Dinosaur Bear

A Blog about Stuff and Things

2017 End of Year Wrap-up

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Look at me, all sliding into the final hours of 2017 with one last post. Don’t get too excited, despite the name this isn’t going to be any cool introspective recap of 2017. That can be found by reading all of 2017’s posts (all 21 of them). 😛

Instead I’m just going to talk about two primary things. First – Part 1, what I’ve been up to, and second – Part 2, some thoughts on school now that the first semester is in the books. So let’s get started with Part 1!

First off, if you’re wondering what the weather has been like lately, well, mostly crap to be honest. 😀


A startlingly accurate depiction of recent walking conditions here on the coast.

A lot of that has been due to the wind (see above, that’s a photo from Reykjavík), but there’s also just the cold in general, plus the lack of daylight. But, life must go on, so despite the changed conditions I still get up and around for the gym in the mornings.


In case you were wondering, yes that’s the gym I go to. It’s pretty small (and old), but its only a 6 minute walk from me and since it’s through the university it’s actually quite affordable for Iceland.


Also, despite what it might look like, those photos were taken in the morning, not at night. As you can see from the clock on the wall if you are eagle-eyed, it’s 7:15 – meaning that “sunlight” is still over 4 hours away at that point. I put sunlight in scare quotes because the sun doesn’t really come “up” it just sort of stays below the horizon and moves sideways. Indeed, most mornings in the apartment look like this..


..until we are long out the door. It’s grand. It also, on the flip side, gets dark very, very early. In fact I’d say there is far more moon than sun these days.


But, the positive aspect of that is that since sunrise is at like 11:30am, you are always up to see the good ones!


It doesn’t always mean you can fully enjoy them though, for instance this nice sunrise was taken right before a final exam, so I was a bit distracted – though not so much that I didn’t stop to take a photo of it!


Of course the bad news is that by the time the sun “rises” it’s already starting to set. For instance, this next photo is basically right after sunrise, yet the sun is already going down over Pigsten’s construction site.


Speaking of his construction site, boy it’s changed a lot! For one, they are now done with what I’ll call Stage 1 of the pit nearest to us.


They are simultaneously working on two buildings, and it’s taken them since we’ve moved here to finalize the earthworks. The contractors have also changed over, and now they’ve installed barricades all around the pit. Which I guess makes sense since the wind kept pwning the chain-link fence.


Pigsten rarely lets any work happen without his oversight.


Pigsten also got a new friend and helper! Broli (the baby Brachiosaurus) came with a card and some treats from one of the boys’ friends in the United States!


Broli and Pigsten are busy bodies and make sure everything is done right!


The plant buddies are also there for assistance, as they have since moved up into the bedroom window ledge to maximize their exposure to our limited sunlight.


Speaking of “buddies” awhile back I found a visitor on the way out in the morning.


Yes, a cat (or “rat” as Tristen calls them) was waiting for me on the stairs. An enemy deep in King Tristen’s domain. I don’t think it was the dreaded Yule Cat, as this was a bit too early for it, plus this cat was especially non-ferocious. Or maybe that was just a guise? Tristen always says there are two things you don’t trust: cats and raptors. Either way, it followed me around but clearly did not want to go outside into the cold.


Can’t say I blame it – though when I got back someone had shooed it outside (probably Tristen). Speaking of the Yule Cat, the boys started reading their Yule Lad book just as the first Yule Lad came into town.


They diligently kept up with the book as the days progressed, even getting treats from each Yule Lad. For instance one left them a Christmas candle that they then used while reading about the next Yule Lad!


They also left the Yule Lads plenty of treats to entice them, such as some yummy Laufabrauð.


Or in one case an entire tub of Skyr. Yep. In my boot.


But, in addition to all the Yule Lad fun we had to do some much more mundane things, such prepare for an take final exams. I’ll discuss the exams more in a bit, but they were definitely a less-than-fun part of December.


However, as SB and I have a long history of doing, we curtailed the exam-time woes with lots of delicious noms, such as gingerbread-cinnamon-roll-bites and coffee!


We’ve branched out quiet a bit with our coffee over the holiday season, from local roasters..


..to more commercial “Christmas Blends.”


But that’s not all, as if it is any surprise I’ve also being trying lots of Christmas beers (Jólabjór)!


There’s quite a variety of them, from both microbreweries to macrobreweries.


In total I am set to try 10 or so of the Christmas beers, I’ll post a photo of them all in a later post.

We’ve also tried the ubiquitous Malt og Appelsín (Jólabland), which you know, actually turned out to be pretty good. I really, really did not think I would like it, but it is something I’d certainly drink again. Now, mind you, it’s not something I’d drink a lot of, but as a seasonal thing, definitely (it also apparently comes back around during Easter, just under a different name).


It’s hard to understate just how prolific the Christmas drinks are, they are not only widely available, but they are numerous in variety. Heck, some of them even have their own Christmas decorations!


On the whole I’d say the stores are much less plastic and gaudy here insofar as Christmas goes. Yet, don’t mistake that for a lack of stuff – there is plenty of that, from the Jólabókaflóð, to all the delicious food (and booze), to metric tons worth of lakkrís – there is plenty of holiday to be had. There was also a massive surge of coloring books, complete with… toothpaste. Yes, toothpaste.


And oh yeah, that’s right next to the frozen meat, in case you were wondering.

But, we passed on the toothpaste accented coloring books and instead opted for cookies. Oh lawds, so many kinds of cookies. One really interesting variety was these delicacies:


I don’t remember what they were called in Icelandic, but they tasted EXACTLY like Oreos, except with magical sparkles and a star shape. I’m talking, these were more like Oreos than any non-Oreo (even fake Oreo wannabes) I’ve ever had. They were nummy.

We’ve also had lots of gingerbread stuff (in addition to the rolls above), including gingerbread cake and classic gingerbread cookies, such as the free ones from Háskólabúðin!


Yes, they have a coffee bean filled counter, it’s pretty neat I think.

Another fun thing is that we received our first care package. Yay!


I mean, sure it took 1 day short of an entire month to arrive, and Tollstjóri (customs) took some stuff out of it due to their really opaque (and seemingly ever-changing) rules, but it did arrive! Thanks Meem!

Yes, between the weather, the Yule Lads, and the pressies, the holidays were definitely in the air. The city has definitely shifted into the season as well.


Heck, even Perlan has changed colors!


It’s kinda hard to see, since my old phone’s camera is pretty abhorrent absent 1 octillion candle-watt conditions,  but Perlan has acquired new red accenting. In fact, it even changes between red and green! It’s really cool. Here is another shot, complete with Pigsten’s construction site in action. This was probably around 5pm or so.


In addition to red and green, they even had Perlan lit up like the Icelandic Flag for a bit, in addition to other random patterns consisting of white, blue, green, and red. Right now it’s all lit up red, except for one light which is blue and which cycles between that and white.

Other fun additions include wreathes around Tjörnin, which I’ve mentioned before but are always pretty.


Beyond decorations, the environment itself feels very holiday-like, or perhaps more accurately I could just say it feels extremely cold. As in, the geothermal-heat-of-the-earth-itself-creates-steam-cold.


But, not a whole lot you can do about that besides bundle up, and I really do mean bundle up. I don’t remember the last time my layers didn’t have layers. 🙂

Besides, the holidays require holiday shopping, and in Iceland online shopping really isn’t a thing, so we’ve braved the conditions on several occasions to go to some non-standard stores. One trip took us back down to the harbor area. There were a couple of vessels there which I thought was part of Iceland’s Coast Guard (which commands a whopping armada of 4 ships), but I found out they were actually ships from the Royal Danish Navy.


I’m not sure about the shift on the left (as pictured), but the ship on the right is the HDMS Hvidbjoernen (F360).

We also did some Christmas-pressie shopping on Laugavegur, where one shop had a nice side-by-side of Iceland’s two most famous birds.


I’ll leave it to you to guess which is which. 😛

Our shopping also allowed us to experience a bit of the pre-holiday festivities, such as this skating rink we stumbled upon.


The whole of downtown has a very nice Christmas vibe to it.


Even the university itself, which is generally pretty brutalist, has gotten into the holiday spirit.


As have SB and I of course! This has been a very different holiday season, in that we aren’t going to see family at for the first time ever – a step further from last year where we had to leave before New Year’s. I’d say we weren’t going “home” but I’ve come to realize that home is a very transient thing for me, so it’s easier to say that we just stayed here. Of course we weren’t actually here for Christmas, but that’s for another post. 🙂

Despite being away from family and elsewhere over Christmas, we’ve been keeping in the holiday spirit now that we are back in Iceland. One really cool (literally and figuratively) thing we did just a couple of days ago was walk on Tjörnin for the first time. In fact, we’re pretty sure it was our first time walking over a frozen lake in each of our lives (sans Valentino of course).


Taco weighing his desire to keep walking against his uncertainty about the large cracks in the ice (spoiler: he kept walking). 

The ice was crazy thick. It’s hard to tell from the photo because you’ve lost the three dimensional aspects of it, but if you look closely at the crack running  vertically(ish) in this photo you can see how deep the ice is. My guess was that the ice was a solid 8+ inches thick, if not more. It made zero noise while walking on it, and I legitimately believe you could have driven across the lake in a car.


We’ve also been taking in a lot of fireworks over the past several days. In fact, I dare say the Icelanders are more obsessed with fireworks around New Year’s than even the Murkans. It’s not unusual to have 10-15 spontaneous firework displays (in random spots) starting anywhere from like 2pm until late.


Another crappy phone photo, featuring a firework above Perlan and a glare that kind of makes it seem like we have two moons. Iceland isn’t that alien.

While some are just a few big’uns, others are a bonafide several minute-long bonanza. All this starting days before New Year’s – it’s been going since at least the 28th (when we got back from our Christmas trip).

But, that kind of brings us up to the present! New Year’s Eve, woo! Which I suppose means it’s time to segue into Part 2 of the post: school.


If you’ve followed along since August or so you’ll have noticed that I didn’t really talk much about school. I discussed it a bit in this post (which I recommend reading as background to this next section, at least the school portion) but outside of that I’ve been a bit mum about it, especially in contrast to my incessant whining while at HLS. A lot of that has to do with the reasons mentioned in that post – school just isn’t a huge part of my life here. I mean, yes, it is, but it’s not a big part of my ideological reasoning for being here, nor is a big part of my personal journey right now. So, when I sit down to blog, I’d rather talk about other things, such as the Westfjords. This is not to say that school doesn’t eat a lot of my time, oh it does. Indeed, it kind of annoys me with the amount of time that it requires for things that I really couldn’t care less about.

Now that I’ve got a semester behind me, I have to say that holistically I’m not a big fan of my program. A big, big part of that is that I just feel like it’s so disorganized towards international students. Though in fairness, Iceland as whole doesn’t seem to care much for people being anything other than a short-term tourist. I’m not getting into a discussion of that, but my point is that there is very, very little assistance to be found for people who are not Icelandic or who are not from the EEA (not to be confused with the EU, which Iceland wants no part of). As a result, I frequently find myself having to fight tooth and nail just to accomplish very basic administrative tasks. This of course is compounded by the very “Meh, meeeeeeeeeh, maybe at some point” culture that is pervasive here. That would be great if they weren’t also paradoxically obsessed with really early deadlines for ferners’.  The result is that you often have little time to do something and no avenue for help in doing it, either because they outright don’t know (the rules are so complex that even Icelanders don’t understand them), or they don’t care enough due to the aforementioned meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. It’s really pretty awesome, in the smash your face into a concrete block sort of a way.

The catalyst of this disorganization is the fact that my program is not the length I thought it was. I’m not going to type the entire story here, but they REALLY need to work on how they describe the program in the English language (which should be a priority, since the program is one of their few ones in English), because as it stands, they are grossly misrepresenting the timeline (I’m talking upwards of 6 months misrepresentation). I really don’t think it’s intentional, and I’ve brought this to their attention, but I also legitimately think they just don’t care. Not out of malice, but just because, well, peeps are different here, lol. My high strung, gotta be on the move, obese Amerifat DNA doesn’t mesh well with it. Though in my defense it wouldn’t as much of an issue if they didn’t hold us to oddly strict standards in spite of themselves.

