First of all, I've now been studying at the university here for over two months. I would love to say it's been great, and I realise I should be a little bit careful about what I do say online, but it's not exactly been the highlight of living here. Compared to my home university, the department here is very disorganised. There never seems to be any consistency between what we are learning, what our assignments consist of and the level expected from us. One of my modules is essentially like my first ever introductory lecture at Leeds, but spread over three months, so it can feel a little frustrating at times. Although the work is starting to build up a little now, I never seem to have that much to do. At first I thought this was great - year long holiday! But now I'm starting to realise that I study my course for a reason: I love it, it really interests me and I am a total Linguistics geek! So now I'm starting to miss having something a little bit more challenging and inspiring to do, but of course there are benefits to not being too busy.
A major benefit of not being tied down by university work is that I can really enjoy my weekends here, and I confess that that involves a lot of alcohol. I feel like I've changed in a lot of ways in Iceland and this is one of them; before I came here I enjoyed going out, but I've always been more of a pub than a club girl and tried not to make crazy drunken nights too regular, but here I seem to be out until 4 or 5am at least twice a week. Of course I can't say that drinking more alcohol is a positive change but I definitely feel like I've become a more sociable and confident person because of going out so much (and not just when there's alcohol in my system!).
Speaking of change, this feels like a good point to talk about food: one of my major frustrations in Iceland. I've gone from having fairly healthy eating habits to pretty awful ones. The supermarkets here are quite uninspiring and so expensive. The choice of fruit and vegetables is limited and everything is about four times the price as in the UK. The only not-too-expensive stuff seems to be junk. It's also not that easy to be a vegetarian here without spending a lot of money. I haven't eaten meat since I was six years old but another change I decided to make when coming to Iceland was that I would start to eat fish. It's really delicious and so ecological here that I don't feel too guilty. But there is one thing I feel a bit guilty for... in a drunken state I may have decided that it was a good idea to completely break the vegetarianism and eat a hot dog - on three separate occasions. (I don't think I've confessed this to my parents yet so I hope they're not too shocked!)
So as you can see, since being in Iceland I've become more lazy, I'm eating and drinking too much and I've broken 17 years of vegetarianism. I realise I'm not coming across too well but overall this whole experience has resulted in mostly positive changes; it's certainly made me a lot more confident and easy-going, and most importantly I'm really having fun here! There have been points where I've not felt totally happy with my life here, but, with just over a month to go until I go home for Christmas, I think I'm really starting to appreciate this place again!
Speaking of having a month left... I have really mixed feelings about going home for Christmas. On the one hand, I can't wait. I feel like I would love to have a break and I really can't wait to see my family and friends again. But on the other hand, most of my good friends here and all of my flatmates leave for good in December and it's so sad to think that they will all return to their home countries and there's a lot of people who, realistically, I will never see again. I really will miss everyone but the one good thing is that I now have friends from all over the world (and I will be finding any excuse to visit them!).
The last thing I will speak about (this has been a really incoherent, rambling post, sorry!) is the weather. Of course, in Iceland, you have to speak about the weather. It's been snowing a lot recently and getting very cold. There's also been a few storms and early on Sunday morning we got to hear a huge clap of thunder, which is apparently very rare for Iceland. The worst thing by far is the wind: it can seriously be so strong it nearly knocks you off your feet and it makes everything feel ten times colder. Also, the days are getting rapidly shorter - we lose around 6 minutes of day light every day and already the days here are far shorter than the shortest days in the UK. My body is definitely not used to it and I feel a bit like I want to go into hibernation mode. Getting out of bed before midday has suddenly become a struggle, let alone waking up in time for an 8.20 lecture. It's safe to say I will be very ready to go home for Christmas by the time we get to four hours of daylight!
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| Walking back to my house at night this weekend - lots of snow! |
The bad weather and short days makes travelling more difficult, but I hope to do one or two more visits this semester so hopefully my next post will include some real events and pictures, rather than just me moaning about my very easy life!
Sjaumst.
