Been in a technological black hole for a bit...haven't been able to communicate for a few days now, and just got internet access for the first time in awhile. After a long road trip down from the Westfjords (including a ferry ride) I am now in Reykjavik. Hopefully the photographs chronicling this great adventure will be up in the next day or so...
Until then!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
The Wild West
The Westfjords is an entirely unique place, unlike the most of Iceland. Far from any metropolis, the Westfjords developed at a significantly slower rate than its surrounding country, and therefore still relied on the land for any sort of survival. Many roads in the Westfjords weren't paved until 2009, and even so a majority of the roads are still dirt. The town of Ísafjörður is about 20 minutes away from where we're staying (a hostel called Holt), and to get into the town you have to drive down a looong tunnel through one of the mountains. If you're leaving the town, and trying to get back to Holt, you may be surprised when you realize the tunnel is one-way. Those leaving Ísafjörður must yield to the oncoming traffic, and pull over in a brake-down lane if a car is coming. Going into Ísafjörður: 15 minutes. Leaving Ísafjörður: 30 minutes.
The Westfjords are also in a rather unique predicament. After the technological boom hit Iceland, the population suddenly had a new expectation for their standard of living and many people abandoned their farms and moved to Reykjavik. Maintaining any sort of income in the Westfjords became harder and harder as the already meager population steadily declined. Towns that once had 200-300 people are now down to 15-30 people. Entire farmhouses are abandoned with their possessions still inside the building. People just packed up and left, and the Westfjords are quickly becoming a deserted landscape.
An upside of this bizarre exodus is that the land remains (more or less) unspoiled. You can go miles without seeing a sign of human life. After class one day our group went to a farm near Holt that got its energy from a micro-hydropower plant on their property. This farmer (maybe around 30 years old?) built his hydro-plant on his own with found materials and leftover pieces of hardware. Really, an amazing example of resourcefulness. Also the farm was gorgeous (surprising, right?).
This cow's tuft of hair reminds me of Conan O'Brien.
During a 10pm sunset some of us went on a little walk around our hostel.
This is the church and farmhouse down the road from us.
Some nosy neighbors kept an eye on us as we passed their turf.
Our hostel is the one with the radio tower.
There was a small beach down the road but it was heavily inhabited by birds...and the birds weren't too happy with us stomping around their nesting grounds...
...so they would circle over our heads and dive-bomb us if we got too close. Lots of kids have tried going for a run past our hostel and have had to come back early because of the aerial attacks.
We also went to a small power plant near our university. I couldn't hear the manager very well, so I don't really know any details...but compared to the other plants we've seen this was by far the least modern. Where other plants had white walls and glass, this plant had shelves of mechanical parts and exciting flashy buttons.
Most of our days at the university are spent staring at a computer and researching for our independent projects...so coffee breaks are a must (and frankly we've gotten too used to coffee breaks every 45 minutes at this point).
A friendly game of cribbage to pass the time.
Next to the break room is a balcony, which leads downstairs to a badminton/volleyball court! Why not.
Ísafjörður doesn't recycle...for some bizarre reason that we don't fully understand...But they do separate their waste into Burnable (which includes plastic, oddly enough) and Non-Burnable. We got to visit the town incinerator and see what they were all about.
We spent maybe 30 minutes just standing and watching the claw lift bundles of trash towards their fiery doom (Toy Story 3 flashbacks aplenty).
This heartbreaker was hanging in the control room of the incinerator. I guess he founded the original landfill in Ísafjörður...I wish I had gotten a better picture of him, but needless to say he's pretty ridiculous looking.
Yay trash-burning!
The Westfjords are also in a rather unique predicament. After the technological boom hit Iceland, the population suddenly had a new expectation for their standard of living and many people abandoned their farms and moved to Reykjavik. Maintaining any sort of income in the Westfjords became harder and harder as the already meager population steadily declined. Towns that once had 200-300 people are now down to 15-30 people. Entire farmhouses are abandoned with their possessions still inside the building. People just packed up and left, and the Westfjords are quickly becoming a deserted landscape.