So, despite the fact that I was able to somewhat fix the timeline issue (though I’m still about 2-3 months out of whack), that got me off on the wrong foot. Then I found out that despite being an ultra-specialized post-doc program, the majority of my classes are just bull-crap I don’t care about. For instance, over the course of the program I will take 10 classes (it’s mostly a research program, but I still have to take classes). I came here for environmental law – in a life that now seems quiet distant to me I’m actually a barred lawyer person – and I like environmental law. Thus, post-doc. However, and this is so dumb it’s just sad, of those 10 classes only 4, yes 4 out of 10, are strictly environmental law. There is one that you could argue is in the realm of environmental law, but even if you are generous and add that one in, that’s only 5 out of 10 classes focused on environmental law. Yes, an environmental law post-doc that is only FIFTY PERCENT environmental law, and that’s being generous. W.T.F. I did not come here to retake some fluffy pants Human Rights course I had 3 years ago in 1L, I came here to take extremely-high-level environmental law courses, and on that front, I got one, one single course, that I’d call “high level” environmental law.

Then, to make matters even worse, the classes like “Public International Law” and “International Economic Law,” are just general law classes, meaning that there are people in them who don’t even have a Masters yet (I could write an entire post about why I don’t think the two legal education systems [U.S. v. European] mesh well and why that’s negatively impacting my experience, but those are unnecessary details for this post – just know that I’m objectively more educated than my classmates – NOTE: I said more educated, not more intelligent 🙂 ). And while I’m far from a pretentious academic, the result is that you get a course aimed a people who have far less legal education than I do – and while I’m definitely no legal guru, and always appreciate learning more, it also means that the classes get boring as heck. There’s also the fact that a lot of the students are extremely unengaged. Or, in the instance of the Icelandic students, they just don’t show up to class – ever (and the exam, some of them just skip that too). Now, I’m not one to talk about being unengaged, that’s sort of defined me in the classroom environment for a few years now (see one of my many posts about what I actually like doing in the lawls – hint: it’s not sitting in a classroom). But the fact of the matter is that the students in my program, which is very small, are mixed into the general body of students as opposed to having their own schtick. Indeed, on many levels the super small size of my program seems to be more of a hindrance than a benefit, but there isn’t much I can do about that. All I can really do is enjoy the sporadic things that are more focused on the students at my level, though the director of the program cancelled half of those things last semester. Yep, dat meh.

However, while I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m not overly enthused about my classes (or the majority of my professors), I did have one professor who I actually liked – and that professor is now going to be my primary thesis advisor. So that’s pretty cool. The additional good news on that front is that despite it taking 1.5 months to get a single page completed (yes one page), my thesis topic has also supposedly been approved. I say supposedly because nothing is ever certain here. So that’s a big relief. Really my thesis is the only thing about this entire affair that still really excites me. In a lot of ways I think this program should just be the thesis, with none of the fluff classes, but (fortunately as some would say) I have no say in the matter.


The director of my program has toys in their office, I like that much. 🙂

“Yes, that’s nice” you say, “but what about your grades!” I hear you. After all, our entire existence is defined by grades amirite? Dere is nufin but gradez! Yes, because establishing someone’s worth based on a small slice of time is such a good system. But it is what it is, and after all that bitching you might expect me to say I got bad gradez, and then you’ll laugh “ha ha, look out how bitter he is!” Nah my grades are fine. I scored all “First Class” which I still don’t fully understand, but I’ve been told it means I got all As. Basically the system at the University of Iceland is thus:


I have no idea how big that will be, but you get the idea. You don’t want to be red. You want to be as far away from red as possible. I also don’t think they use a forced curve, or if they do it is NO WHERE near as severe as HLS’s. I’m quite far from red, but not in the “With Distinction” (A+) tier, and I have no goal (or motivation) to get there. I’m safely within in the realm of “First Class” – much closer to A+ than to B – and that’s more than good enough for me. But, though I generally care very little for gradez, one aspect of how I got muh gradez is worth discussing. The oral exam.

Yes, like Murka’, IDIOTIC group projects, pointless papers, and time-wasting readings abound here in Icelandia. But one thing that I’ve found in the lawls realm is that the oral exam is favored over the written exam, and now that I’d taken several of these oral exams I feel like I can comfortably comment on them. Basically they are a good deal easier than the written exams I took at HLS (though keep in mean this doesn’t mean they are “easy,” just “easier”). I don’t know if that is a format thing, or a institutional thing (my guess is more on the latter, honestly). Now, in order to explain why I think they are easier, I need to explain the format – and since self depredation is always fun, I’ll just go ahead and say that I did not “ace” any of my exams (at least not in the traditional usage of the word “ace” meaning to “pwn” – though I did get As).

First, it’s important to note that the exams are scheduled early in the day (not early in the semester, you only learn your time less than a week in advance, meh), so in the fall semester at least you are dealing with the tired (thanks again neighbors for making noise until 3am), the dark, and the cold. This photo isn’t so dark, but it does capture the cold.


Yes that’s actually part of campus. I like it.

So, while you are tired and it’s dark and cold, you get to engage in a legal conversation where anywhere from 2 to 5 people are asking you questions. That’s the essential format of the oral exam. You talk, rather than write. Makes sense I suppose! It’s also worth noting, if it wasn’t obvious, but that you are alone. You don’t take the exam as a class, it’s one-by-one. Now, if the thought of being randomly asked questions from an entire semester’s worth of material and being expected to respond in real time makes you nervous, then perhaps being a lawyer isn’t the best field for you. I kid, but really instantaneous information recall is half the job in my experience. The good news for ye’ of timid presence, is that it’s not entirely random. Here’s why. When entering the judgment room, you pull a question out of a bowl (literally in some cases) and then you have anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes to prepare your answer to that question. During those 5 to 15 minutes, you can access ALL your notes (so long as they are printed, because f*ck trees amirite????). You can’t use your already-made notes in the exam, but you can use the notes you took from your notes during that 5 to 15 minute window (it makes sense just think about it for a second). This is why I don’t think the format is especially difficult. Unlike a written exam where you have between 3 and 12 hours and are expected to provide the most minuscule and precise of details (as well as discuss 8000 different applications of 12000 different rules), here you have somewhere around 10-15 minutes of discussion, and that’s it. As such, the expectations for microscopic detail aren’t as high.

So, here’s what I did, and it worked well. I just made an outline like I normally would. These outlines were generally quite large (I’m talking hundreds of pages in some cases) because a semester of law is a shit-ton of information. However, you then cabbage them down and use some lolzy formatting to get that outline down to less than 30 pages. You then make a table of contents for the outline, with large thematic areas divided into more specific sub-topics. Then you’re done. See, unlike the bulk of my classmates who seemed extremely stressed out, I didn’t even try to memorize any of that shit. Learning 350 pages of material, only to be asked about something which comprises 5 pages seemed like a massive waste of my time. Couple that with the fact that 60% of my classes are about crap I don’t care about, and yeah, you get the picture. In fact, outside of making the outline, I didn’t study for any of my exams. SB can vouch for this, people FUH-REAK out about studying for exams here (and by here I don’t just mean the Icelanders, I mean all the European students). Yet I didn’t study at all aside from the process of making/formatting the outline – and also for the record I never bought any of my textbooks and thus did none of the reading for the entire semester either.

If you’re getting tired of what might seem like gloating, bear with me. This isn’t leading up to an “I so smart” epiphany. I’m just a proponent of studying smart, not hard. So, here’s what I did. I used my categorized outline, and when I got the question, I used my 5 to 15 minutes to basically regurgitate that small section of the outline onto the page of notes I was allowed to bring into the exam – and, when the additional questions came, they were invariably also from that same section. So, if it was dealing with Directive 2000/60/EC, I’d know that the specific questions were going to be something like explaining the effects of a major Article of the directive, in that case probably Article 14, which effectively assimilated the public access requirements of the Aarhus Convention. That might sound obtuse without any topical knowledge, but once you’re familiar with the area and have your handy-dandy micro-outline, it’s not unexpected or particularly challenging. This is in contrast to the extremely long written exam, where even 12 hours isn’t enough time to go from “no studying” to “good grade” within the confines of the test.

The big caveat here is that you have to be very comfortable with the oral exam format, that is, real time legal conversations where you are outnumbered and where you truly have no idea what base question you’re going to get until you pull it out of the proverbial/literal hat. I’m fortunate in that such interactions don’t bother me, and that’s probably the only area of the entire process where I’d risk saying I’m above average. The fact that I was one of the top, or near the top grades in each of my classes had nothing to do with knowledge or devotion (of which I’d say I have less than most than my classmates), but instead to what I’d call a capitalizing “study” process and the fact that Ivory Tower Academics and fancy board-room tables don’t intimate me in the least. There’s also the fact that I could score 0.0000001 point above failing in all my classes and it would legitimately make no difference since my J.D. is my core degree anyway.

Thus, I’d say most of the difficulty in the format comes from the fact that you can’t prepare for a specific question, and that you need to be ok with verbal exchanges (that your grade depends on, and the exams are normally 50% of the grade – which is about 50% less than what I am used to, lol). The funny thing here, is that “cheating” is rampant. You might have already thought about the glaring issue, but if not, I’ll explain. As I mentioned, the exam takes place one-by-one, they can’t really drill a whole class at once, so there is a time-table, and you go in the judgement room one at a time, in set order. See the issue? While the questions are random to the individual, the questions are NOT infinite. In fact, some classes have as few as 4-5 questions – though others have as many as 20 (depending on the professor, obviously the more questions, the more complicated grading is for them). Now, you only get to see one question, but since that one question becomes the basis for your entire discussion, you don’t forget it, despite having to immediately return the question to the pile. So, naturally, as soon as you are done and leave the room, you either willing or unwillingly converse with your fellow students who have yet to take the exam, and tell them the question. I saw unwillingly because the culture is to wait right outside the exam room and relentlessly and somewhat aggressively pester the student who is leaving the room (regardless of how upset they might be) even if you never spoke to them outside of that moment. Yes, the culture is practically built around this kind of “cheating” – so much so that to not divulge your question is seen as being an asshole. I can safely say that I didn’t ask anyone about their question, because I didn’t care enough – and also didn’t want to you know, actually study, however I did tell people about my question, also because I didn’t care enough. However, if you were of the type that didn’t want to break the rules, or just didn’t want to help people get a better grade, then you’d have some serious peer pressure to deal with. The end result, is that as the day goes on, people who have yet to take the exam have built up a library of the questions, and if there are only 4-5 questions, this means that they’ve effectively seen the exam in advance.

But it doesn’t stop there. Ever industrious, the students will divide up the questions, and draft answers to the potential questions, and then copy them for themselves. Thus, a pool of 10 students might be able to generate 10 full answers, and then they just trade them. Of course this naturally means that the people early in the day have a much harder exam than the people latter in the day who may have “cheated” their way to a 50% chance at answering the question using materials they didn’t even make. Of course, I use scare quotes around “cheating” because even if you do use crowd-sourcing to obtain an answer to a question you end up getting, you’re left with an answer that isn’t your own and the hope that your attempts to memorize an entire textbook (or textbooks) are enough to answer the secondary questions, which are likely to be generated in real time. Still, the fact is that this behavior is extremely rampant, and I’d surmise causes a lot of people to pass where they would have otherwise probably failed. The cheating in and of itself doesn’t really bother me, it’s the fact that the first students are realistically being tested at a far different level than the later students, and that the professors – who are aware this goes on, or are stupid (not ignorant, stupid) – don’t seem to care. That is what bothers me. If everyone could, if they wished, cheat at the same level, then I really don’t care – but this cheating is objectively slanted towards groups later in the day.

But in the end I still did better than most, and I didn’t cheat, or read the books, or  really study, I just made a really organized table of contents and pasted that on the front of a 30 page, double-sided, 8 point font, .01 margins, legal monstrosity. Yay autismz. 😀

Anyways, that’s my thoughts on school. It’s weird, and while I’m not a big fan of my program as a whole, I am looking forward to the thesis, which will be entirely my own and on a topic I am very much interested in. Unfortunately I’m going to be quite pressed for time on it (due to the aforementioned timeline snafu), but I’m still excited to give the whole thesis thing a second go, though this one is going to be 2.5 times as long as my first one and is going to be published (and thus subjected to far more scrutiny). But I’m still excited in my good ole’ masochistic way – and, lest it seem otherwise, I have no regrets about where I’m at or what I’m doing, even if the road has been much rockier than expected.

