A difficult start to semester two

When I started this blog I assumed it would simply be full of lots of pretty pictures of mountains and glaciers so my mum and dad would know what I'm up to, but I feel like I've also been quite honest about the lows I've had whilst on my year abroad. Even the best things in life come with big downsides and I think it's appropriate to show every side of the experience.  That's why I feel like I should write about this last week, even if it's not the easiest thing to do.

Last Tuesday, two days after I arrived back in Reykjavik, I got a call from my parents to tell me that my grandmother had passed away. It wasn't totally unexpected; she was 93 years old and when I'd seen her over Christmas, I'd realised that she really wasn't in good health. But it was still horrible news to get, and I just wished that I could have postponed my flight and been there with my family in that moment. It's horrible being so far away and feeling so helpless whilst my parents deal with the difficult aftermath of a death.

Of course I was emotional when I found out, but I have to admit that a lot of that emotion was a weird sort of happiness. My grandmother died peacefully, relatively painlessly and with my mum by her side. She had a brilliant, long life and I know that death didn't scare her at all.

The funeral won't be for another two weeks and it's hard to know that I won't be flying home until the 25th January. The thought of attending the funeral is tough; I haven't been to a funeral since my grandfather died when I was 11 and I think it will be a very different experience as an adult. However, I'm looking forward to seeing my family and I think being at home will really help me to accept what has happened.

I'm not good at writing about emotional subjects, and I'm even worse at talking about them. I don't mind my friends knowing about everything but I'm not good at bringing up the conversation and telling people. It's also tough, when I've not been feeling very sociable, to know that I can't just contact my old friends from last semester to take my mind off things. Luckily I have very nice, supportive flatmates.

Now I need to push this all to the back of my head and start enjoying being back in Iceland until I can fly home next week and say a proper goodbye.

Here's to my grandmother.

The end of semester one

I feel like I should have posted this blog entry several weeks ago, but the last month has possibly been the busiest of my life and I've only really just found the time and motivation to write this. I landed back in Iceland two days ago after two weeks at home for Christmas and New Years and I've finally had time to catch up on some sleep!

December was full of exams and saying goodbye to people who would leave Iceland for good after one semester. When I arrived in Iceland, I assumed most people would be staying for a full academic year like me, but it turns out that I'm in the minority and I had to say goodbye to most of my close friends. Luckily I have some good friends who are staying until May and I even managed to persuade three of them to move in to my flat. I have fantastic new flatmates but saying goodbye to the old ones was not easy. However, despite a few very emotional goodbyes, I had to remind myself how lucky I've been. I've been able to spend five months with people from all over the world. I hope to visit many of these people in the future (excellent excuse to travel Europe this summer) and I hope friends will come and see me in England one day. And even luckier, I'm able to repeat the whole experience again this year!

I'm going to miss my former flatmates.

December wasn't just a month of exam stress and emotional exhaustion; I was able to experience some of the fun parts of the run up to Christmas in Iceland. The Icelanders go crazy for Christmas and the whole city was decorated in lights whilst seemingly every supermarket product had a 'jóla' (Christmas) version on sale. My favourite tradition is that of the Icelandic 'Yule Lads'. These are similar to Father Christmas but there are thirteen of them who visit children over the course of December. They don't just leave presents for the children but get up to mischief/commit petty crimes such as licking the leftovers from pots and pans, sniffing people's doors, harassing sheep and even peeping through your window. There's even a cat who will eat children who don't receive any new clothes for Christmas. Both terrifying and hilarious. (For more information and amazing illustrations: http://www.buzzfeed.com/benronne/the-13-horrifying-christmas-trolls-of-iceland)

I didn't just get to experience Icelandic traditions. Me and my British friend Sam introduced the other international students to our homemade mince pies (and repeatedly explained that despite the very misleading name, they only contained dried fruit and no meat). I also went to see a friend perform in a Swedish choir for the St. Lucia's day service. I'm still not sure who exactly St. Lucia was or why the Scandinavians celebrate her so much but the main singer of the choir was a girl wearing a hat holding several candles. I'm not sure how someone can look composed for over an hour whilst trying to balance a hat made of fire on their head.