An upside of this bizarre exodus is that the land remains (more or less) unspoiled. You can go miles without seeing a sign of human life. After class one day our group went to a farm near Holt that got its energy from a micro-hydropower plant on their property. This farmer (maybe around 30 years old?) built his hydro-plant on his own with found materials and leftover pieces of hardware. Really, an amazing example of resourcefulness. Also the farm was gorgeous (surprising, right?).
This cow's tuft of hair reminds me of Conan O'Brien.
During a 10pm sunset some of us went on a little walk around our hostel.
This is the church and farmhouse down the road from us.
Some nosy neighbors kept an eye on us as we passed their turf.
Our hostel is the one with the radio tower.
There was a small beach down the road but it was heavily inhabited by birds...and the birds weren't too happy with us stomping around their nesting grounds...
...so they would circle over our heads and dive-bomb us if we got too close. Lots of kids have tried going for a run past our hostel and have had to come back early because of the aerial attacks.
We also went to a small power plant near our university. I couldn't hear the manager very well, so I don't really know any details...but compared to the other plants we've seen this was by far the least modern. Where other plants had white walls and glass, this plant had shelves of mechanical parts and exciting flashy buttons.
Most of our days at the university are spent staring at a computer and researching for our independent projects...so coffee breaks are a must (and frankly we've gotten too used to coffee breaks every 45 minutes at this point).
A friendly game of cribbage to pass the time.
Next to the break room is a balcony, which leads downstairs to a badminton/volleyball court! Why not.
Ísafjörður doesn't recycle...for some bizarre reason that we don't fully understand...But they do separate their waste into Burnable (which includes plastic, oddly enough) and Non-Burnable. We got to visit the town incinerator and see what they were all about.
We spent maybe 30 minutes just standing and watching the claw lift bundles of trash towards their fiery doom (Toy Story 3 flashbacks aplenty).
This heartbreaker was hanging in the control room of the incinerator. I guess he founded the original landfill in Ísafjörður...I wish I had gotten a better picture of him, but needless to say he's pretty ridiculous looking.
Yay trash-burning!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Onwards to Glory
Apparently 3 weeks had passed because, next thing we knew, we were back on the bus and headed for Isafjordur (10-ish hours away). To give you some sense of location...Akureyri is where the arrow is pointing...and the shining sun is right over Isafjordur. All the fjords along Iceland's coast mean lots of loop-de-loop roads...up and down the fingers of the Westfjords.
We got to our first stop where some friendly hill-folk greeted us. Greg attempted to sit on their shoulders...with limited success...
When we got back on the bus at a different rest stop, I returned to find my seat occupied by this little goober. So, I moved over and me and another girl, Rosie, had Felix-duty for the rest of the drive (which is hardly a chore...what a cutie).
Yeah! Milk!
The road to Isafjordur is unlike anything I've ever experienced. A majority of the drive is along dirt roads that roll up and down the hills without much consideration for physics. At one point the fog was so thick that we couldn't even see the road below us from the windows. Everyone else on the bus was asleep (anomaly: I didn't sleep the whole drive), and the silence mixed with the eerie blanket of white made for a scene worthy of a Hitchcock film. (Mad props to our fearless driver)
Felix was pretty stoked when we did his hair, and he let me take lots of pictures of his new 'do.
However this boy was not meant to be in front of the camera...And he quickly made this known.
The boy has a good eye! Very abstract, very profound.
Here's Brenda, scaring the bejeezes out of me and Sophie when we turned around.
We made it to our hostel in Isafjordur, and quickly made ourselves comfortable. Greg found some new specs in the living room. They really go well with his eyes.
I'm living on the first floor with another student, our Director, her husband and son, and our assistant director. This morning I was sitting in bed with my door open and this toy just rolled past my doorframe and stopped. Ghost, obviously.