If you thought this post featured a little bit too much complaining or bragging about school, have no fear, I’ll probably go right back to not talking very much about it for awhile. 🙂

With that, I should probably wrap this up. I had originally just wanted to just talk about school, but then I decided to add in some other things, and now look at that, this post is over 5700 words. I am nothing if not hopelessly verbose. I promise I can actually be concise when I need to be! Apparently that writing style just doesn’t crop up in my blogging, it, after all, it is mah’ hot blog, I do wut I wahnt!

If it wasn’t obvious, this will be the final post of 2017 for Dinosaur Bear. I hope you’ve enjoyed another year worth of my rambling – and boy what a year it has been. I already have another post conceptualized, though I’m not sure when I’ll get around to writing it. In the meantime, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas (or various holiday of your choosing) and that you have a Wonderful New Year.

Here’s Uglan (the mascot of Háskóli Íslands), with a Holiday (Christmas + New Year’s) send-off!

 
Until next time (and next year),
-Taco

Christmas Time in Iceland

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Greetings!

This is likely my last or second-to-last post for 2017, so I’ve decided to have a bit of fun! One of the best things about traveling is getting to learn more about other cultures – or, as Mark Twain once put it:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

The holidays are an especially good occasion for such exploration, and SB and I have definitely taken to trying to learn more about Iceland’s Christmas traditions. In this post I’ll share what I’ve learned, though the obvious caveat here is that I don’t know Icelandic, so I’m mostly relying on translations and interpretations of other people. That said, I’ve relied almost exclusively on materials written in English by Icelanders, so hopefully I don’t share any egregiously incorrect information! So let’s get started!


The first thing to know about Iceland’s Christmas (Jól) traditions is that they can trace their lineage well into the mythos of Icelandic folklore. These are, by and large, not modern tales woven to sell you Christmas cards. They’ve certainly been streamlined, modified, combined, and clarified over the years – but the basic foundation is extremely old. These customs are also much more… “old world,” than those  cuddly feel-good Christmas tales which have largely been adopted into mainstream U.S. culture. If you thought coal was cruel, how does being torn to shreds by a giant cat sound? Yep.

I, however, find these tales to be far more interesting – indeed, the older more “raw” versions of classical tales which lack their contemporary filters often appeal to me far more than their Hallmark Channel counterparts. The core messages are still roughly the same: be kind, love your family, and be festive. The difference here is that yo’ ass gets eaten alive if you’re naughty. Hard lands breed hard men.

So, with that framework in mind, let’s discuss how things work. Here I should probably note that a lot of the modern iterations of these characters stems from Jóhannes úr Kötlum’s 1932 poetry book, Jólin Koma (“Christmas Is Coming”). So while there are a lot of different very-very-old tales from which these characters are woven, that modern source is the primary basis for this post.

First off, clear your mind of Santa – he wouldn’t last a night in the harsh world of Iceland’s folktales. Instead, think of the 13 “Yule Lads” also known as the Yuletide-Lads or Yulemen – or in Icelandic, jólasveinarnir or jólasveinar. These 13 “lads” are trolls (or half trolls, not entirely sure as different sources referred to them as both) who come to visit the human population of Iceland around the holidays. The Yule Lads make up, what I would call, the crux of the Christmas festivities here in Iceland. But in order to fully understand the importance of the Yule Lads, we must first discuss their mother, Grýla.


Grýla is a troll/giantess who is said to currently live in a cave somewhere in the Dimmuborgir lava fields (which, as you will soon see, is somewhat fittingly where Satan came crashing down from Heaven in Icelandic Christian folklore).


Here Grýla lives with her somewhat lackadaisical third husband and father of the Yule Lads, the troll Leppalúði – but we’ll talk more about him in a second. Grýla is noteworthy for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that she is very, very old. She was first referenced in text during the 1200s, so it’s not unlikely that she’s even older than that. Grýla’s death has been noted more than once, but the old troll seems to know to cheat death itself, because she just keeps coming back to plague the Icelanders, specifically Icelandic children – and by plague I mean drag them screaming into the blackness and eating them alive.


The good news is that Grýla apparently only goes on her carnivorous quest around Christmas, meaning that your chances of meeting a terrible fate at her hands are restricted to at least a small slice of the year. Further good news, Grýla can be staved off simply by resisting the urge to be naughty. Due to some mythological rule-set, or perhaps just a very odd sense of morality, Grýla only eats bad children. If you found the prospect of coal to be a lukewarm deterrent to engaging in the oh-so-much-fun act of being naughty, perhaps a savage death is a bit more of a barrier to naughtiness.

Now, if you might be thinking that Grýla’s husband Leppalúði is likely to be just as malicious of a character. Turns out, not so much. I mean, he looks mean and probably isn’t the type of creature you’d want to run into in a dark cave, but in comparison to Grýla he’s quite tame – and apparently quiet lazy (or at the very least, aloof).


Now, with a wife like Grýla it’s not surprising that he definitely appears to be the submissive partner in the relationship. Add in the fact that Grýla just up and ate her first husband (and let’s be real, likely her second husband too) and you get an environment in which ole’ Leppalúði has probably learned to keep his trap shut and just tend to the cave and the children like a good husband. Indeed, Leppalúði – at least from what I’ve read – seems to be a bit of a (comparatively) mild-mannered homebody who mostly keeps the feck out of Grýla’s way (can you blame him?) and who probably spends most of his time dealing with the Yule Lad’s antics. In some ways the Yule Lads might be described as the balance between Grýla’s evil antics and Leppalúði’s buffoonery. The good news for us humans is that Leppalúði doesn’t seem to go hunting for people in the same fashion as his wife does.

That’s not to say that Grýla is the only bad news. While her husband might be tame, and while the Yule Lads are, as we will soon discuss, prone to mischief as opposed to murder, Grýla also owns a giant cat known as the Yule Cat (Jólakötturinn or Jólaköttur).


Now let’s be clear, this is not your average domestic cat. The Yule Cat might better be described as a “monster” in that it is huge and hungry for humans. Whereas its master (Grýla) preys on naughty children, the Yule Cat hunts down and ravages those who haven’t gotten any new clothes to wear prior to Christmas Eve. Oh, and lest you big-people think you are safe, the Yule Cat eats adults too – though naturally children are of course also on the menu!


So now you’ve got a nice picture of Mom ‘n Pop and their carnivorous cat, so let’s discuss the real stars of the show, the Yule Lads.


There are, in the modern iterations, 13 canonical Yule Lads (though this number has drastically varied over the lads’ long and storied history – see my comment about Jóhannes úr Kötlum above). Unlike their baby-eating mother, lazy father, and deadly pet, the Yule Lads care much more about being mischievous and having fun (mostly for them, less so the people they annoy) around Christmas time. A lot of this stems from the fact that their mother keeps them locked away for most of the year, unable to explore the great outdoors. It’s only around Christmas that she lets them out to play – or perhaps Leppalúði just doesn’t have the energy to corral the Yule Lads while Grýla and the Yule Cat are off eating people. Regardless of the exact manner in which they are able to get out and about, the 13 Yule Lads start to “come to town” one at a time on December 12th, and each Lad has a different set of characteristics which define the antics they get themselves into.

The 13 lads, with English translations, as well as their arrival and departure dates are listed below.

Icelandic nameEnglish translationDescriptionArrivalDeparture
StekkjarstaurSheep-Cote ClodHarasses sheep, but is impaired by his stiff peg-legs.12 December25 December
GiljagaurGully GawkHides in gullies, waiting for an opportunity to sneak into the cowshed and steal milk.13 December26 December
StúfurStubbyAbnormally short. Steals pans to eat the crust left on them.14 December27 December
ÞvörusleikirSpoon-LickerSteals Þvörur (a type of a wooden spoon with a long handle – I. þvara) to lick. Is extremely thin due to malnutrition.15 December28 December
PottaskefillPot-ScraperSteals leftovers from pots.16 December29 December
AskasleikirBowl-LickerHides under beds waiting for someone to put down their “askur” (a type of bowl with a lid used instead of dishes), which he then steals.17 December30 December
HurðaskellirDoor-SlammerLikes to slam doors, especially during the night.18 December31 December
SkyrgámurSkyr-GobblerA Yule Lad with an affinity for Skyr.19 December1 January
BjúgnakrækirSausage-SwiperWould hide in the rafters and snatch sausages that were being smoked.20 December2 January
GluggagægirWindow-PeeperA snoop who would look through windows in search of things to steal.21 December3 January
GáttaþefurDoorway-SnifferHas an abnormally large nose and an acute sense of smell which he uses to locate laufabrauð.22 December4 January
KetkrókurMeat-HookUses a hook to steal meat.23 December5 January
KertasníkirCandle-StealerFollows children in order to steal their candles (which in those days were made of tallow and thus edible).24 December6 January


As you can see from the table, each Lad arrives on a separate date, and they stay “in town” until all of them have arrived, upon which they start departing – again one at a time – back to their mountain home. In total, this means that the Yule Lads are causing chaos in some format or another from December 12th all the way until January 6th.

If this story has seemed a bit… unpleasant.. thus far, what with the deadly endeavors of Grýla and the Yule Cat, coupled with the Yule Lads’ seeds of chaos, and Leppalúði’s “meh whatever” attitude about all of it, then have no fear, things perk up from here. While the Yule Lads have changed a bit over the centuries, their current manifestations are also known for bringing presents to those who act properly! Of course at a basic level you need to be good (lest their mom find you), and you also need new clothes (lest their cat eat you), but also need to leave one of your shoes on the window sill of your room to let the most-recently arrived Yule Lad know you are there! If you really want their good graces, you will also leave them a treat – but make no mistake, this isn’t a one-size-fits all cookies-and-milk fallback. Each Yule Lad has their own preferred “treat” and you don’t want to mix them up! Some are easy to remember, for instance Skyrgámur (Skyr-Gobbler) likes Skyr most of all. Whereas others, like Þvörusleikir (Spoon-licker) have less obvious tastes, such as carrots . Still, others, like Stúfur (Stubby) are likely to eat whatever you leave them without much fuss. In addition to food, you can also leave certain Lads items such as spoons (wooden!) or candles.

If you follow the proper protocol, you’ll likely to wake up to a present/treat of your own in the shoe you left out (as well as some classical Yule Lad mischief). However, if you don’t follow the proper traditions and/or are naughty, you’ll just get an old potato! An old potato might not be much, but it’s better than being eaten alive, though the potato is probably a warning sign that you need to start cleaning up your act real quick-like, lest Mommy Dearest find you.

It’s also important to note that the Yule Lads, much like their foreign counterparts, only come at night. Being trolls (or half trolls) and living in a dark cave most of the year has made their eyes sensitive to the light, so be sure not to leave too many lights on when you leave out your shoes and treat – the Yule Lads see far better in the dark! If you do find yourself face to face with a Yule Lad, a surefire way to get their good graces is to wish them a Gleðileg Jól (Happy Christmas).

It’s also worth noting that if you follow the proper procedures and have a bit of faith, that the Yule Lads have been known to travel far beyond Iceland’s coasts to leave presents for those who tempt them with especially good treats. So if you aren’t in Iceland, but still want to participate in some Yule Lad fun, you know what to do – just watch out for Grýla and her monstrous cat.


So there you go, a nice primer on the Yule Lads and their crazy family.

But that’s not all that goes in Iceland during the holidays. While the Yule Lads provide the backdrop to the season, there are a few other events and traditions that are widespread.

The first is Aðventa (The Advent) which starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and is the “official” start of the season in Iceland. It’s also when most of the Christmas lights begin to appear. In addition to modern lights, traditional Aðventa came in two formats: an Advent Wreath with four candles (one for each Sunday of Advent), and a seven-candle candelabra which was, being quite bright, was believed to keep out the winter’s darkness.


