Things I noticed or liked about Iceland:

There are automatic doors everywhere! They look more like giant windows than doors, and aren't painfully obvious that they're automatic like ours are in the US. You also have to stand closer to them for them to open than ours.

The cashiers usually only said a few things. "Good day", the cost of whatever you were buying, and "Thanks". If I bought soda in a glass bottle, they asked me if I wanted it opened. If I bought postcards they asked me if I wanted stamps. It was nice, because in the US the cashiers will ask you how you are, if you found everything alright, and all sorts of random questions.

You bagged your own groceries, instead of the cashier doing it for you.

I didn't notice a single person, even wandering around the mall, that had heavy perfume. Stores didn't have heavy perfume (except once, I think) either. I didn't notice music playing in the stores, but it's possible I just forgot about it. All the packaging was a lot simpler and it was really easy to tell what you were buying, usually, even if you couldn't read the language.

The commercials on television were shorter than ours in the US, and the overall commercial breaks were fewer and shorter too. The commercials themselves were more to the point.

Sometimes there were stores that just had blank shopping bags, instead of having a brand name on them.

The tourists from the US were some of the most annoying ones. A few of them didn't know anything about Iceland, and one couple took a long time chatting with a waitress and asking her all sorts of questions, and once some took pictures of some waitresses at the café during a super busy time, things like that. Americans went everywhere without knowing how to pronounce any Icelandic at all, so if Icelanders didn't know English then they would have been completely helpless. The tourists from the other Nordic countries were generally better, in my opinion.

The food seemed healthier, even the pizza from a pizza delivery place, and french fries, and hamburgers. Some things had different flavours or were called different names - "paprika" was a common flavour for chips, and while it tasted similar to some flavour I've had before, I don't eat chips often at all so I have no idea what it was like. Upon researching it, it seems we don't sell paprika flavoured chips here.

The ice cream tasted a lot better than what we have in the US. Hot dog meat was also better than ours, and the hot dogs were a little thinner and longer than what we get. You could actually tell that it was meat instead of whatever our hot dogs are made of.

I saw a package of ham slices that had designs on the back of them. They also sold things like sheep's head, blood and liver sausage, et cetera in the regular grocery store. They had a lot of licorice or licorice-flavoured things.

If you want to buy clothes or books, going to the flea market on weekends or something like the Red Cross second-hand store is a far better way to do it.

One sign said "Take away" instead of "To go" or "Take out" when talking about drinks.

They seem to eat lamb meat as much as a lot of people eat beef in the US.

There were a lot of those things where you take a number and then the employees call out the number when it's your turn. I saw them in the bank, in the post office I believe, in a phone store I think, at a bakery...

Having coins the rough equivalent of a dollar, instead of having bills that much, was really handy. I wish we used dollar coins more in the US.

The bottoms of door frames were higher than what I'm used to, so for the first week or so I was constantly tripping over them whenever I walked in or out of a door.

All the restaurants had menus outside their door, so you could see the meals and prices before you went inside.

Even if you were standing right next to the street, it didn't smell like tons of exhaust. People didn't yell things from cars at people walking on the street. There was almost no trash laying on the ground or sides of the roads compared to here. Stores closed earlier than here in general.

On Sunday we went back to the flea market, this time with Aino and Kristín. The day was basically spent buying souvenirs for people. I bought a map for my dad, some flags for people, children's books for myself for practicing Icelandic, some traditional candy for friends, and things like that. There was a booth with some really old postcards, and Aino bought some of those.

We hung out with Kristín for most of the day because she has a full-time job, and I wouldn't get to see her on Monday before I left for the airport. We went to the mall and got ice cream, and wandered into some gift shops. I forgot if I mentioned this before, but they have something where if you want, you can get your soft-serve dipped in a second flavour of something. I got strawberry ice cream dipped in licorice flavour one time, and Aino got strawberry dipped in chocolate if I remember correctly.



Kristín in a gift store, holding a plastic axe. I was actually trying to get a picture of the cat by the cash register. She was telling me how people who don't speak Icelandic can still get jobs at places. She said that people will call their friends and either have them walk them through the job application, or fill out the application for them in Icelandic. She said there are some people like that at her job, that learned Icelandic through working, so they know numbers and basic phrases and things like that.



Some graffiti in one part of the town. There were a lot of murals and things like this in various places, I think some of them were actually commissioned by businesses and things but I'm not completely sure.