The St Lucia's Day choir

British Christmas traditions in Iceland

I went back home just before Christmas day and it was lovely to see all of my friends and family after five months away. My highlight was going to Leeds for a few days and revisiting my old life and my closest friends. It made me realise that however hard it will be when my Icelandic experience is over, I have a great place and a great set of people to return to in September. The two weeks were really hectic but I'm lucky to have seen most of my closest friends and family. I didn't take many pictures whilst at home (partly because I managed to break my camera whilst in Leeds - I hope 2014 brings me better luck in technology!) but I will share this picture taken just before I left home to catch my flight back to Iceland. I think Gloucestershire was trying to compete with some of the amazing Icelandic skies I've seen.

And finally, I'm back in Reykjavik! I may have missed the amazing fireworks on New Years Eve but the Icelanders have still been firing them off since I got back so I haven't totally missed out on the festivities. Semester one may have exhausted me, but it's been the most incredible five months and I'm so excited to do it all over again.

Photos from my window

There's not much to explain in this post, but here is a collection of photos that I have taken from my window over the past few months when we have interesting weather or a beautiful sky.

I've posted this one before, but here is the first snow in October.

And here is more snow in December (it hasn't stopped for weeks now) with a pink sky.

This is a particularly dramatic sunrise from a few weeks ago.

And finally, this isn't actually from my window but from an alley at the side of my house. Despite what my father insists, that green blur is not a smudge on the camera lens but my third sighting of the Northern Lights.

Remember the day we NEARLY went to the Westman Islands...

Finally my exams have come to an end and I feel like I can justify spending time updating my blog rather than attempting to study. It's been a busy few weeks so I may bombard you all with blog posts before I go home for Christmas on Sunday!

A few weeks ago, a group of us hired a car with a plan to visit the Westman Islands off the south coast of Iceland. We had to wake up early to collect the car at 8AM so we could catch the ferry at 10AM. I managed to drag myself out of bed on time and we were at the hire car office bright and early. Of course, this being Iceland, there was nobody in the office and we had to wait around twenty minutes before being handed the keys and getting on our way. We had a bit of a panic that we wouldn't make it but managed to get to the ferry terminal at 9.59. We were all ready to jump out of the car and desperately try and stop the boat from leaving without us, but it wasn't there. The woman working at the terminal told us that actually no ferries were running that day due to the weather (despite the website indicating that everything was running as usual!) and we'd had a wasted journey.

Although the situation was annoying, we had a whole day with a hire car and it seemed a shame to waste it. So we made the most of the situation and decided to have a bit of a tour of the south west of Iceland. First up was a visit to Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall which you can walk behind. Unfortunately my pictures aren't particularly impressive because we visited at around 10.30AM and the sun hadn't completely appeared yet (it now appears well after 11AM but more on that in another post)!

Behind the waterfall.

Next up we drove to Reykjanes peninsula. It's not the most beautiful area of Iceland but it's so grey and rocky you feel like you're driving around on the moon! We visited a viking museum near Keflavik then went on to the Bridge Between Two Continents. The bridge crosses a fissure between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. It was an interesting place to visit but the wind was making us so cold we only managed to leave the car for a few minutes.

Friends in different continents - and a very grey landscape.

Couples attach padlocks to the bridge.

Lastly we spent an evening at the Blue Lagoon before heading back to Reykjavik for a burger. We may not have quite made it to the Westman Islands but the best days of travelling are never the ones which go exactly as planned.

'Normality' in Reykjavik

I have to admit, I feel pretty annoyed that I had to last so long without a laptop; in that time I feel like I've forgotten how to write and I keep forgetting about this blog. It's also the case that in the six or seven weeks that I couldn't update this, living in Iceland went from being new and exciting to just, kind of, normal. That's not necessarily a bad thing though; if having a year long break in Iceland is a normal thing for me, then I realise I'm a very lucky person! I thought I would write a little about living in Reykjavik and some of the main differences between my life here and my life in the UK.

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!

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.

Iceland Airwaves

Last week I had the opportunity to visit Iceland' s biggest music festival: Iceland Airwaves. It's a chance for Icelandic and international musicians to perform all over Reykjavik. It lasted for five days and it's my kind of festival; I didn't have to camp and could end each night in my own bed!

There was only one downside to this festival though. It happened to be during the week I got a stinking cold and sinusitis and I'm not sure that I made the most of it like I would have any other week. I still had an amazing time though!

