Ég mun sakna íslands...

I´m going to miss Iceland. I leave in just over a week. Mig langar ekki að fara. I don´t want to go. I´m going through the same rush of emotions as I experienced last year during my final week in Iceland. When I returned home last summer I said I left half of my heart in Iceland and that I would need to come back and get it this summer. But I think I´m going to leave half of it here again... maybe I´ll just have to keep coming back to get it.

Don´t worry mama, I´m still excited to see you and dad and all my other family and friends back home. But there´s something about this place. I think you have to experience it to understand it.

Anyway, I thought I´d share the poem I wrote last year about my trip. It seems fitting at this time. The poem is called ´Hun er sterk´or ´She is strong´. It was inspired by my cousin, Ragnhildur, who spoke mostly Icelandic with me. She is a huge part of why I can understand and speak Icelandic so well now. Everywhere we went, she would tell me about her world with amazing eagerness. It was beautiful. The title of this poem is taken from one of our exchanges, in which she was telling me about the lupin flowers in Iceland... Lupin is a feminine word in Icelandic, so when you are talking about ´it´, you actually refer to the flower as ´she´. I might also add that ´Nú, ég vissi það ekki´ means ´Really, I didn´t know that´ in Icelandic. It will make more sense if you just read the poem, I think =)

Hún er Sterk

'She is strong,' she said as we walked the path to her school.

Just a lupin, a flower, a burst of purple shooting from the ground.

'She grows everywhere, she only needs sand to survive.'

I stop. I ponder. I walk again.

'Hún er sterk. Hún er sterk.'

'She is strong. She is strong.'

Why does that phrase

feel like a familiar friend

coming back to say hello?

Because my journey through Iceland has been like that of the lupin.

Ascending.

Flourishing.

Wandering.

Thriving.

Strong.

'She is strong' like the breath that can say

'Nú, ég vissi það ekki' in just one inhalation.

This language is a love affair of foreign sounds

chiming in my ears like a mysterious song

played over and over again

until finally

understanding.

Ég skil það núna. I understand now.

I have learned. I am strong.

'She is strong' like the roots of my ancestry,

the ones that tie me to this country flowing with beauty

and endless mystical adventures.

I have planted new roots in this soil

and watched them grow into family that I will never forget.

Family that feels like... family.

Where I go to a gathering and everyone speaks Icelandic,

and I am not an outsider.

We are family. We are strong.

'She is strong' like the remnant stones of the homes of my ancestors.

Crumbled, but refusing to disappear.

Giving new life to the grass, the moss, and also, to me.

A new perspective on life.

A chance to not take for granted

all the beauty this world has to offer.

A realization I'm just one part of something bigger,

and it's okay to not know why.

Life is curious. Life is strong.

Iceland.

The landscape, the family,

the friends, the love.

A new place to call home

that already was.

Sæl go blessuð aftur! Hello again!

It’s 6am on a Monday morning. I have class in three hours. I should be – no – need to be sleeping. But once again, I’ve woken myself up reciting Icelandic grammar and various phrases I’ve learned in the past few weeks. My grammar sheets lie on the floor next to my bed because I know at some point I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and need something to do. I run through the numerous tables of declensions for nouns and matching adjectives. I think about conversations I had throughout the day and how I could have expressed myself better, how I could have corrected my grammar. I think about how to write an interesting blog post on the intricacies of the language of my ancestors. And I think about why I am embarking on this seemingly impossible endeavor of learning Icelandic.

In my heart, I know why I’m doing this. It’s difficult to express in words why I feel the need to know this language and connect to this one part of my cultural heritage. Unlike most of the people in this course, I’m not studying Icelandic because it will aid in my professional and academic interests (at least not for now – who knows, maybe I will teach here one day!). I’m not studying the medieval Icelandic sagas, texts, or religion. I’m not a language buff and by no means do I find grammar fascinating. In many aspects, I’m the odd one out in our group. I want to understand the spoken language and I want to speak. I don’t mind whether it’s grammatically incorrect – though speaking correctly would be an obvious perk. I want to learn Icelandic because my limited knowledge of it has connected me in so many ways to new family, new friends, and a new home.

But for right now, my focus is on the academic side – reading, writing, rules – and, of course, attempting to get a good grade in the course. I finally broke down and bought the $80 Icelandic-English dictionary (orðabók) that our teachers recommended us to buy. Through I cringed as I handed over my credit card, I’m quite happy about this purchase. It’s amazing what will stick with you when you turn the pages, scroll through the words, and pinpoint the translation. Using Google Translate would probably make reading our texts a much easier task, yet I would rather go the old school route. I doubt I would have remembered the word efri (upper; top – takk fyrir, orðabók) if I had just typed it into a search engine.