This was a giant, automatic revolving door at the mall. It has the hours that the mall is open written on it.

On Monday we walked to the post office in the morning so I could mail my postcards and so Snorri could pick up a package. Instead of having self-adhesive stamps, you have to press the stamps into something that looks like a sponge or an ink pad to get them sticky, and then you put them on whatever you're mailing.

We went to the bank too, and both Aino and I exchanged money. I had to pay Snorri back for the day before when I bought all those souvenirs, because I had run out of money and the banks were closed. We also went to a bakery, and I tried something that was basically chocolate Rice Krispies in a muffin cup.

We went to the airport, and Aino and Snorri waited with me while I checked my baggage and filled out the customs slip they gave me. Because I was going to the US, I had to tell them the value of the things I was bringing back from Iceland, and what kinds of things they were. Eventually I had to leave, so after going through security I went to the Duty-Free shops. I bought a lot of salmiak licorice, and another children's book in Icelandic.



On the way to the airport. The striped building is an aluminum factory, and it's pretty famous. It's even been on t-shirts.



This was my boarding pass for the airplane this time. Last time it was glaciers, so it makes me wonder how many times they change the image on the tickets.



This was, obviously, in front of the duty-free in the airport in Iceland.

On the plane, to my left was a Dane who was visiting her brother in Seattle, and to my right was a man I suspected was Norwegian. The Dane made some jokes about how Iceland doesn't have any trees, and asked me if I had tried dried fish.

I got home just fine.

Snorri, Roxy, and I went to some yarn stores and bought yarn for my grandma, so she can knit some scarves. A bundle of yarn was a smaller size than they sell in the US, but I bought double the amount and it still cost about the same amount as buying some in the US. It was traditional Icelandic yarn, like used in my sweater, and I bought traditional colours.

We watched three movies at the film festival, and then another movie at home. I watched "Parque Vía" first, which had a small twist at the end but overall wasn't very impressive. It was alright, but would have been a lot better if it wasn't so drawn-out. Snorri thinks it would make a better book than movie.







These were near the building where some of the movies were being showed.

After that we watched "The Girl", which I thought was a very sad movie, but Snorri didn't agree with me.

The third movie from the film festival was "Three Wise Men", which had a few things I liked in it. Overall it was a sad movie too, but I didn't think it was as sad as the previous movie. At home, we watched "Kairo", a Japanese movie, and I liked that one a lot. It was one of those movies where you could see it as a statement about society and emotions and such, and it would give everything a double meaning.

I watched some other movies at the festival too, but the links aren't working for some of them. One that I did like a lot was "North", which had some fun jokes and ended in the perfect spot.

In the last few days of my stay, Snorri's girlfriend Aino came over. I'm friends with her too, so we had a good time. We went to see the Golden Circle, which is a series of tourist spots that are relatively close together, and it's common to see all of them at once.







Some of the view on the way, during the trip.



Snorri and Aino looking at a map. We got lost at one point.





A sign on the side of the road.









We went to this waterfall. Going back and forth, I accidentally slipped and fell into a shallow area of water. I didn't hurt myself, but my shoes and one of my coat sleeves got muddy.



There were a lot of paths around that you couldn't actually walk on, probably to save the vegetation. Aino's Finnish, so of course she had to step just barely over the line.



A path next to an area they used to drown people in. There was a plaque talking about how they used to kill them by drowning.



This was a small cave. Snorri said it wasn't very deep.



We went to the place where the famous Geysir is. That geyser is where we got the name "geyser" in English. Geysir doesn't go off any more, but there was a smaller one that still does.



At some point we also went to a giant waterfall. There were a lot of tourists around all of these places, so it was hard to find a time where I could take pictures without anyone else in them.

Yesterday we went to the mall and looked at children's books in Icelandic for me. Snorri translated some of them and told me which ones he read as a child, et cetera, but they were expensive so we decided we're going to go to the flea market over the weekend and look for books there.

We went to Café Paris and chatted with one of Snorri's friends, and the two of them were drawing. After we had been there a while a Swedish man (who looked kind of like Santa) came up to us and asked us where we were from and if we were artists. He had some trouble understanding us. He left our table and then doubled back, saying that he was an artist too, and showed us a carving that he had done. He was wearing it around his neck.