The highlight of the first night was seeing Retro Stefson and FM Belfast playing in Harpa, Reykjavik's new concert hall. They created a fantastic atmosphere and the only word I can think of to describe these acts is crazy: crazy in a very good way! I also got the opportunity to see a lot of bands I've never heard of and I have to say, it's amazing how much talent Iceland has for such a small country.

The second day I got to see something a bit different: an Icelandic musician, Olafur Arnalds, playing with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra. It was beautiful and felt perfect in the main hall of Harpa.

Sorry for blurry pictures!

Another highlight of the festival for me was seeing Sin Fang, an Icelandic singer who I had listened to a lot before coming to Iceland. It sounds very cheesy but I remember listening to the song 'Young Boys' and feeling so exciting that it wouldn't be long until I was going on my year abroad adventure so it felt very special seeing it performed live.

But now for the main event: Kraftwerk! On Friday, me and three friends queued for two and half hours in Harpa to get tickets. It was actually really fun and we were able to sit on the floor (five minutes later and we would have been standing out in the cold!) whilst eating cake and drinking coffee. We got tickets and when we turned up for the show on Sunday night we discovered we were actually in the second row! I think maybe these seats were seen as slightly inferior because the 3D would not work so well (yes, we had to wear 3D glasses!) but considering 3D never seems to work well for me anyway, this wasn't a problem. The band members stood perfectly still at their keyboards without saying a word to the audience except for 'Thank you. Auf wiedersehen, goodnight' at the end. But this just added to the enigma of Krafwerk! It was a truly bizarre but brilliant show!

Autobahn!

I'm back (with a brand new laptop and a lot of photos)!

Seven weeks after my laptop died on me, and after endless hassle with Apple and Icelandic Customs, I have finally received my replacement computer. Words can't describe how happy I am to finally have it! So now it's time to update this - I must admit it feels weird to write a blog post again but I really enjoyed blogging before so I will get back to it!

My last month and a half has been busy, mostly with the two most important aspects of an Erasmus student's life: studying and drinking. Ok, I'm not kidding anyone: some studying, too much drinking. But I'm having fun and enjoying living in Reykjavik. I've done some interesting things and had some fun trips so I'll try and fill you in - but don't worry, I'll keep it brief (mostly pictures)!

Last month my parents came to visit me. It was great to see them and show them the city I live in and also explore some more of the countryside. We visited Jokulsarlon, a beautiful glacier lake in the southeast of Iceland.

We also spent a day exploring Snaefellnes Peninsula.

We found some fairy houses on the way.

Black church at Budir.

Wild landscape.

Black sand beach.

And of course, we did the Golden Circle. This is one of the most popular tourist routes in Iceland and consists of visiting a geyser, a waterfall and Thingvellir National Park, where the Icelandic parliament was founded. I have now visited the Golden Circle three times: once on a university organised trip, once with my parents, and once last week when a friend of Maarit let us use her car for a few days. On this final trip, we also visited Kerið, a crater lake.

Thingvellir.

The geyser at Geysir.

Gullfoss.

Crater lake.

Whilst we were borrowing the car, we did another very touristy trip; we spent an afternoon at the Blue Lagoon relaxing and smearing silica mud on our faces. 

Sometimes it's fun to be tourists in Iceland!

One of the best trips I have had so far in Iceland was a day out to ride to the top of Langjokull glacier in a huge ex-military truck. It was a fantastic day and we also got the chance to see some beautiful waterfalls and hot springs... oh, and did I mention that it was my birthday? Well, it was the absolute best way to turn 23. And of course I followed up the day trip with dinner with my housemates and a great party with my friends in Reykjavik.

We got to ride up front - because it was my birthday of course!

Lovely birthday cake from Enya and Maarit (but nobody else is allowed to call me Lexie!)

I also think I should mention two exciting weather events that have happened here in Reykjavik. Firstly, at the beginning of October it snowed! Apparently that's unusually early, even for Iceland.

The view from my bedroom window on October 8th.

Even more excitingly, last week I saw the Northern Lights. I won't upload my photos because quite frankly, they're embarrassing. But hopefully next time I will learn to use my camera properly and take some nice photos! They were absolutely beautiful and I can't wait to see them more over this coming winter.

And finally (thank you so much for sticking with me), last week we went whale watching. We were  lucky to see lots of dolphins and a minke whale.

Awful photo, but you get the idea.

Ah, that felt good to finally write about my last few weeks! Hopefully everything is back to normal; fingers crossed, no more technology problems and I will update this again soon!