We are more in the middle of nowhere here than we have ever been previously. We're cradled in a valley by mountains, glaciers, and meadows. The back of the hostel has an awesome playground...so we put aside our project proposals for some quality seesawing.
The hostel itself is an old church house (where the preacher lived? something like that...) and the farm its on is down the street.
Here's our home for the next 2 weeks!
We got to our first stop where some friendly hill-folk greeted us. Greg attempted to sit on their shoulders...with limited success...
When we got back on the bus at a different rest stop, I returned to find my seat occupied by this little goober. So, I moved over and me and another girl, Rosie, had Felix-duty for the rest of the drive (which is hardly a chore...what a cutie).
Yeah! Milk!
The road to Isafjordur is unlike anything I've ever experienced. A majority of the drive is along dirt roads that roll up and down the hills without much consideration for physics. At one point the fog was so thick that we couldn't even see the road below us from the windows. Everyone else on the bus was asleep (anomaly: I didn't sleep the whole drive), and the silence mixed with the eerie blanket of white made for a scene worthy of a Hitchcock film. (Mad props to our fearless driver)
Felix was pretty stoked when we did his hair, and he let me take lots of pictures of his new 'do.
However this boy was not meant to be in front of the camera...And he quickly made this known.
The boy has a good eye! Very abstract, very profound.
Here's Brenda, scaring the bejeezes out of me and Sophie when we turned around.
We made it to our hostel in Isafjordur, and quickly made ourselves comfortable. Greg found some new specs in the living room. They really go well with his eyes.
I'm living on the first floor with another student, our Director, her husband and son, and our assistant director. This morning I was sitting in bed with my door open and this toy just rolled past my doorframe and stopped. Ghost, obviously.
We are more in the middle of nowhere here than we have ever been previously. We're cradled in a valley by mountains, glaciers, and meadows. The back of the hostel has an awesome playground...so we put aside our project proposals for some quality seesawing.
The hostel itself is an old church house (where the preacher lived? something like that...) and the farm its on is down the street.
Here's our home for the next 2 weeks!
Layin low in Akureyri
Akureyri itself is a very unique and enjoyable town. Venturing off into the highlands and fjords was fun, but there was a lot to discover in this 17,000-person town.
I've already mentioned the king of hot chocolates, but this same cafe also made bomb-diggity lattés...
...and amazing cheesecake.
In the summer, when cafes/bars/restaurants got to emerge beyond their indoor boundaries they supplied the outdoor seating with warm fleece blankets (we are still in Iceland, after all). We had a powerpoint project due last week on Sunday and, surprisingly, spent a majority Saturday procrastinating. Once the bookstore closed (around 11:30pm) we meandered over to a bar, plopped ourselves down, got snug in our blankets, and mooched off their wireless.
Every night when I returned to my room I was disoriented by how bright and stunning the sunset was. This day the clouds looked like flying saucers, and they slowly flew up and over the fjord.
A day at the Icelandic Red Cross proved fruitful for many of us. I got myself an amazing Icelandic cardigan for the equivalent of $4.50 (pictures soon...)! Here's Evan sportin' 2 new sweaters and 1 oldie-but-goodie. Kid knows how to make it work.
Family comes and goes a lot in Iceland, especially in the summer when a lot of the roads aren't closed anymore. I'm not totally sure how our host-family was related to this group, but the mother and father were celebrating their 15th anniversary so we had a banquet fit for Thanksgiving. The night before we had dinner with the mother, father, and their son (Isaac)...however this night, after I sat down at the table, there was suddenly a 2nd blond boy sitting across from me. I don't know where he came from. I don't know his name. I don't know if he was related to the other blond boy...frankly they all look the same.
Having our final hot chocolates in Akureyri was bittersweet. "Bitter" because who would ever want to leave this delight behind? And "sweet" because it's SO GOOD. The froth from the chocolate and cream would always stick to the sides of the mug once you were finished...and you couldn't let such chocolatey goodness go to waste...
We don't know why there was an all-girl marching band playing music in the middle of town...I can't really offer much back-story on this one...
