I will probably update it infrequently, so I will send an email when new material has been posted. There is no need to check the page if you haven’t received an email notifying you of an update.
We have been in
We live in a town—Holar—of about 200 people. It is the oldest bishopric in
*You can click on pictures to expand them*
We live in the
I’ll give you the boring work/school stuff really quickly. I, unfortunately, missed the field season for this year, so all of my work right now consists of lab and office work. I am writing my research proposal right now, so life isn’t too exciting. In a month or so, I will be going to
My two advisers:
I am standing between the two springs shown in this picture. Even though they are right next to each other, they are about 20 degrees (centigrade) different in temperature:
Yep, this is where I work:
Cat just got a job working in the lab here, so she will be processing samples for the next few months. The job is basically just to get her immigration status up to code, and then she can look around for other positions. It seems that there are more opportunities here than we originally thought, but it is too hard to find out about them from the
Our apartment is pretty neat. We don't have a hot water heater because all of our hot water comes from a nearby hot spring. It's nice because you can never run out of hot water. Unfortunately, it does have a bit of a sulfur smell to it. It only takes about a week to get used to the smell. The cold water is clean, odor free, and delicious.
Our place has radiators that heat it. The radiators are controlled by a knob, which is actually just a faucet. Water from the hot spring is circulated through the radiator, and it heats our place (which means that we have no utility bill).
Since we don’t have money or a car, we mostly keep ourselves entertained by hiking around the Holar trails. There is one to a river in the neighboring valley:
It's hard to go hiking without seeing some sheep:
*I know what you're thinking, and no, I haven't.*
Another trail goes up the mountain behind our apartment to an area called Gvendarskal. We have been up there a few times now. This is what it looks like up on Gvendarskal:
We have gone to a local "hot pot" a couple of times. This is just an area with thermal springs. It's pretty nice because it is right by the ocean. Since it is naturally heated and not chemically-treated, there are algae growing on the rocks, so it takes a little getting used to.
Me at the hot pot:
My lab-mate Mark (New Zealand):
My lab-mate Soizic (France) and me:
Cat and a bunch of Swedish girls who just showed up:
This really put a damper on things. One minute you're having a nice day at the hot pot and enjoying the scenery. The next minute, five Swedish girls show up and strip down to bikinis. It was awful.
Our first real cultural experience came a month ago when we went to the horse roundup. The roundup took place about 5 minutes (driving) from our place. Many of the local farmers’ horses have lived up in the mountains for about four months prior to the roundup. On the Saturday of the roundup all of the horses (about 3500) are driven out of the mountain and brought down to a large paddock:
There is a large corral with a central arena where they let in about 80 horses at a time. Once the group of 80 horses has been sorted, they let in another group.
Empty arena:
Arena with horses:
Each farm that is there has its own corral off of the main arena with a door that separates the two. When a farmer sees his/her horses, he/she goes into the arena and tries to drive the horses to the corral.
Empty corral:
The farmers on the far side of the arena have three horses corralled, but only two of them are theirs. They maneuver to release the one that isn’t theirs while keeping the two that are:
Sometimes a horse gets into the wrong corral, so the farmers have to get it out while not letting any of their horses escape:
We were able to get these pictures and videos because we knew someone who knew someone who knew the farmer. It doesn’t take much more than that to be granted access. The only way to get kicked out of the corral is if you try to help. Lots of times people want to help, but they don’t understand how the process works, so they end up getting in the way or doing something wrong. It is pretty neat to get a chance to get up close and personal with the horses. Sometimes they even try to eat you:
You may be wondering how people get the courage to jump into the arena with 80 confused horses running full speed. That can be explained with one simple picture:
After a farm has gotten all of its horses, there is usually some sort of celebration:
After the roundup gets over in the afternoon, everyone drinks all day before the big dance/party. The party was in Saudarkrokur, so we took a bus from Holar to the party. The bus didn't leave for Saudarkrokur until 11:00 pm, and it didn't head back to Holar until about 5:30 am. Fortunately, we didn't start partying at 10:00 am like most of the Icelanders. Unfortunately, they were still able to outparty us.
The horse roundup was, by far, the most interesting cultural experience so far. The hakarl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakarl) may have been a close second.
The weather was pretty cold and rainy for the first five weeks. Having lived my entire life up until now in the
It has been snowing a lot for the past couple weeks. This is what it looks like from my balcony now (not quite the same angle as above, but you probably get the idea):
I have seen several sea birds and one raptor. I have seen one seal, but they won't be out in great numbers for a month or two. I have not seen any whales yet, but supposedly it's pretty common to see whales. I have yet to see a puffin, but they should be around soon too. I don't expect to see an arctic fox, but I haven't abandoned hope yet. I have eaten a few fish (some cooked, some dried, some rotten) and some horse. Horse is a lot better than you would expect, so you don't have to be quite as hungry as the old adage would have you believe.
I have chosen not to address the economic crisis (Iceland's nor the United States') at this time.
Thanks for reading this, and I will let you know when I have an update available,
--Dan (The Hairy American)