If this talk of lighting has you wondering about Christmas trees, then have no fear, Iceland has those too – though they are a more recent phenomenon in the manner you probably imagine a Christmas tree. For most of Iceland’s settled history there really weren’t that many trees that could be cut down, so the Christmas trees were made of wood scrapped together from other things, and then mounted with juniper branches and candles. As Iceland “opened” to the world (and attempts at reforestation began), real live Christmas trees became more accessible, and today most Icelanders use Christmas trees which appear much like those you’d find elsewhere – and they predominantly use real trees as opposed to fake ones. One interesting note is that the Christmas trees themselves often weren’t (and aren’t) lit in the home until just a day or two before Christmas, but the lights are left up until January 6th (which just so happens to be the last day the Yule Lads are around).


Second, I’m sure you’re wondering about food. Well, there’s all sorts of it, just like anyplace else. A few notable examples are the vast array of cookies which get baked, as well as the staple of Laufabrauð – which, directly translated, means “leaf bread.” The baking of the Laufabrauð is a family event, and great care is put into making the Laufabrauð as fancy as possible – sometimes it ends up so fancy that it gets turned into decorations as opposed to being eaten! Laufabrauð is generally served during both Christmas and New Year’s, paired with delicious smjör (butter).


There is also a traditional drink which is a mixture of locally produced malt (Maltöl) and orange soda (Appelsín). The mixture, Malt og Appelsín, is so popular that it can be purchased pre-mixed as Jólabland (Christmas Mix), though many Icelanders still take the time to mix it themselves. The exact ratio of malt to soda is hotly debated, and that’s territory I shan’t risk entering. 🙂


While foodstuffs beyond the sweet include the scrumptious fare that you might imagine for Iceland, including: herring, smoked and cured salmon, reindeer pâté, smoked lamb, roast pork with rind, rack of ham, turkey, and more – December 23rd brings about something a bit more intriguing, Skötuveislur or fermented skate. Skate is a type fish, which as you might have guessed, has been fermented. Traditionally this one done by sealing the skate in a closed container for a month or more (sound familiar?). The resulting dish is known just as much for its extremely pungent smell as its taste. In fact, I’ve been told that the smell is so difficult to get out of your house that a lot of people opt just to go get Skötuveislur from a restaurant these days. I’ve yet to try this delicacy, and honestly after kæstur hákarl I can’t say I’ll be seeking it out. That said, it’s still a strong tradition, so if you find yourself in Iceland on December 23rd you’ll know what that pervasive smell in the air is!


Perhaps the smell of fermented skate brings about thoughts of the afterlife. As on December 24th (and on New Year’s Eve) Icelanders remember their departed loved ones. They do so by visiting cemeteries and leaving candles on the graves of the departed. One of the most aesthetic cemeteries during this time is Hólavallagarður, a cemetery from 1832 which overlooks Tjörnin – so not very far from us at all.


There’s also the “Christmas Book Flood” which you may have seen as the following image floating around social media.


In Icelandic this is refereed to as Jólabókaflóð (The book flood of Christmas), and it’s largely true to the tidbit being passed around the interwebs. The one big difference is that it’s not quite as confined as the image makes it seem (its more chronologically far-reaching), but it’s still a big deal (and yes chocolate is a part of it). A few weeks ago SB and I noticed that the stores were starting to accumulate a TON of books – we had no idea what was going on at first, but now we do! And for reference, I mean, literal tons of books.


Once you’ve got your new collection of books, you have to be careful, as the holiday season brings bonfires to Iceland – and I mean a lot of bonfires. Long before fireworks made it to the arctic north, bonfires served essentially the same purpose – the symbolic burning of the old year, old sins, and the celebration of bright futures to come. The many “brennur” (burns) are community events and occur mostly on New Year’s Eve and The Thirteenth Night. Also, these aren’t just piddly little campfires, these are legitimate bonfires.


While fireworks have since joined the ranks of Icelandic New Year’s traditions, the bonfires remain.


Finally, as the season winds down, we come to Þrettándinn, the “Thirteenth Night” (the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon “Twelfth Night” you might be familiar with).


Like New Year’s Eve, bonfires are prevalent during Þrettándinn – but Þrettándinn is also a night of great, ancient, mystery. In Icelandic folklore, Þrettándinn caused strange and mythical beings to stir from their slumber. Many of these awakenings could be dangerous for humans (such as talking cows which would drive those who listened to them mad), and others, such as seals which shed their skins and walked among men, were just downright creepy. Þrettándinn, the official end of the season, also sees elves come out en masse (including the elf “king” and “queen”), as well as other mythical creatures and beasts. It’s also the final day the Yule Lads are in town, and if you make it through the night without falling victim to one of the various dangers of the dark, you’ll also know that Grýla and the Yule Cat have retreated back into the hinterlands for the year.

Like most other aspects of the season in Iceland, while evil and mischief lurk in the shadows, there is a great deal of symbolism to light, family, and the community. So stay close to the fire’s warm glow and those who you care about, and you’re likely to find yourself safe, full of delicious food, and spiritually satisfied even against the long dark night of Þrettándinn.


And that, dear friends, is Dinosaur Bear’s coverage of Jól. This is of course, not an even remotely exhaustive list, and as with any compilation of traditions, beliefs and practices will vary from one family to the next. It also leaves out a few important events, but this is a nice overview to the season, from an outsiders perspective with a focus on what seems especially “unique” to yours truly. I hope that if you’re new to all of this like me, you’ve found it especially interesting, and, conversely, if this is what you grew up with, that I didn’t get anything too out of whack. 🙂

In closing, here is a nice “cheat sheet” of the cast-of-characters (sans Yule Cat) referenced within this post. I’ve left the image uncompressed for easier viewing.


If you’d like an English translation of the poem upon which the modern iteration of the Yule Lads are based, click here.

Until next time,
Gleðileg jól og farsælt nýtt ár!

-Taco

Note: Unlike most Dinosaur Bear posts, the photos in this post are taken from the public websites of other photographers or organizations. All photographic/artistic works represented here remain the property of their respective owners – and as a reminder Dinosaur Bear is a non-monetized blog with no ads or other revenue sources. If you are the owner of one of the photos/works and would like it to be removed, please let me know.

Giving Thanks – Iceland Edition (2017)

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Greetings, and Happy (post) Thanksgiving!

I don’t have any big adventures to share, but I figured an Icelandic Thanksgiving was worth a post – plus I have a bit of a tradition in chronicling our “Turkey Day” festivities. 🙂

Thanksgiving in Iceland is interesting, because there is no Thanksgiving in Iceland. That’s not to say they don’t have something of an equivalent, but insofar as Thanksgiving as we Murkans know it, on the date we know it, there is no such thing. Of course this isn’t my first time celebrating a U.S. holiday while abroad, and the nice thing about Thanksgiving is that in order to celebrate you really only need two things: the ability to give thanks and food. Neither of which are in short supply in Iceland.

Plus, if you associate Thanksgiving with chilly November air, then there’s definitely no shortage of that here. In fact things have been downright cold lately. There was a morning last week where I was walking to the gym around 6:55am that might have been the coldest I’ve felt in years. At that time of day (and for a few hours afterward) it’s still pitch black, and when combined with the wind it was pretty terrible. Yet we’ve adjusted more easily to the cold (being used to it and all) than we have the darkness – for instance with the cold you can always have a nice hot cup of tea!

Though I guess the increased darkness has also generated more aurora borealis viewing opportunities. We’ve seen some awesome light displays over the past several weeks. While we still haven’t taken the time to learn how to photograph them with our good camera, they were so strong a couple of weeks ago that even our cell phone cameras could capture them.

Due to our lackluster camera skills (and the fact my phone is horrible in low light conditions) those photos only capture about 30% of the total lights that were present, but hey, at least we actually captured something this time! The lights are more frequent and stronger during the late fall and winter period, so hopefully we’ll get better at capturing them. Speaking of which, it might not be winter yet but we’ve had snow for awhile now.

In fact the first round of snow moved into our area around October 11th (though it didn’t move into the city itself until November 9th), and we’ve had snow in some capacity since then. It makes for some pretty mornings though!

There’s always something nice about a freshly fallen snow.

The downside is that we don’t always have sunlight – in fact it’s usually cloudy. So when coupled with the fact that the sun comes up less and less, the snowy landscapes can often get very, very grey.

But the animal priends’ don’t mind.

Nor do the snowmen. Icelandic Snowmen that is.

By and large we’ve adjusted to it. Some days are definitely worse than others.


It was like this pretty much the entire day – notice the complete lack of Perlan in the distance.

But other days kind of a have a winter-wonderland type of whimsy to them.


Chuck and Chica’s house.

That of course brings me to the holidays. Despite the lack of Thanksgiving, Christmas is beginning to pop up around Reykjavík – for example, Christmas Trees.

And also wreaths, lots of wreaths.

Oh and in case you were wondering, yes that is Tjörnin – frozen enough that people are using the lake as a walkway.

The holidays have also crept into other areas, such as our milk cartons.

Oh, and remember when I mentioned the holiday-themed energy drinks? Yeah, I wasn’t lying.

SB and I agreed that it tasted like those old-fashioned strawberry hard candies. You know the ones. Tristen also liked the manly Santa Claus on the can.

So, in order to prepare for the holidays we took care of a few things at the apartment. Namely cleaning some harder to clean areas. The plant buddies also got some new soil and new pots!

They’ve also since moved to the window sill in our bedroom to hopefully get a bit more of the limited sunlight we have. Another big event was bath time for the boys. Bath time is a huge ordeal. Valentino loves it, Tristen hates it, Pig just gets dirty again within 10 seconds, and Pigsten, well Pigsten is easy at least. Part of what makes it such an ordeal is that the boys take so long to try. Even with a fan it took us 10+ hours to dry them after I hand-washed them. So, lacking a fan, it took a whopping ~30 hours for them to fully dry.

Here they are shortly after getting cleaned in the sink – sitting on our bathroom stool/shelf/whatever (from the basement! 😀 ) in the early stages of drying. As you can tell Tristen was less than enthused. Here they are about 20 some hours later, much drier and enjoying a nice tea next to the radiator (with Pig doing yoga, of course).

The photo of the boys sitting next to the radiator in the bedroom reminded me – I had an interesting home improvement moment two weeks ago. It involved this:

That’s an array of networking and electrical outlets in our bedroom. The network ports don’t work, and haven’t since we moved in – so I’m not sure why they are there (the ones in the living room do work) but the electrical outlets work fine. The issue wasn’t anything to do with the ports/outlets themselves, but rather an extremely annoying noise that would occasionally come from the wall around/in the array. This noise had occurred shortly after we moved in and occurred on and off for a few days then stopped for awhile. However it started back up about two weeks ago and persisted, without fail, for nearly 48 hours (as in, it didn’t stop for a single moment).

The noise sounded like a muffled “knock” – so since the noise was coming from near a radiator I figured it might be pipes. However, after it kept me up half the night I decided the next day to investigate. I came to realize that the noise occurred exactly every 3 seconds (give or take -.002 seconds I suppose, if you want to be super accurate). I tested it 26 times using magical technology, and it was always 3 seconds. Having spent the past 3 years in a 90 year old Boston building I am used to pops, groans, and knocks – and they were never to precisely uniform on time. This knocked out the usual building-y stuff (and also our neighbors, who, while they bang around continuously, do so in an irregular manner).

Since I ‘sperg out over stuff like this and am super noise sensitive, the night of the second day I just got frustrated, grabbed the IKEA tool set and went about pulling the whole thing out of the wall. I was determined that the noise was coming from directly behind the array – and turns out I was right. After dismantling the whole shebang, I realized what was happening – and it was unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

Basically, within the array there are two holes on the network side that lead into the interior of the wall. These are used to run the Ethernet cables. However, cables are only ran on one side (and again they don’t work) so the other side is just an open little hard plastic tube/hole into the wall. This is where the noise was coming from. See, our apartment is very air tight (concrete + good window seals). If the windows are closed and you open the door, your ears pop (seriously). Similarly, if you open the windows in odd orders the pressure will sometimes close another window. And, best of all, if it’s really windy outside, sometimes it’s insanely difficult to open a window or door if it opens outwards (so all but out front door). I’m not kidding, one night I put my full 175lbs into our balcony door and it wouldn’t open (we also had severe winds, but the pressure also created suction). So, my theory as to what was happening is that this little hole in the networking side was acting as a pressure valve between the pressure in our apartment, and the pressure in the interior of the interior wall (which is drywall and studs, unlike the exterior walls, which are concrete).