Today we went to the University and asked them what I would have to do, as a foreign student, to get into the school. They gave me a couple pamphlets and I was going to look through them, but Snorri's friend (who takes classes at the University and who was showing us around) accidentally took them with her. From what I remember from Snorri talking to the people at the school, I'll need to send them my transcripts and they'll evaluate whether or not I can get in. His mom had told me earlier that you just needed to pay a small kind of application fee or something like that, as far as she knew.

We went to a museum on campus and it talked about the history of churches in Iceland, old clothing and writing, old work tools and fashion accessories, et cetera. There were things even up until ten and twenty years ago. They had a photography exhibit, and an old rotating baggage-claim conveyor belt that had items from about 1910 to the 1990's. One of the things they had was old-style clothing that you could try on. It was either all or mostly women's clothing, but there was a men's hat.

There is an old-style map that I've been seeing around, on postcards and in gift shops. It's the one that looks like this:



There was a bigger version of that, and lighter coloured so it was easier to read, on the wall in one area of the museum. They had glued thumb tacks to some parts and you could pull them out like puzzle pieces and see facts about Iceland or some of the things in the museum.

There was a group of tourists who had a tour guide show them around the museum, but we didn't do that. Overhearing the guide, it didn't seem like it was even worth it to get a tour because you could learn everything they talked about by just reading all the things in the exhibits.

I didn't bring my camera with me into the museum, and I didn't take any pictures of the University either, so I can't show you those. We were mostly shown the parts of the University that had to do with science, like biology and chemistry and such, because those are the kinds of classes Snorri's friend takes. In one group of buildings they built walkways connecting them, so you can travel from one building to another and never have to walk out in the rain.

The other day we hung out with Kristín and some of her friends again, and wandered around town. We ate at "American Style", a restaurant that mostly seems to serve hamburgers and sandwiches. As for being American style, it was alright except for two things. There was a "Healthy Style" something-or-other being advertised, and the back of the booths, where you sit down at, were really short compared to what I'm used to.



Here you can see the back of everyone's heads.



Later Snorri and I went to The Pearl, a museum. You can go to the top and walk around, but the weather was rainy and super windy. There were some statues of jazz players I think it was, outside the entrance.



It has a fake geyser outside. It went off about every five minutes.



Inside, we paid 1000kr (about 8 USD) or so, and got a little mp3 player and headphones. Snorri had Icelandic and I had English, and it was an audio tour through a museum exhibit about vikings and old Iceland. It basically talked about famous people and events.



You can check the photobucket account for a lot more pictures.



At some point we went to the grocery store, and they were having "American Days". As far as I know, they also have Danish days and... some other kind of days, but I think this picture sums it up nicely. They sold a lot of American products and had more America-related decorations than stores in America have.

On Friday we left to go camping for the weekend. Snorri's family rented a cabin about four hours away from their house. Along the way we stopped at a convenience store and I tried a sandwich made of chicken and eggs.





This is part of a bridge that used to be in the area. There was a huge flood from the nearby glacier and the bridge was destroyed. They lifted this out of the mess and put it here just as they found it.

The cabin was really nice. It had a porch, three bedrooms (one with bunk beds for Snorri and I), a bathroom, a television, dishes, a tea kettle, playing cards, a bookshelf with books in it... all sorts of things. On the wall by the bunk beds were small shelves that you could put glasses or a plate on, so I could reach over on the top bunk and put my glasses there, and then Snorri could put something on the same kind of table at his own level on the bottom bunk. The yard around the cabin had a sandbox, swings, and some play toys for children. There were other cabins in the area, and a lake.

There was a "village" within walking distance, at one point Snorri and I walked down to the convenience store and bought a couple things, so it wasn't too far away. We didn't do anything else in the village.



Höfn was featured in a Japanese television show, because at one point it was where the only Japanese person in Iceland lived, or something like that. Someone had been telling me that I should go there and find her and take a picture as proof, but we didn't go to that town.



"A visit to Iceland, a travel log from 1834". There are drawings in the book, and you can see differences in how Iceland was then compared to now. There's an English version too. This was found on the bookshelf in the cabin, and since we didn't take any books home with us, Snorri went to the library later and checked it out. They had the English version too but for some reason you weren't allowed to check it out and take it outside the library.



We went out to see the glacier. It was warmer than in the capital, even though we were right next to a lot of ice and water. It used to be that you could walk up the glacier from where we were, but by now a lot of it had melted so part of it was blocked off by water.