I'm also finding that I can pick out more words in conversations that are happening around me, as well as understand why the words decline as they do. For those unfamiliar with languages that use declensions, essentially words can change based on how you are talking about the subject. For example, and since I’m in Iceland, let’s talk mountains (fjöll). Or do you want to talk about just one mountain (fjall)? Or that specific one right there (fjallið)? Would you rather being climbing up the mountain (fjallið) or standing on the mountain (fjallinu)? Or do you just find it fun, in general, to stand on mountains (fjöllum)? Sometimes I will sit down and write pages of declensions as to not forget the many different categories nouns fall into. I won’t even attempt to explain adjective and name declensions. Sometimes my brain feels like it is going to explode at the end of the day. Sometimes I just can’t seem to turn it off. But for that, I am thankful. After this course, I will reconnect with my world of Icelandic friends and family – and my communication skills will only have changed for the better.

Noun declensions of various sorts

Adjective declensions that I told you I wasn't going to try to explain

I don’t know where my journey in learning Icelandic will take me next, but I’m certainly happy with where it has taken me so far. We’ll just have to see (við sjáum bara til). In the meantime, I can’t thank everyone enough for their support in getting me to this place in my life. Specifically, I’d like to thank mamma mín í Minneapolis, Sigga, even though she is now living in Colorado. Her love, brilliant teaching, and persistance in not letting me give up when I first started learning Icelandic is one of the main reasons I am here in Iceland today. Also, a huge takk fyrir must be given to the Icelandic Roots organization, headed by Sunna Pam Furstenau (http://www.icelandicroots.com). The scholarship I received made this trip financially possible for me, as most of my income is going towards graduate school tuition back home. I also need to thank the organization for connecting me with even more relatives in Iceland that I didn’t know I had until this June! Thank you to the Icelandic communities in Minnesota and beyond which show support and interest in my endeavor. Thank you to my amazing friends and family in North America for putting up with me always talking about Iceland and feigning interest in learning the Icelandic phrases I try to teach you all. Thank you to my wonderful friends and family in Iceland for your endless generosity, as well as your patience in understanding my Icelandic. And last, but certainly not least, thank you to my parents. Thank you for teaching me how to be a strong and independent person, thank you for teaching me the value of doing things you love, thank you for allowing me to makes mistakes, but teaching me the lesson behind each one, thank you for not holding me back from where I need to go, and thank you for your welcoming arms when I need to return. Most of all, just thank you for being my parents. I’ll stop now, mom, so you can go grab a kleenex and dry your eyes J I hope I have not missed anyone out there, but if I have (exploding brain!!), please know that I am truly grateful for your support. Thanks again and goodbye for now, þakka ykkur kærlega og bless á meðan.

And today was a day just like any other (joke)

Side note. This post was written awhile ago. You´ll see when I start talking about the 4th of July which was 6 days ago... Fyrirgefðu! (Sorry!) More updates from recent times to come!

 Seyðisfjörður, a small fjörd town in the East of Iceland

Today was awesome. And because of that, I need to write a small blog post.

Except, I need to begin with last night. 

Last night was a family potluck at Baddý and Gulli´s house in Seyðisfjörður. I think there were about 15 people there and although everyone was speaking Icelandic and I could hardly follow along, I still felt included. Family is family. That´s what I´ve learned here in Iceland. I am 4th cousins (some once removed) with the people here in Seyðisfjörður and some I´m not even related to at all. And yet everyone has welcomed me with open arms and has been so excited to share their life in Iceland with me, as well as hear about mine back in Minnesota. Oh and I should mention that there is always so.much.good.food. At every meal. Including kaffi tími, which is this amazing meal between lunch and dinner packed full of Icelandic goodies. This is not good for my waistline, which continues to expand every day. See below and you might understand why.

After the family gathering I skyped with my wonderful parents back home! So naturally I needed to speak English with them. But because I´ve been so immersed in the Icelandic language, every other sentence that came out of my mouth was Icelandic. Or at least started that way. 'Þetta er... I mean, this is...' 'Ég veit ekki... I mean, I don´t know' 'Kannski... ugh, sorry, I mean maybe.' My dad´s response to everything is 'takk' - so awesome. Sometimes it fits, but more often than not it doesn´t and it makes me giggle. I miss you mom and dad! Especially now that it´s 15 minutes from being 4th of July... and I think I´ve only had one 4th away from my family.

So then I went to bed. And when I woke up, I realized that I had been dreaming in Icelandic. LEGIT. I was so pumped. And then I couldn´t find my jeans and I said to myself 'Hvar er þetta?' Even though it was not grammatically correct (I asked myself where is this?), I was still excited to find that my internal language is slowly changing into Icelandic.