This only occurred under certain atmospheric conditions (thus why it didn’t happen constantly) and the “knock” was in fact a little air/pressure bubble “bursting” in that tube as the pressure equalized and then was imbalanced again, over and over and over – thus the nearly perfect 3 second loop. How did I fix it? I shoved some puddy up in the whole and then slapped a piece of tape over it. 😀

No more noise, and it’s been silent ever since – and I need all the silence I can get in this place of parties and screaming until 4am.

ANYWAYS, got a bit off topic there. Back to Thanksgiving. Our Thanksgiving was actually the day after Thanksgiving, because that is what worked better for our schedule, plus when there is no formal holiday you can pick your own days. 😛

As if its needs saying, Thanksgiving = beer.


Props to SB and Tristen for carting this mother-load home!

Yes, after entirely running out of beer (even near-beer) we have since replenished the supply in the Taco household (complete with a bottle of wine too – from Argentina, we are cultured folks). Thanksgiving also = turkey, but we don’t have access to turkey, so we went with chicken, but we don’t need a big chicken, nor do we have space to even store one, so we went with a little chicken!

Yep, an official Icelandic chicken! For seasoning I had some of the usual stuff, garlic, pepper, onion, carrots, etc. But I also tried stuffing it with cheese and using a new (to us) sauce from the U.K. – HP Sauce. To me it kind of tasted like A1 sauced mixed with Worcestershire sauce, it was good.

We also had some MASSIVE Icelandic sweet taters.

The bird and the tatoes were coupled with snow peas (couldn’t find green beans), and rolls (which ended up having cheese inside – yay language surprises!) paired with some rhubarb jam!

Here’s a nice “before” photo of our Kjúklingur.

And then an “after” shot, complete with copious amounts of anxious Tristen.

In case you were wondering how snow peas worked out, they were really yummy.

Those are diced hotdogs (which are really good here), plus the usual seasonings. I was really pleased with how they came out. As for the massive sweet potatoes, we mashed those up and combined them with some Icelandic butter (amazing), Skyr (Icelandic yogurt – also amazing), and a small bit of honey. They were delicious – though I am biased as sweet potatoes are probably my favorite part of Thanksgiving these days.

Here’s a completed meal, shown with our rolls containing a magical cheese surprise.

Pigsten was a big fan of the warm gooey rolls.

Naturally no Thanksgiving is complete without desert! We don’t have a pie pan – and in fact pies don’t really seem to be a thing here (we seriously haven’t seen a single pie) so we opted for something a bit more unique, a chocolate-crunch layer cake!

It contained chocolate, almond cake, toffee, cream, and caramel. Tasty.

Then, after we’d all had some time to digest we busted out our wine.

All in all it was a wonderful little ole’ Thanksgiving in Iceland. Sure we have no chairs so we sat on budget kitchen chair cushions on the floor while eating off a coffee table we found in the basement, but the important thing is that we had good company, and the food was pretty dang good too. 🙂

What’s kind of funny is that the entire price of the meal – which we ate on for three days – was still less than it would be to eat out a single time here in Reykjavík, craziness! Heck, our bird was only ~664 ISK (~$6.46). We were smart shoppers and deal hunted, as usual!

But yes, despite the fact that our neighbors proceeded to keep me awake until 3:30 am that night with their stupidity, I am thankful for many things. Yes,  though I do indeed complain nearly constantly on this blog, I am generally quite thankful (and tend to complain less in person, though not much ; ) ).

Here’s a few things I am thankful for:

SB, the boys, our plants, that I’ve probably secured a supervisor for my thesis, my health, beer, being brave enough to take chances, my persistence (read: stubbornness), my computer still working, my pillow, coffee, polar bears, squirrels, my human family, a few planned adventures (more on those later!), that my income-based repayment application got approved so I won’t literally go bankrupt within 5 months, Steam sales, my 2 human friends (that might sound kinda sad, but I have impossibly high friend standards), Chuck and Chica, Iceland’s housing stipend, Meem letting me do work for her, Oatly oat milk, puffins, getting to watch airplanes take off, Charles XII of Sweden, Carmex, ear plugs, my ability to do Crow (yoga), indoor plumbing, my 7 year old backpack from Wal-Mart that has held up better than most designer backpacks would, my 7 year old Wal-mart folders which are rugged but still kicking, my passion for history, the person online who taught me how to open a beer using a quarter without bending the bottle cap, my S5 phone still working, my laptop still working, echinacea goldenseal, squeegees, sunglasses, Bónus, guerrilla tape, Iceland’s awesome tap water, Thomas IV, that my headset still works, my 11 year old slippers, soft-close cabinet hinges, my $3 mixing bowl, people who throw away things that I can take, and lastly, SB and I’s mutual desire to explore the world.

And those are just the things from the top of my head. 🙂

I hope you all had an enjoyable Thanksgiving, whether it was an “official holiday” or a “l337 underground T-Givn’ holiday” abroad.

Until next time,
Taco

8th Anniversary Festivities

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Greetings!

Another year has come and gone, and it’s time for some anniversary fun!

Indeed, SB and I recently celebrated our 8th anniversary! This year had a couple of especially exciting details to it. First, we are in Iceland! Second, we actually got to spend our anniversary together! We have a pretty abysmal track record with actually having time together on the anniversary itself (or other such misadventures as a car dying), but this year it fell on a day we both had off!

So, as a way of celebrating both of those things plus the anniversary itself we opted to go a bit “crazy” this year and begin our celebrations a full week early. Part of that had to do with weather on the weekend prior.

There is a building near us known as “Perlan” (The Pearl in Icelandic) and if you follow this blog (or have visited Reykjavík) you’ve seen it several times, even if you don’t realize you have.

Perlan is many things… landmark, museum, cafe, bar, restaurant, coffee shop, gift store, observation point, water storage facility, etc. I have to say that in all my travels I’ve never quite been in anything like it. When I see something new, I have a nearly oppressive desire to explore it –  and that Perlan literally sits on the horizon of my daily view made the desire to explore all the more intense.

SB was also interested, but a couple things had previously held us back. One, distance – despite not being that far away from us as the crow raven flies, Perlan requires walking around the domestic airport to get to. Second, and more importantly, weather. Perlan sets up on a hill, Öskjuhlíð (betcha’ can’t pronounce that), which means that you get good views of the area – but it also means you’re really exposed to the elements. So SB and I had sort of been waiting for a good weather day that we both had time on. Sadly this took a long time. However, the weekend before our anniversary we woke up and there were blue skies! So we decided to hop out of bed and make our way over to Perlan.

Naturally by the time we got out of the apartment and were on our way clouds rolled it, but at least it wasn’t raining (for a change)! The walk over was nice. As mentioned you have to loop around the northern end of the domestic airport, which often yields some nice views of planes flying right above you as they land (Tristen’s favorite part). After that you make your way up to Öskjuhlíð, which is one of those areas that makes you quickly forget you’re in the middle of a city.

There are a lot of paths on Öskjuhlíð, not all of which go to Perlan. It’s a fairly nice paved trail system. We opted for one of the quicker routes on our side of the hill, which branched off from the dual path in the photo above.

It got decently steep in a few parts – enough so that it’d be rough in snow. But before too long we made our way to the clearing at the top of the hill where Perlan awaited us!

Even at this point we’d gained a decent amount of elevation for the area.

Since Perlan is literally built in and around giant hot water storage tanks it’s a bit bigger up close than it seems to be from a distance.

As you can see the central area of the structure was built between the tanks.

We didn’t know it, but we’d actually came up the “back way” (go figure, considering my history of going about things back-asswards), so we had to loop around to the front of the building to get inside.

If you follow a straight (impossible but work with me) line from this next photo (facing west) you will eventually get to our house. So we came up the hill “behind” Perlan.

Once inside you have a few options. Perlan itself is free with a few caveats. You can go into the building for free. In the “free zone” you have food, beverages (of the both the normal and adult varieties), restrooms, a gift shop, and good views from within the dome. Until very recently (September, I think) you could go out onto the viewing platform for free, but they’ve since started charging 490 ISK for it (~$4.65). In addition to the viewing platform, which is essentially the top of the tanks, there is a full-fledged museum and ice cave inside Perlan (including one of the tanks) – which is more pricey at 2900 ISK (~$27.35), however the museum fee includes the viewing platform – so that’s what we did.

When you first enter you are in the “core” area between the tanks and pretty much have to go up or down if you aren’t starting at the museum.

Since we weren’t sure about the weather we decided to start with the viewing platform in case rain rolled in. It offers quite a view!

Here’s a more focused shot looking west-northwest (that’s downtown Reykjavík to the right).

And here’s a more directly western view, you can see HI’s campus in the center to center-left of the photo.

Here’s another shot of downtown, as a point of reference the big church is Hallgrímskirkja and the little island to the left is Akurey, both of which you might recognize from my first Iceland post!

Moving around the viewing platform a bit, here is a shot looking to the north. While you can’t really see it, the start of the long road SB and I took north to the Westfjords lies along the base of the distant mountain (Esjan).

Then, looping all the way around to the south side, you get a view of the southern harbor (we live out on what is essentially a peninsula).

We watched a little sailboat sailin’ around for a bit, it was a good day for sailing. Plenty of wind, but not the crazy stuff we normally have.

As you can kind of tell, the observation platform wraps around the central glass dome. They built it on top of the hot water storage tanks – the majority of which are still used (lots of steam coming out of the vents!). As you walk around there are lots of little signs explaining what you are looking at, as well as overpriced viewing machines (which I just learned are apparently called “Tower Viewers“) – though not as overpriced as those in Boston.

They also have a variety of rocks/minerals on display from the various regions of Iceland.

Pigsten revealed himself from my pocket and was all over that shiz.

One of the tanks also had a cool sundial with surrounding topographical information – not that I could read any of it.

Pigsten used his geological knowledge to guide us.

About that time we started to get pretty chilly, so we headed inside to have some yummy coffee!

In order to get our coffee we had to head up into the top-floor dome area, which is actually above the viewing deck.

There are two places to get coffee inside, a more “grab and go” type place, and then a full-service coffee shop up on the dome – we obviously went for the full service.

It was really neat, they were in the middle of installing a hydroponic “green wall” in the middle of the upper dome area. I’d like to go back at some point and see the plants once they’ve had time to grow.

After our chilly walk and viewing experience, warm coffee sounded delicious, and it was!

We’d also worked up a bit of an appetite from our walk, so we through in some yogurt and a salmon sandwich, because why not!


Pigsten Approved™

We enjoyed a good chat while taking in the views – which are really good even from inside the dome.

We even got to see a few little planes taking off from one of the secondary runways.

After we’d had our coffee and noms’ we headed back down to the museum. We’d timed it well because the next ice cave entrance was only about 10 minutes away, so we browsed through the photo gallery they had outside the cave while we waited.

The photos were from all over Iceland, showcasing its various environmental extremes. One that I thought was really crazy was a photo which showed a boulder that had been blasted through the air during the 2010 eruption. Yes seriously – this thing got blasted over a massive distance.


The little thing to the right is a person, for reference.

After that it was time to enter the ice cave! Now, obviously this is a man-made ice cave. It’s designed as a replica of the actual ice caves which exist in several parts of Iceland. These aren’t caves with ice in them, mind you. These are literally caves through solid ice. It’s pretty crazy. The Perlan replica is 100 meters long and made out of 350 tonnes of ice and snow, so pretty dang substantial.

The entry reminded me a bit of SB and I’s ice museum adventures in Chena Hot Springs, Alaska. You could get suited up in a warm parka if you wanted one, then you went through what were essentially two airlocks before making your way into the entrance of the cave. Once inside you were immediately greeted by the snuggly-warm -10C (14F) temperatures.

The way they had done the lighting was really cool (literally and figuratively) – as it was behind a layer of ice with blue filters, which gave everything a really neat blue hue in some areas.

For the most part the cave was fairly straightforward, but in a few areas there were different paths you could take – each showcasing a different aspect of a real-world ice cave.

If you are getting hardcore Echo Base vibes from this, so did I.

As mentioned, different areas of the cave were designed to showcase different types of ice formations as you’d find them in actual ice caves.