This is the path towards the glacier.







This is the glacier.

There was a building that was part gift shop and part museum. A movie was playing about the glacier, I assume, and there were equiptment from a British climbing team that had been found a bit over fifty years after the team had died on the glacier. There were pictures and explanations about different kinds of things.



These are the same kind of sweaters I bought at the flea market for 9500kr (about 76 USD). From what you could buy at the gift shop, the cheapest sweater in my size was either 12000kr($97) or 12500kr($101), I forget which. They went up to/past 20000kr ($160).



We went to this area, which is basically a bunch of ice floating in the water. A tourist guide said that two James Bond movies have been partially filmed there. There were some tourists going in a boat around the water, they all wore orange lifejackets. One employee would go ahead on the planned path to make sure there were no problems, then come back, and then the actual boat with the tourists would go. The boat was on wheels and so it simply drove into and out of the water, and parked in the parking lot a ways away. The tourists didn't even have to walk anywhere!







We went to the beach!



The sand is black because of volcanic activity. On the ride back home I noticed that from the car, if I saw water with the black sand, the water would look grey a lot of the time.



This is from the ride back home.



We stopped on the way back home and walked behind this waterfall. We changed into rain boots (except Snorri, who didn't have any) and walked up a sort of half stone, half mud path. The path directly behind the waterfall was mud. Then the path on the left side was mostly rocks, until a certain point where it turned into wooden steps, and then there was a wooden bridge.

Starting now, I'll upload all the videos I take to a YouTube account. Right now it just has the videos from the zoo today, and that's it.

Today we went to the zoo! Everything was in Icelandic so I couldn't read any of the signs, and it was for little kids. All the animals are Icelandic, so there's no zebras or anything, just horses and sheep, et cetera. Most of the people there were speaking Icelandic but we did hear a bit of English.



This sign is basically telling you to walk on the paths instead of the grass because the grass is for the animals.





Notice the little houses!



This is a reindeer. I tried to get a good picture, but there were wasps and the reindeer kept randomly moving from inside to outside of the room.



Snorri and I had been petting this cat, and then a girl saw us and started petting it too. Then it turned into a chase where a bunch of kids followed the cat around. Eventually the cat went into the seal tank and stayed out of reach there.



No, I didn't try this. Most of the people in the zoo were families with small children, but there was one adult couple who were tourists, which we saw in the sort of activity section where this bubble thing was. There was a toy where you scream into it and it gauges how loud you are, those tourists had fun with that. There was an optical illusion toy where if you looked at a die inside a glass dome thing from the side, it looked like the die was on top of the dome. There were some puzzles and things too, and fun-house mirrors. The rides in the zoo were all closed, and the hot dog stand was closed - in the winter the zoo closes at five and we were there at around four-thirty. Snorri told me about how the zoo was when he was a kid compared to how it was now.











There was a viking ship! There was a hole in one of the planks, but otherwise it was alright.



Another viking ship... This one was less awesome.



Snorri says that people used to use these to wash their laundry in because the hot water from underground could be found there. This one was all rusty and another one, in a lot better condition, had trash all inside of it. The zoo overall needed to be cleaned - Snorri was complaining that the last time he came here it was a lot nicer.

After the zoo we stopped by a gift shop to look for gifts. I had been looking for a big, old-style map or something like that.



This is the closest we've found so far.









These things are like a hybrid of cheese slicers and spatulas. They can slice cucumbers and things too. They cut a smaller slice than the kind I'm used to, and they're a bit easier to use. They're handy! But Snorri says they're just the way cheese graters are shaped here, and not that they're spatulas...

Later we went to the movie theatre to watch Reykjavík Whale Watching Massacre. It's Iceland's first thriller movie. Most of it was in English because it centred around a group of tourists, but some of it is in Icelandic. Snorri translated the Icelandic for me as we watched it. The movie is great, it's like a parody of thriller movies.

The theatre itself was only mildly different from the ones I've been to. You buy your tickets inside instead of outside in one of those booth things or outside with a machine. I couldn't see well because there was a huge crowd, but it seemed like you couldn't go into the theatre super early before the movie started playing. I didn't notice a whole lot other than it seemed like there was a lot of people there for ten at night on a weekday, they pretty much blocked my view because I'm so short. There was also an intermission in the movie!