THEN! At work I was able to help two customers using only Icelandic (I know they knew I wasn´t a native speaker, but they didn´t let me know that they knew, so I pretended... I mean, I was wearing my cousin´s lopapeysa so bet I looked like the real deal). And then two people came in from Denmark and spoke very little English, yet I was able to walk them through the museum and explain everything with a combination of English and Icelandic. #smallcountry#bigwins
Oh this isn´t Twitter? #sorrynotsorry =)

I am a little worried about what will happen to all my language skills once I leave Iceland, so I think it´s probably best I just stay here until I´m fluent. And at that point, I might as well just live here for the rest of my life. Seriously, I love this place and don´t know how I´m going to be able to leave in less than a month. Don´t get me wrong, I miss all of you back home. So actually it´d probably be best if we all just moved here. Anyone in?! Hope to see you here soon.

...but seriously, don´t you want to live here?

Two whirlwind weeks in Iceland

Wow. It´s hard to believe that I´ve been in Iceland now for over two weeks! So much has happened, and so quickly, that I´m in between feelings. It feels like I´ve been here forever, but I also feel like I just arrived in Keflavík. What a strange combination... á íslensku: það er mjög undarlegt. I am working on putting together a video blog, but it takes a lot longer than I expected. So fyrir núna, I´m going to put up some pictures of a few highlights of the trip =)

 

Thumbs up for climbing Mt. Esja in Reykjavík!!

 So yep. I did an interview on Icelandic radio mostly in Icelandic. Ég var mjög stressa. I was incredibly stressed out about it, but I can check that one off the bucket list!

 There are no pictures from our river rafting trip, but this one was taken on our way there! Crater Lake.

 Það er kominn sautjándi júní! Happy Icelandic Independence Day!

 My grandma and grandpa had one of these in their backyard =)

 An amazing dinner with wonderful INL Board Members, complete with interviews for a video documentary about Western Icelanders (people of Icelandic descent living in Canada/USA).

 This was what I walked by every day on my way to school. Beautiful.

 Meeting the President of Iceland... All four American Snorris in this picture =)

 Ég er að borða svið. I am eating sheep´s head. I had the cheek, eye, and tongue. Nom, nom.

 Just a midsummer´s eve on the shores of Iceland.

 Forest festival in Hallormsstaður!

 These are my cousins, we are just drinking water from the stream.

 

 Hot pool on the mountains with my cousins!

 More of my cousins! You can def tell we are related =)

Mountain top grilling - what a way to have lunch.

So anyway, those are pictures from my trip. Here are a few other highlights that I didn´t get pictures of that I´m taking from my journal...

-The first day at our Guesthouse, I tried to use my blow dryer, blew all the fuses in the apartment, and had to get the owner to help me fix it. He gave me a blow dryer to use. The guesthouse was amazing. Plus amazing breakfast every day. You should stay there when (not if) you go to Iceland. Guesthouse Odinn. Check it out.

-So far I´ve lost three pairs of earrings in Iceland. Hoping that will be the end of it.

-I am in process of buying all the Little Miss Sunshine books in Icelandic. I´m calling it an investment since I´ll read them to my kids, but let´s get real - I love those books and they are all for me. Saying it´s an investment just makes me feel better about spending so much on them.

-Locked myself in a bathroom at a concert. My cousin Óli had to come save me because I was so panicked I thought nobody outside the bathroom door would speak English (everyone speaks English in Reykjavík). So now I never lock the bathroom doors... this could be a problem in the future, but it hasn´t been one yet.

-Started a salsa dance party in a small pizza parlor. Enough said.

-The Snorri Program has been in the paper twice here in Iceland... so basically we are celebrities. Hopefully you got my autograph before this trip.

-Ate waffles from a yellow van. Seems legit, yes? So tasty.

-Was filmed during language class correctly using 'jú' instead of 'já' and was super pumped. Hoping that will make it to the documentary. I´ve been working on that skill for about a year.

-Saw some awesome indie/folk concerts in Reykjavík. Wish I could make it for Airwaves. What an amazing place for music.

-Met so many cousin in a forest in Hallormsstaður, East Iceland. It´s amazing how much we look and behave alike. Nature vs. nurture, man, makes you think.

-Basically, I´m having the time of my life with my new family in Iceland. Everyone here is extremely generous and I can´t thank you all enough for taking me in as one of your own. I will be so sad to leave each place and to leave Iceland, but after this trip I know I will never go more than a year without visiting. I´m already trying to figure out how I might be able to live here =)

-I´m sure I´m missing a ton of highlights, so if any Snorris are reading this please comment!

I hope this is a good enough update for now... stay tuned for a video update with different clips I´ve taken around Iceland... sometime in the future. (Putting a time frame on it will only make me miss the deadline). TAKK FYRIR OG BLESS Á MEÐAN! Thanks and bye for now!

Tími fyrir tónlist!

I love music. I especially love Icelandic music. I think you should, too. Here is a video blog to get you started :)

Velkomin til.... my blog :)

Thanks for stopping by my page! In less than three weeks I will be on my way to Iceland to take part in The Snorri Program. I am SO EXCITED! So much so that I made a video blog about it. I'm hoping I'll get less awkward in front of a camera the more I do these... but who knows. Let me know what you think! :)