This translucent area was probably my favorite – the patterns and detail in the ice was amazing.

Here’s a closer shot.

They’d also done a really good of creating the “illusion” of an ice trench.

These are the fissures you’d find in glaciers that go down.. well.. really deep. Our cave guide was pretty blunt – if you fall into one of these you’re pretty much f*cked. I say they had created the “illusion” of one because they’d use a cleverly placed mirror to simulate a deep-ass trench. You can’t really blame them, as they don’t need kids plummeting to their icy-blackness-doom as they slowly freeze to death in agony in the middle of a family friendly museum. If you look closely you can see the mirror in this next photo.

They also had a recreated “air vent” which would naturally form in the glacier. These are also really, really deep – but much more narrow.

If you thought you spotted a Pigsten in that air vent, you’d be correct.

Since a little dinosaur isn’t equipped for such ice cave living, we made our way to the exit – which they had designed in such a manner as to make it seem like you were leaving an actual cave.

Side note: It starting snowing outside while I was writing the ice cave section, fitting!

Once out of the cave you enter an exhibit on global warming, glaciers, and Iceland’s geological/climatological history and future in general.

This circular exhibit is situated above the ice cave, which is itself contained within one of the water storage tanks. So the whole of the museum (save for the photo exhibit) is actually in an refitted tank, kinda cool.

The exhibit had a lot of really good (and high tech) displays about the changing climate and how that’s generally bad news (for everyone, not just Iceland).

They had some pretty awesome digital images which curved along the wall and displayed things as they would change in real time.

In fact, one part of the wall was interactive. You could stand in certain parts and the wall would track your movements, so you could interact with things on the map by pointing at them or moving around. It was really neat and quite interesting – I especially liked the ones focused on naminals’ because they would move around when you pointed at them.

As you made your way out of the exhibit there was a wall with little plastic disks that you could leave messages on. People from pretty much all over the world had left messages, the Boys did too.

There were a couple which I thought were kind of funny.

 

After the exhibit we started to make our way back to our apartment because we were trying to keep ahead of the inevitable rain.

We took the same path down Öskjuhlíð, but this time I opted to explore a bit of the side routes.

After walking through some bushes I noticed something that seemed an awful lot like the remains of a bunker.

Now, I have no military experience (not that you need any to recognize a bunker), but I’d been in an IDF bunker on the Syrian border and it had similar vibes – albeit in a bit better shape. Turns out it was a bunker.

Yep, while mostly being rumble and a graffiti hotpsot now, we’d stumbled on the remains of part of the U.S. Occupying Forces defensive network during World War II. The part we’d found was one of the entrances plus a machine-gun nest – both of which were haphazardly sealed off with rocks.

Had you really wanted you could still get inside, but I wasn’t really wanting to, lol. I was more than happy to just explore the surface area.

If you were wondering “why this spot?” – well, that’s because Öskjuhlíð directly overlooks Reykjavíkurflugvöllur (the domestic airport), which was a hugely important airport for not only World War II, but also for the GIUK gap during the Cold War.

The bunker network wasn’t the only “war relic” as there was also a huge blasted-out pit where they’d placed and hidden fuel storage tanks during the war.

The tanks set down in the pit for protection, and then were coverage by camouflage. They also used the rocks they’d blasted out to build the war-time runway which had to be expanded due to the increased traffic and plane-size.

Speaking of rocks, Pigsten acquired his newest rock from the bunker – marking yet another impressive acquisition for the little guy.

Once Pigsten had his rock we continued back home, taking in some ducky butts in the wetland area in front of HI.

Once home we went to the small store near us (Háskólabúðin) for some drinks. One of things I got – and regret – was this atrocity.

I’ve described “near-beers” already, but this one took the cake at 0.0% ABV. I mean, that should of been a warning sign, but curiosity got the best of me. The result was the worst beer I have ever had. It is so bad that I don’t even know how to describe it. But let’s put it this way, choosing between this and Natty Ice, I’d chose Natty Ice. Fortunately the terrible “beer” was the only upsetting portion of our Perlan day!

That was the end of “Phase 1” of our 8th Anniversary festivities. The next had to wait until the following Friday, where I fixed us up a yummy (near) anniversary dinner!

It consisted of grilled salmon, garlic bread, and roasted vegetables with a mustard sauce. Delicious! Since eating out is just really, really expensive we’d decide to forgo it (yep, even for our anniversary) – however everyone agreed that we hadn’t missed out on much as dinner was awesome! Of course any good dinner needs a good treat, so we also had the first cake I’ve baked in Iceland!

Technically it was the second baked good we’ve produced. SB attempted to make banana bread prior to my cake, but she put Hjartarsalt in it by mistake (she thought it was baking powder). Turns out Hjartarsalt is another name for “ammonium chloride” (noticing the theme here? Why Iceland? Why?) which promptly rendered our bread inedible – at least to us, some people love Hjartarsalt.

Fortunately I learned from SB’s error and just used what we have and know to be baking soda (Matarsódi) instead of baking powder (which we still haven’t found). The end result was a super yummy white chocolate-caramel-fudge cake!

It was good enough that we ate on it for the next 3 days. 🙂

Naturally, good food, good treaties, and happy occasions cannot properly exist without good drinks. SB ventured out and got us not only some good beer, but also a pumpkin!

Yes, as a I not-so subtly alluded to last time, we acquired Thomas IV! Thomas has a long history which goes all the way back to 2014 and becomes increasingly storied each year. Generally we get a Jack-be-little pumpkin to be Thomas, but we could find no such variety in Iceland, so we went with a standard punkin’ for Thomas IV (his power grows). Kudos to SB for hauling Thomas and beer home from the other side of Vesturbær!

Despite having a cake, we used our looming anniversary as an excuse to get pretty much anything we wanted that weekend – including pops and more treats! Case in point, we found some polar bear gummies for Valentino!

And.. not to be forgotten some dino gummies for Tristen!

If you’re wondering about Pig, he ate both. 🙂

And that was pretty much the weekend, mostly just chilling, eating, and drinking things. We also had pretty decent weather for the weekend, which we’d hoped would stick around until Monday (our actual anniversary) but alas the clouds rolled back in. Fortunately it didn’t rain and it hadn’t gotten stupidly cold yet, so we were still able to get out and about and enjoy things!

Just what did we enjoy you ask? Well, the answer would be feeding the duckies – and geese – and swans – and (asshole) seagulls, of course!

Yes, we decided to put the ole’ nanner’ bread to good use and headed over to Tjörnin feed it to the friends. They did not seem to mind the Hjartarsalt in the least. Before too long we were pretty much swarmed by friends. Sadly I didn’t get any good photos of the swarm because I was feeding them, but here is a shot of the build up to the swarm.

In this next photo you can see Chuck and Chica, our two ducky friends who follow us around the world on our adventures and have ever since 2013.

After the friends had consumed an entire loaf of nanner’ bread we parted ways and took ourselves over to the highly recommended Reykjavík Roasters for some warm coffee.

We sat and enjoyed our coffees and chatted for a bit, before the warmness made me start to fall asleep, haha. Once we were finished with our coffee we headed down the street to the (also highly recommended) bakery, Brauð & Co.

As you can tell from the photo, if you somehow miss the delicious smells wafting out into the street – you’re sure to take visual notice of the bakery itself. We got a cinnamon roll and a vanilla + chocolate croissant (fresh from the oven) and then made our way back to our apartment to nom’ them. Along the way we decided to use the pedestrian bridge over Route 49 (Nesbraut), something we hadn’t done before and had wanted to do because we’re weird.

As you can see there is really nothing exceptional about it, we just wanted to walk over it. It does have some nice views though. He’s facing east (notice Perlan in the distance!).

And here’s facing west.

And he’s a nice view of HI, as well as the wetlands where we saw the ducky butts.

Once home we all quickly dove into our baked goods (never mind the fact we still had cake), which were OUTSTANDING.

Seriously, easily the best croissant I’ve ever had in my life, and quite possibly the new cinnamon roll champion as well (which says something, as they make some might fine cinnamon rolls where I come from).

After that we went comatose for a bit and just enjoyed everyone’s company for the rest of the evening – and since the sun goes down quite early these days that didn’t take too long.

And that, dear friends, was our 8th Anniversary!

Since then life has essentially gotten back to Icelandic normal, but not too normal – for instance I’m pretty sure we have ghost living with us now.

Fortunately he seems to spend a lot of his time over at the construction site or on top of Thomas IV, so he isn’t too much trouble (though he can be ornery).

Also, since Halloween is over that means that it’s Christmas already, or at least that’s what the stores are telling me. To be fair, the rampant consumerism around Christmas doesn’t seem to be quite as bad here (yet), but that doesn’t mean that the stores haven’t started creeping in some holiday malts, holiday energy drinks (for real), and holiday cakes. We may or may not have indulged ourselves in a gingerbread-cream-jam holiday cake.

Hey now, we’ll stretch those anniversary excuses as thin as possible. 😛

Anyways, that’s all for now. Here’s to another crazy year with the ole’ SB and the Boys!

