, but not very traditionally European in its density. The population is less than 200,000, but the buildings are pretty spaced out. There is also a regional airport right in the middle of town that kind of breaks things up. It´s a funny place.
I dropped off my stuff at Tobba and Holli´s apartment (these are just their nicknames - their real names are much more difficult to pronounce, much less spell) and set off to see the town. My initial try at seeing Reykjavik wasn´t all that successful. I had only gotten about an hour of sleep on the flight over here and so I was a little tired and cranky. But the next day (Wednesday) I took a nice walk along the seaside and toured a decommissioned Icelandic Coast Guard ship. Iceland has no military force; they basically depended on the US up until 2006, when we bailed and left them the Keflavik airport that we were using as a base.
Later that night I went to the weekly swing dance here in Reykjavik and, since I was the foreign guest, they put me at the DJ table. I don´t know how many of you have ever DJed in your lifetime, but it is hard. I have a hard enough time DJing car trips and to make my job even more challenging (and my relative success just that much more spectacular) all I had was my iphone to work with! Sheesh! I DJed for about an hour, with only one screw-up when I accidentally hit "stop" in the middle of a song. I´ll consider it a win - especially because I played almost exclusively Austin bands.
Thursday I went to the National museum and learned all about Iceland´s transition from paganism to Christianity. You could tell that there was about 300 years when Icelanders were trying to figure out the whole Jesus thing. They had a lot of mixed symbology and unique images of Christ (some that were strikingly similar to an elf) but then by about 1300, they were towing the Roman Catholic line and all their images depicted the white, long-haired, longer-limbed, bearded Jesus. That in-between period was pretty cool though. I´d be interested to see how other societies back in the day transitioned from their pagan gods to Christianity; just imagine how confusing that must have been!
After the museum, I met up with Asta, Gunnar and Lilja - friends-of-friends-of friends (the traveling networking thing is working out) and they drove me to this mountain a little outside of town to get a taste of the barren, exposed (and in March, muddy) landscape of southern Iceland. Beautiful views of Reykjavik and the ocean and the surrounding mountains greeted us at the top - I´ll post those pictures later. After our hike, we had a few beers at a bar and had great conversations ranging from FARC in Colombia to Elves to why Oranges in Iceland are called Appelsina: literally translated into English as "Apples from China". Allegedly, dockworkers back in the day got a box of oranges labeled "Apples from China" and, not knowing english very well or what an orange was, mistook the contents as apples, when they were actually oranges. I guess the box was mislabeled...? I don´t know about this story, but I was on a mission to get an explanation and that´s what I got.
So. Today I´m going to go swim at a geothermal beach and then get on a bus for Borgarnes - about 40 miles northwest of here. I´ve had enough of the city life and am going to return to the country for at least a week while I make my way around Iceland.
Ben
Linguistics aside, my time here in Iceland so far has been great! Again, I´m on a mac, so I can´t quite give you photographic evidence from my trip here so far, but I promise that I will soon. In the meantime, I will do my best to describe it.
I landed at Keflavik airport, about 30 miles south of Reykjavik, 630 am Tuesday morning. My hosts live only about a mile from the bus station so it was an easy walk to their place. Pretty much everything is about a mile away in Reykjavik. It´s a small town, but not very traditionally European in its density. The population is less than 200,000, but the buildings are pretty spaced out. There is also a regional airport right in the middle of town that kind of breaks things up. It´s a funny place.
I dropped off my stuff at Tobba and Holli´s apartment (these are just their nicknames - their real names are much more difficult to pronounce, much less spell) and set off to see the town. My initial try at seeing Reykjavik wasn´t all that successful. I had only gotten about an hour of sleep on the flight over here and so I was a little tired and cranky. But the next day (Wednesday) I took a nice walk along the seaside and toured a decommissioned Icelandic Coast Guard ship. Iceland has no military force; they basically depended on the US up until 2006, when we bailed and left them the Keflavik airport that we were using as a base.
Later that night I went to the weekly swing dance here in Reykjavik and, since I was the foreign guest, they put me at the DJ table. I don´t know how many of you have ever DJed in your lifetime, but it is hard. I have a hard enough time DJing car trips and to make my job even more challenging (and my relative success just that much more spectacular) all I had was my iphone to work with! Sheesh! I DJed for about an hour, with only one screw-up when I accidentally hit "stop" in the middle of a song. I´ll consider it a win - especially because I played almost exclusively Austin bands.
Thursday I went to the National museum and learned all about Iceland´s transition from paganism to Christianity. You could tell that there was about 300 years when Icelanders were trying to figure out the whole Jesus thing. They had a lot of mixed symbology and unique images of Christ (some that were strikingly similar to an elf) but then by about 1300, they were towing the Roman Catholic line and all their images depicted the white, long-haired, longer-limbed, bearded Jesus. That in-between period was pretty cool though. I´d be interested to see how other societies back in the day transitioned from their pagan gods to Christianity; just imagine how confusing that must have been!
After the museum, I met up with Asta, Gunnar and Lilja - friends-of-friends-of friends (the traveling networking thing is working out) and they drove me to this mountain a little outside of town to get a taste of the barren, exposed (and in March, muddy) landscape of southern Iceland. Beautiful views of Reykjavik and the ocean and the surrounding mountains greeted us at the top - I´ll post those pictures later. After our hike, we had a few beers at a bar and had great conversations ranging from FARC in Colombia to Elves to why Oranges in Iceland are called Appelsina: literally translated into English as "Apples from China". Allegedly, dockworkers back in the day got a box of oranges labeled "Apples from China" and, not knowing english very well or what an orange was, mistook the contents as apples, when they were actually oranges. I guess the box was mislabeled...? I don´t know about this story, but I was on a mission to get an explanation and that´s what I got.
So. Today I´m going to go swim at a geothermal beach and then get on a bus for Borgarnes - about 40 miles northwest of here. I´ve had enough of the city life and am going to return to the country for at least a week while I make my way around Iceland.
Ben
What, you're doubting my wisdom on the origin of appelsína??
ReplyDeleteYou're probably rockin Borgarfjörður right now - enjoy your travels and careful not to piss off any elfs along the way...