...so here's a video to distract you from my poor story telling!
I've already mentioned the king of hot chocolates, but this same cafe also made bomb-diggity lattés...
...and amazing cheesecake.
In the summer, when cafes/bars/restaurants got to emerge beyond their indoor boundaries they supplied the outdoor seating with warm fleece blankets (we are still in Iceland, after all). We had a powerpoint project due last week on Sunday and, surprisingly, spent a majority Saturday procrastinating. Once the bookstore closed (around 11:30pm) we meandered over to a bar, plopped ourselves down, got snug in our blankets, and mooched off their wireless.
Every night when I returned to my room I was disoriented by how bright and stunning the sunset was. This day the clouds looked like flying saucers, and they slowly flew up and over the fjord.
A day at the Icelandic Red Cross proved fruitful for many of us. I got myself an amazing Icelandic cardigan for the equivalent of $4.50 (pictures soon...)! Here's Evan sportin' 2 new sweaters and 1 oldie-but-goodie. Kid knows how to make it work.
Family comes and goes a lot in Iceland, especially in the summer when a lot of the roads aren't closed anymore. I'm not totally sure how our host-family was related to this group, but the mother and father were celebrating their 15th anniversary so we had a banquet fit for Thanksgiving. The night before we had dinner with the mother, father, and their son (Isaac)...however this night, after I sat down at the table, there was suddenly a 2nd blond boy sitting across from me. I don't know where he came from. I don't know his name. I don't know if he was related to the other blond boy...frankly they all look the same.
Having our final hot chocolates in Akureyri was bittersweet. "Bitter" because who would ever want to leave this delight behind? And "sweet" because it's SO GOOD. The froth from the chocolate and cream would always stick to the sides of the mug once you were finished...and you couldn't let such chocolatey goodness go to waste...
We don't know why there was an all-girl marching band playing music in the middle of town...I can't really offer much back-story on this one...
...so here's a video to distract you from my poor story telling!
Súlur
Sorry sorry sorry! I know I've been slacking and have not updated in a timely fashion for a week or so...but to be totally honest nothing interesting had happened during that week! After all the sightseeing and excitement wore off, we had to put our noses to the grindstone and do some downright learning (which, unfortunately, meant school on the weekend...I know...blasphemous).
One brief afternoon off I did some exploring with a friend, Evan...well...we started out with the concept of "exploring" and found this cool whale statue! And then we called it a day and gulped down 2 hot chocolates, each.
During the summer solstice we went on a midnight hike up a 3,000+ft mountain called Súlur. We wanted to make it to the top for the "sunset" (which lasts for quite some time), and the whole way up you could see Akureyri getting smaller and smaller in the distance. The whole mountain exists because of lava flow, so all of the ground is moss covered bubbles of solidified magma.
Caitlin had her son, Felix, on her back the whole time. He had lots of fun frolicking in the snow near the top of the mountain...in fact his favorite part was falling face-first into the white fluff.
He looked like quite a handsome astronaut in all of his hiking gear.
Once the sun really started to set you could watch it move between the mountains as fast as an airplane.
Here's Akureyri
and Súlur!
One brief afternoon off I did some exploring with a friend, Evan...well...we started out with the concept of "exploring" and found this cool whale statue! And then we called it a day and gulped down 2 hot chocolates, each.
During the summer solstice we went on a midnight hike up a 3,000+ft mountain called Súlur. We wanted to make it to the top for the "sunset" (which lasts for quite some time), and the whole way up you could see Akureyri getting smaller and smaller in the distance. The whole mountain exists because of lava flow, so all of the ground is moss covered bubbles of solidified magma.
Caitlin had her son, Felix, on her back the whole time. He had lots of fun frolicking in the snow near the top of the mountain...in fact his favorite part was falling face-first into the white fluff.
He looked like quite a handsome astronaut in all of his hiking gear.
Once the sun really started to set you could watch it move between the mountains as fast as an airplane.
Here's Akureyri
and Súlur!
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