Until next time,
-Taco

Living in the Land of Fire and Ice

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Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens
~Gimli (J.R.R. Tolkien)
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Greetings and welcome to Dinosaur Bear!
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As promised I’ve decided to write a post about the more mundane and slightly less exciting aspects of living in “The Land of Fire and Ice.” The goal of this post isn’t to give an in-depth look at Icelandic culture or lifestyle. Heck, it’s not even really to provide a day-in-and-day-out account of being a ferner’ here. There are plenty of travel blogs that can do such a thing far more adeptly than I can. Instead I’m just going to ramble about a few things that we’ve been doing and encountered since moving here 3 months ago. Like anything in life there is some good, some bad, and some downright weird. Unlike a lot of my posts which have at least a semblance of a narrative, this time I’m just going to type things as I think of them (which is itself a result of which pictures I chose). So not everything here is chronological, nor does one thing necessary flow conceptually to the other. However I’ll try to keep my rambling structured to some extent! 🙂
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With that said, let’s get started!
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Vesturbær – our new home.
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So what happened once we got settled? Well, a lot. Not the least of which I found out that I passed the bar, and we also went on our first in-country trip. However, a lot of “easier to miss” things also happened. We had to do things like find out where a grocery store was, and once there, figure out what milk was. You’d think that would be easy but we ended up with an entire jug of yogurt (true story). We also found out really quickly that just because you recognize a brand, does not mean that that brand is going to be what you expect it to be. Case in point, a lot of the cereal is way different.
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Mmm, delicious rugs with fras.
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Sure we’d both lived abroad before, but that time around we were part of a program (especially SB) so there was a bit of hand-holding involved. This was a full-fledged plop down into a country of which you don’t even know how to say “Hello.” The result is that things have been interesting (in both good and bad ways). For instance I once opened what I thought was a stall in the restroom to find a mini-kids bathroom all self-contained inside of the stall.
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So when I say that we often don’t know what is going to be behind the next door, I mean that literally. As in, we can’t even read anything but the most basic of signs. I once also went into what I thought was a computer lab, only to realize I’d stumbled into the 9th circle of hell and it was a lab full of Macs. I still have PTSD.
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However, the good news is that SB is actually learning a bit of Icelandic. Partially because of her job at a preschool and partially because she is taking a basic Icelandic course through the university. I, however, am making less strides as my work doesn’t expose me to Icelandic, nor am I taking a class in it. I’m getting some of it just from constant exposure, but I wouldn’t really say that I’m actively learning it, as it’s more of a passive absorption. The last remnants of my German help some, but sometimes they cause more problems than they solve because it’s FAR from a 1:1 linguistic comparison.
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Still, all the confusion from the language aside, life is fairly normal. At least as normal as life can be when you live right across the street from an airport and a construction site.
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The construction site actually doesn’t bother us. In fact I’m probably going to make a post just about the construction site at some point in the future. However, in the meantime don’t be surprised if it sneaks into posts semi-frequently. It is a fairly big part of our existence after all. We’ve named all the workers and the machines and created an entire story, it helps deal with the jackhammers starting at 7:55 am.
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Of course “life as normal” also means that we can’t just enjoy living in Iceland and being students. Lots of a boring life stuff still has to happen. For instance, shortly after moving here my computer just shut off one night. Just, boom, dead. This is the same computer that I’d just paid $600 between shipping and customs for – a 4 year old computer no less (I later found out that the computer wasn’t supposed to have customs paid on it, but of course they didn’t tell me that). Anyways, I’m decent with computers and I knew enough to know this wasn’t something minor. So the tinkering began.
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After a few hours of poking, prodding, and dismantling I came to the conclusion that it was either the power supply (PSU) or the graphics card (GPU). Naturally, being in Iceland meant that regardless of which one it was, I was going to pay about 50-80% more than I would have if the same part had broken before I moved. That said, the GPU would be much easier to replace than the PSU because my particular computer uses a server-rack style PSU, whereas the GPU is just a standard make.
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So the first thing to come out for testing was the PSU.
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And from there we next went to the GPU for testing.
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The good news is that it ended up being the GPU that had bit the dust. This was the first time ever I’d had a GPU die on me – wonderful. So I went about figuring out how to get a new one, and despite my best efforts I ultimately decided that I’d just need to buy one in a brick-and-mortar store here to get the best price (due to customs + shipping). However, I soon found that there were no stores within walking distance that carried computer hardware. Fortunately, I was able to use the free shuttle to Smáralind (mall) which leaves from City Hall to get within about 10 minutes walking distance of a computer hardware store. I guess the one lucky thing was that it happened before the shuttle stopped running for the season. So, thanks to a bit of leeching from the mall shuttle I was able to acquire a new GPU.
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Of course I paid over $100 more for it than I would have even in the more expensive stores in the U.S., but in my life when it comes to my desktop there are two options 1) I have my Desktop 2) I end up on the FBI’s (or I guess Lögregla’s these days) most wanted list.
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Installing the GPU was a bit of a chore since I have what is called a “small form factor” (SFF) case. But I managed without breaking anything.
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Now, life being life, that wasn’t the only expensive thing that broke. As I mentioned before our camera lens also decided to break at some point. We had purchased the additional coverage when we bought it, but because we are abroad it turned into a massive shit-show to get them to honor the warranty. The end result is that we had to pay $50 to get someone to say “Yep, it’s broke.” Then pay $30 to send it to the warranty people so they could say “Yep, it’s broke.”
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Happy Icelandic boxes for sad broken camera lenses and other goodies.
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All for them to not replace it anyways. In the end we managed to recover about 1/2 of what we paid for the lens, which does us little good here since the same lens costs literally 2.5x as much in Iceland. We also are down a suitcase, because one of them got damaged too – oh and they didn’t replace that either.
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Anyways, enough bitching about stuff being broken. Iceland is hard on your stuffs’ apparently. 🙂
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Back to the living situation. Which is to say, back to the construction yard.
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And early morning (and late night) jack-hammering. Or as better reference of what morning currently looks like:
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That is about 8:30am, for reference.
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Also, and by late night I do mean late-night.
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Ok so that photo was actually at like 6 o’clock, but more about the ENCROACHING DARKNASS in a bit. Besides, Pigsten might get angry at me if I discuss his “secret” construction site too much just yet.
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So living, yeah, it’s living! The boys are still as crazy as ever.
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Actually Valentino is a little more crazy than usual. We think it’s the newfound proximity to the Arctic Circle that is causing him to go a bit feral. Polar Bears can be dangerous yo’.
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We also live in a giant concrete bunker. No seriously, a lot of the buildings here look like they were built to withstand being shelled. While Iceland hasn’t been subjected to much in the way of shelling (outside of Red Storm Rising, anyways) it gets absolutely shitter-blasted by the more natural elements. As such, a lot of the buildings look like ass but when your existence consists of 365 days of wind blowing things into you sideways, I guess you sort of need solid construction.
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Our building also has grass growing on the roof. No seriously.
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It’s actually fairly common here, it’s also a good idea. In our case there’s so much grass that they even have to come mow it.
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It looks much nicer when it’s mowed.
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Naturally a lot the clipped grass ended up pilled up in the walk ways, or bunched up on our welcome mat. That was a kind of a pain. The street cleaner did come clean up everything in the street though, which was neat (except for Clifford, he hates street cleaners for some reason that we have never understood).
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Speaking of plants, Iceland doesn’t have much in the way of trees. I mean, I guess this isn’t a huge surprise. The environment itself isn’t conducive to tall vegetation (see wind), but a lot of the forests that were here got chopped down by the Vikings a long time ago. So most of the vegetation you see scattered around was intentionally (re)planted, and even then there isn’t a ton of variety in the trees. The cool thing is that while evergreens are definitely popular, a fair chunk of the trees are actually seasonal – which means you still get fall colors (even if nothing like New England). For example, here’s a photo from a bit ago showing some trees on campus just starting to change.
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All those leaves are completely gone now, and have been for awhile – which is a bit more depressing. However, the change was fairly gradual in the leaves, so we had a few good weeks of colors!
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We also had a crazy explosion of mushrooms around us! There for a week or two mushrooms were everywhere!
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I’m pretty sure Pig has since ate them all.
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In other plant news, we acquired three buddies to liven up our apartment!
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Yep! SB found someone who was getting ready to move and couldn’t take their plants, so we got them! They are three aloe plants, and their names are from left to right: Þórunn, Gunter, and Logi – none of which are pronounced the way you probably think they are. 🙂
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They live on the little table where our router is, right next to our big balcony windows. We won’t be able to take plants with us (which is why we didn’t even consider bringing any of our current buddies) so we were mixed on whether to get any here, but I’m glad SB got them! So much happier with plant friends. They seem to be doing well, as they are just babies. Their biggest threat in the beginning was a certain porcine predator.
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Yes, Poor Pig, he wanted to eat them so bad. But he got scalded and then had a big ole’ piggy pout.
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However he’s since came to understand that Þorunn, Gunter, and Logi are friends, and not for eating. We feed him lots of oat biscuits from Bónus (our regular grocery store, featuring a pig mascot!) to keep him happy too, which probably helps.
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The Boys also like the rainbows. Like I mentioned before, rainbows are pretty constant thing here – and even manage to crop up on otherwise icky days.
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Sometimes you get lucky and can see almost the full arc, complete with Icelandic leprechauns (i.e. gnomes) at the end.
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I guess rainbows are a good segue into the weather in general, which is itself tied to the rising tides of darkness. A good bit ago we woke one morning to a little bit of snow on Esja in the distance.
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That was pretty much the beginning of the dark times. Since then we’ve been losing daylight, and fast. As an example, take this photo from around 9:00am from October 11th.
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A decent amount of light, right?
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Welp it’s still dark now. Heck, when I get up at 6:20 – 6:40 the northern lights are still out, and at 8:00am if feels more like 3am than 8:00am. I mean, seriously, it’s pitch black – and when you manage to pull yourself out of bed you know you’ve got hours more of darkness ahead of you. That’s only going to keep getting worse for the next 1.5 months. SB and I are not especially excited about that. In fact the darkness has really been the only thing that’s been hard about living here. Second to that is probably the fact that online shopping basically doesn’t exist, lol.
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The Fall has also brought some crazy wind. Yes it’s raining, but that’s normal. It rains so much you just sort of forget it’s raining. It’s also usually windy, but this had been some hardcore wind.
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SB and I have lived in windy places since 2010, each progressively more windy than the last. Here the wind is so bad that literally all the lines (power, etc.) have to be underground. Plus, I’ve walked through some Nor Easters, and those definitely, definitely sucked – however, there was a wind storm here a few weeks ago where I legitimately thought I could have glided if I jumped in the air. It was picking outdoor furniture up and moving it – for real, and I don’t mean plastic lawn chairs, I mean furniture. We couldn’t open our windows or balcony door – as in, we physically couldn’t open them due to the wind pressure. It was bonkers. Yet the planes still came into the domestic airport. Sure they were (literally) landing sideways, but one thing I’ve noticed about the Icelandic and Greenlandic pilots that we get to watch at the airport is that they give no shits. This isn’t the international airport down in Keflavík (you don’t actually fly into Reykjavík from most places – we didn’t either). We live near the domestic airport, which is obviously domestic, but also handles a lot of Greenland flights.
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Those arctic pilots don’t care. “Oh lookee there 500mph winds, nuclear fallout, a Russian invasion, Y3K, herpes, and a vortex to hell – no worries we’ll just land upside down, sideways, while simultaneously on fire and frozen.”
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One night it was bad, yet here comes the ole’ 1947 prop plane from Greenland, just flying in there sideways like a boss because peeps gotta have their noms. I like watching them. Heck, I think if the one of the volcanoes erupt again these guys will just fly into it, because that’s a shortcut to Australia.
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But alas, not all of us were born with the stock of arctic pilots. So instead we hide inside with our tasty coffee.
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Yes it should come as no surprise that SB and I purchased a French Press within the first 10 hours of being in Iceland. 🙂
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We’ve also found a brand of oat milk from Sweden called Oatly which is super delicious with both hot and coldbrew coffee!
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In other food news, we’ve been eating a lot of lamb. Whereas chicken had traditionally been our staple, chicken is INSANELY expensive here (~$23 for a pack o’ tendies), it’s now become lamb and fish, because lamb is decently cheap and fish is well.. still expensive, but comparatively less so. We’ve also been eating a lot of eggs, because eggs are cheap despite chicken flesh being expensive.
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In fact the expense of food has limited us quite a bit. For example, we no longer really go “out” on our Friday Date Nights. It can legitimately be $25 per person, with no drinks, to eat – and that’s just a hamburger place. If you add in beers, then god have mercy on your soul. Really you should plan to spend $30-40 per person at your average place. For instance SB and I went out once, got 2 beers and an appetizer and it was like $36 during Happy Hour. Yeap.
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So, in order to make up for our inability to go “out” we now go to the store and get something special for dinner. This something is normally boxed pizza, because it’s cheap and decently good. We’ve, of course, also continued our tradition of getting a Friday night treat as well! The treat is much more variable, though one thing we’ve found that is super yummy are these mini-cinnamon rolls.
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There is also a local chocolate company with the awesome name of Omnom Chocolate Factory that we’ve had a few times, but like most things their candy is really pricey. We actually want to go do the factory tour, but even that is really expensive.
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Still, we don’t let finances stop us from exploring culinary stuff entirely, and besides we’ve found a few cheap things to try out. A good example is lakkrís (licorice). Icelanders seem to love their lakkrís, it exists as everything – to the point that even lakkrís ice-cream seems normal. However, there is one thing you have to be careful about with their lakkrís. Some of it contains ammonium chloride (sound familiar?) – for realsies. For example, take Opal – a super popular traditional Icelandic lakkrís.
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If you get the red box, you can prepare yourself for lakkrís pellets that taste like cough drops. Not too bad, but nothing you’d be clamoring to consume either. HOWEVER, should you get the green box…
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…well then, let’s just say that some stones are best left unturned.
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The good news is that some of the lakkrís is absolutely delicious.
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That package is quite good. I mean, it’s licorice (read: not Twizzlers or Red Vines) so if you don’t like licorice-licorice you won’t like it, but I happen to be a fan of licorice (just not, you know, licorice laced with Borax).
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Of course if licorice isn’t your thing, they also have lots of non-lakkrís candies, as shown by Pigsten.
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And, if I’m going to mention food and candy, then I have to mention beer.
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If there is one thing I have to say about beer in Iceland it’s this: prepare thyself for poverty. Alcohol in general is more expensive here than anyplace else I’ve ever been (with the exception of Kaktovik). If you are eating out (and not in a happy hour), don’t be surprised if you pay $14 for a beer, and if you want to head to the store for a six-pack, prepare to spend about $25 for the six-pack, and that’s just for normal beer, not the fancy stuff.
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Which brings me to my next point, the state regulates the sale of booze, so you have to go to state-owned liquor stores to buy real alcohol. These stores are called Vínbúðin, and there are about 48 of them in the entire country. Outside of those stores, you’ll be forced to go out (and pay $14 for a beer) or go to the store and buy “near-beer.” Near beers are those.. uh.. near beers, which range from 0.0% to around 2.5% ABV. These “beers” also range in quality from “I’d rather be in a gulag” to “Pretty decent.” One of them holds the title of being the worst beer I’ve ever had in my life, but I’ll talk about that in another post.
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Point being, a lot of what I get is these “near-beers,” and that’s for two reasons. First, price. You can get a big can of near-beer for as low as 99 cents. Second, availability. I can walk 2 minutes and get a near-beer. Getting to the closest Vínbúðin requires significantly more effort. Plus they randomly drive their cars on the sidewalks here while parking (no really). That said, a Taco cannot survive on near-beer alone, so occasional trips to Vínbúðin are a must.
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They have a pretty good stock of local, European, and Murkan’ beers at the locations we’ve been too. Of course they are expensive, but beer is life. As far as quality goes, Icelandic beers have been good. Anymore I don’t think any one country has beer on lock-down. I think it’s more brewer-to-brewer since the micro-boom. I’ve had a couple that were really good, and then I’ve had some that were meh. Just like any other place. The moral of the story is that there is plenty of good beer here, I just can’t afford most of it. 🙂
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But for those I do purchase, I even have a special little shelf – that’s how important they are to me.
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In reality I have to keep them in there because our refrigerator is the size of a shoebox. But hey, that doesn’t stop us from telling stories on it with magnets!
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Indeed, our apartment has a lot of quirks. From the Scandinavian-style shower that really isn’t a shower in the traditional sense, to the cabinets designed for giants, to water pressure that will rip your skin off, to the tiny little sink that gives you a bath (NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO) due to said water pressure. Yes, when coupled with the fact that we pulled most of our furniture out of the basement or trash area, it’s been an interesting time.
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I think the most interesting thing has been our bed. That’s a story that deserves to be told.
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Before we arrived we had decided that for both practical and cost-related reasons that we were going to forgo a bonafide bed and that we were going to try to get futon/pad/thing instead. This ended up being more difficult than we anticipated, because there are certain things that Iceland just doesn’t have (like folders, I’m legitimately serious, they don’t have normal folders here). It also got expensive, really quick, and after a bunch of frustration and two trips to IKEA we managed to cabbage together a bed unlike any bed I’ve ever had before.
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Yes, you are seeing that correctly.
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Our bed is a cheap futon pad, which has literally been cut into two pieces with scissors. Then, we mashed a bunch of plastic into wads and shoved that between the pads. Then we stuck a mattress pad on top of that, and then put a sheet on that and called it a bed. Yep. We also have one single comforter-type thing, no sheets. It’s most definitely janky, but it works.
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You may be wondering why the plastic? Well, that’s because the mattress pad alone wasn’t enough padding, and then the futon pad wasn’t big enough, so the mattress pad hung way over the edges. So you’d roll off the bed. So in order to fix that we could either spend $100 more for another pad, or get creative. I might be going for a post-doc, but a completely helpless academic I am not. I took some plastic out of the trash, rolled and taped dat’ shit up, and boom, bedtime. It’s been working for 3 months now, don’t hate.
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Now, the bed itself is decently comfy (one must have realistic expectations when sleeping on plastic and destroyed furniture). However, the sleep I get here is consistently the worst of any apartment SB and I have ever had. This is due to a couple of things. First, we have no fan. I’ve been sleeping with a fan for about 12 years now. A standard box-fan will run you $75+ dollars here (and you have to find it in the first place, fans aren’t really growing on trees in feckin’ Iceland). SB does have a rain app on her phone that helps some, but it’s not the same.
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The second reason, and the WAY more enraging one, is that we are surrounded by undergrads (in fact there is a party going on while I write this). Honestly I don’t feel like I need give any further explanation. To make matters worse, Iceland follows the Europe drinking culture of “Drink at home until 11:30pm then go out.” That sounds good on its surface, right? You’d think that it meant that the loud parties stopped around that time. The truth is not really. Generally at least one group will “stay in” which is all it takes for things to stay loud. Then, around 3am – 4am (or later) you get everyone rolling back in and seemingly playing an entire f*cking game of soccer in their apartment while wearing plate-mail armor and hitting the walls with sledgehammers. It’s insane. Like I explained, this building is basically solid concrete and steel. I can jump up and down on the floor and barely make any noise – yet these people scream and bang so loudly that it sounds like they are in your apartment at 4 o’clock in the morning – and this just isn’t on party days, this EVERY DAMN DAY. In fact, sometimes they are so loud you can hear them over SB’s phone rain AND the ear plugs you are wearing. Yes, I have to wear earplugs to sleep – almost every damn night. It appears to be giving me a nearly constant ear ache in my right ear too. It is TOTALLY AWESOME.
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To be fair to the building as a whole (but not really, they’re all loud), it seems like we got totally screwed with the luck of the draw. Of our entire building, the two loudest apartments are on each side of us – and that’s not just because we’re between them. You can literally walk to the other side of the building and it’s still those two apartments you hear. Then I’m convinced the people above us set off TNT charges randomly at 2am, that or ICBMs are randomly hitting the roof of the building. I have no idea what the flying f*ck they are doing, but they’ve legitimately got to have a bulldozer up there or something.
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But hey, at least the people below us don’t make much noise [Edit: nope, the day I posted this they apparently decided to open a blasting zone in their apartment at 2am – this is why I can’t say nice things on my blog]. But hey T-Rex that lives in their window also turned out to be a light!
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So yeah. Knowing what I know now I can safely say I’d never, ever have chosen these apartments if I’d not been a moron and realized that they would include undergrads. Harvard quarantined the undergrads into their own little hives of misery, Háskóli Íslands does not.
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But I suppose that’s as good as spot as any to shift the discussion to school itself, you know, the whole “fake” reason we came here in the first place. I say fake because SB and I were pretty transparent that moving here had little to do with school, that was more of a residence permit checkbox than anything else. Yet, despite it’s secondary status, it is the thing that eats up most of our existence. So what’s that bit of our life like? Well, I can’t speak for SB, but I can share some of my experiences in my post-doc program.
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First, a little about the school itself.
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Yes, I’m reusing this photo.
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We go to Háskóli Íslands (The University of Iceland).
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Háskóli Íslands is the largest (and objectively best, because I go there) of the seven schools in Iceland. To best honest I didn’t even realize there were seven, I only ever really hear about four: Háskóli Íslands, Háskólinn á Akureyri, Háskólinn á Bifröst, and Háskólinn í Reykjavík (which is Háskóli Íslands’ rival). Háskóli Íslands (henceforth HI) has something like 13,200 students. It’s by far the largest university in Iceland, but still fairly small by Murkan’ standards where schools like Ohio State have 743,000 students.
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At HI, I unsurprisingly attend the law school, which is technically called the “Faculty of Law” and is located with the “School of Social Sciences.” I have no idea how big the law school itself is, but it’s not big.
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I take a mix of classes (all law), and I’ve noticed a few interesting things. First, grading is on a 0 – 10 scale and they use the European Credit System (ECTS). I don’t understand it. You take like 1 zillion credits, and 1 credit hour doesn’t seem to actually equal 1 hour. For example I have a class that is, by itself, 10 credits – yet I don’t spend no freaking 10 hours a week in that class (not that I’d show up if I was supposed to anyways). Second, written law exams are not as common – they are instead oral and much shorter. Third, despite the lack of written exams, papers are way more popular. Fourth, cold-calling barely exists at all – and if you cold-call an Icelander or one of the European students they seem to die inside. The one exception to this is that I have one professor who does cold call, and perhaps unsurprisingly, he is an HLS graduate (we are cockroaches, I tell you – though it is kinda fun to watch people who’ve never experienced a cold call before fall like dominoes). Fifth, people are way more passive compared to what I am used to. Whereas a simple question could generate deathly blood-feuds at HLS, here it’s more like “Oh you think we should eat babies? Ok.” –> goes back to browsing Facebook. Sixth, hand-raising isn’t a thing. It’s just who can shout the loudest. Seventh – having a better grasp of English than your professors pays HUGE dividends when it comes time to communicate. Sure they can speak 27 languages whereas I speak one, but oh yeah I speak that one better. AMERICA FERK’ YEAR’.
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Blow it out your ass and send them to the God they wish they knew.
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So far things are going well academically. I’ve gotten “First Class” grades in the two classes I’ve got grades for so far (the schedule is weird, I have two classes which are already done) – though to be honest I’m not entirely sure what that translates to, other than that First is better than Second. I’ll probably discuss school more in the future once I’ve finished up the first semester and know more about my timeline. Overall it’s a bit of a mixed bag, it’s not what I thought it would be, with more of a lean towards the negative than the positive, but it’s not bad by any means. I think I’ll be more engaged once I can start focusing on my own research, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later. I mean, doing my own research is the main reason I did this program in the first place. Sitting in a class with people who don’t even have a Masters yet (FILTHY FECKIN’ PLEBS) is not.
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If it wasn’t obvious from my rant about living with undergrads, we live near the school. In truth our commute is pretty freaking awesome. I can be in class in 6 minutes. It’s amazing. Our neighborhood is Vesturbær which is kind of divided by Route 49 (Nesbraut – which at 4 lanes is the largest in the entire country). One one side is HI, construction, houses, 1 tiny overpriced store, and the airport. On the other is all sorts of cool stuff. I’ll let you guess which side we live on. Fortunately it’s pretty easy to cross over to cool-side land.
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It’s a pretty neighborhood when the weather is right.
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Plus, like I’ve mentioned before, Tjörnin is right in the middl(ish) of it.
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And with Tjörnin comes duckies, geese, swans, and 9 octrillion seagulls (who are assholes, but still friends).
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It’s a very pretty place, and while our walk-commute to the store is fairly long (especially on the way back with all the groceries), it’s nice that part of the walk takes us through such a pretty area.
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But mostly I just like all the duckies. 🙂
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This area (a bit further from us) also has stuff like the Icelandic parliament, Alþingi – I discussed that part of town a bit more here.
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So that’s kind of a general overview of where we live – in a noisy undergrad-dominated complex, near a construction site, an airport, the university, and across the country’s largest highway from some duckies. I don’t make it sound too great, but really it’s not that bad, we both know I like to whine. Most of the stuff doesn’t bother me, it’s really just undergrads – who, for reference, I still hated while I was one.
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In general, life here is just that, life. SB and I do most of the same things as before, some less-so due to cost, but our general schedule is the same. It’s cold, rainy, and windy – but we do get rainbows! Some stuff is impossible to find (ibuprofen, for example) but there are new things to find, which keeps things exciting – especially when you can’t even read the box. 🙂
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But then there are other things that you wouldn’t expect to find, but do – like pumpkins!
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Yes, despite not traditionally celebrating Halloween, the holiday has started to creep into Icelandic culture (as it should, Halloween = best holiday). We might have ended up getting a pumpkin, but that’s a story for next time. 😉
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All in all, this time in the “Land of Fire and Ice” is definitely a crazy adventure we’ve set out on, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. Right now both SB and I are in agreement that the encroaching darkness is the most difficult part about it. We’ve stocked up on Omega 3 + Vitamin D supplements, but at a certain point oppressive blackness is just flat-out depressing (side note: Icelanders consume more antidepressants per capita than any other  country in the world). So if you were wondering why I started this post off with that relatively “dark” quote from the Lord of the Rings, it’s because 1) Quoting Tolkien is always relevant (fight me), and 2) the continuous darkness has been the biggest challenge we’ve faced on this adventure so far – but we won’t give up!
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I am many things, and stubborn as holy living shit is one of them. 🙂
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So that’s about that. I rambled a lot, and this post sort of covers a bit of the more mundane and random info I’ve thought about while writing other posts. It also does a good job of setting the current scene, which is full of looming deadlines, fading sunlight, and declining temperatures. Oh yes, winter is coming – we only need to look to the horizon.
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Actually it ended up showing right after I wrote this, but hey, I have a 180 degree view of mountains. So at least I can take in a pristine view while I eat laundry detergent candies, rotten fish, drink my $75 beer, and slowly go insane from endless darkness!
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ICELAND FERK’ YEAR’ – HEALTHCARE FOR ALL, CHECKMATE AMERIFATS
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But really, it’s not too shabby here. Life’s too short to be afraid of the dark.
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Until next time,
-Taco
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[Author’s Note: The formatting got super screwed up on this post for some reason. Because I’m at my wit’s end with such blogging issues, I used a very “lazy” way of fixing it. So if you are observant and tend to read between the lines, know that it’s not you, it’s me. 🙂 ]

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