University of Iceland

Hey everyone! So, this week I wanted to write about what it is like to go to a university in Iceland. It´s hard but kind of cool. Hard in the sense of the language and cool in that the have events with alcohol on campus. Lets see, at orientation I was excited about the opportunity to meet new people and I spilt a glass of water down my pants so instead of making new friends during the only social time we had I was in the bathroom under the hand dryer trying to make it look like I didn´t pee in my pants. It brought a good laugh though. I have met 2 American girls with Icelandic boyfriends (I think we are starting a trend maybe) in my Icelandic Vocabulary class, which is nice to know people who are in the same situation as me. Plus I met a girl from Virgina which is really close to my home! They are just studying the language though. Which leads me to a really hard part about studying. Not only am taking 2 classes to learn the language but I´m also working on securing my masters project and taking a genomics class. I was taking a Human Genetics class on top of all that but I had to drop it. It was too much plus it was taught in Icelandic, the powerpoints were in Icelandic, and the lab protocols were in Icelandic. Then the professor told me that the final (50% of your whole grade) was based on what was said in class...hmmmm I hope you all can see the difficulty in that! So I dropped it and I´m moving at a snails pace through my master project but hopefully it´ll pick up once I´ve learned the language better. I was SO worried about doing it all when I got here and I´ve come to realize that life doesn´t always go as planned (which is hard for me because I'm a stubborn person). So maybe I have to take some extra time to learn the language before I can move forward but you have to take baby steps before you can walk. By the way I would like to say that I was through the roof excited about learning the alphabet song in Icelandic! haha seems weird because it´s so elementary but it was important to me. So, the interesting differences between Catawba (my undergraduate) and the University of Iceland (postgraduate). First of all, they have a policy at the university where the stop the class for a 5 minute coffee break half-way through the class. Which is awesome because sometimes your brain needs a minute to break whereas at Catawba they just keep going. Also, the university has events on campus which provide alcohol. That would never EVER happen at Catawba. For example, this weekend that just happened the university was having an October-Fest at the university campus. They had drinking competitions and you just paid for a ticket and they had alcohol and German foods. It was so cool. Catawba won´t even let you have your door open when you are drinking in your dorm room! It´s just a completely different atmosphere. Also, there are student groups on campus when I got here for orientation that were advertising for new students to come out and enjoy FREE BEER at local bars. To be fair though we are talking Europe where the drinking age is lower and everyone at the university is old enough to drink. Well, I´m off to watch my boyfriend play basketball tonight! Áfram KR!! I´d like to also say congrats to Finnur´s brother Gummi and his girlfriend Fia they just had a baby girl today!! Keep reading everyone and feel free to leave me comments.

Holy cow, it´s been almost 2 months since I´ve blogged. There has been so much going on! Well after 2 months in Iceland, I have had about 3 or 4 break-downs (nothing major). When I first decided to move to Iceland, I thought of myself as a really strong person that can do anything she decides to. Well, hello real world! Moving to Iceland has been the hardest thing I´ve ever done, HANDS DOWN! My whole life is uncomfortable and changed in ways I never thought about before. It has broken me down, but now I´m working on putting who I was in America (strong, independent, social) back together here in Iceland! Imagine trying to go to the grocery store to buy food and you have no idea how to. Let me tell you about that story! I got instructions from my boyfriend to go to the bank then to the store which is right near it. It took me 3 trips going there and home (the 3rd trip I had to make Finnur go with me) just to get to the bank and the store. First I didn´t know how to get into the ATM...went home, which by the way you have to swipe the debit card to open the door to the booth! Then I couldn´t read the Icelandic on the ATM had to go home again. It was frustrating! I didn´t give up though and I even went to the post office all by myself the other day!! Progress. Another thing that makes me want to hide under the covers...social life in a language you don´t know! So, imagine sitting at a party where everyone is speaking another language and you just sit there with no clue whats going on! It´s super hard. I just try to put my few words I know into the conversation. I´m lucky to have my boyfriend though. He whispers translations into my ear so I can keep up with the conversation. He´s great. Finnur has an English basetball player on his team so now when we go out and he´s there...people are even more likely to speak English, which is nice. Lately though, I have picked up on a lot more words! I even understood what my boyfriend and his mom were talking about the other day! Also, I met 2 American girls with Icelandic boyfriends (we are starting a trend ;) ) in my language class. The final factor to my break down...homesick. Not only am I moved out of the house for the first time...it´s in a place where they don´t have anything like home. I´m lucky that my friends and I keep in close touch because I would be so much more homesick. I can´t find any of my favorite home foods, lotions, shampoos, and the little things that I loved at home. I wish I´d stocked up more when I came here. I know this all sounds really complaining, but I´m not sharing this to complain (well maybe a little, I mean isn´t blogging about getting your thoughts out)...I´m sharing all of this to prepare anyone reading this that might be making a similar big move to a foreign country! I was not prepared for any of this and I hope that others might read this and be a little more prepared for what´s ahead. To be honest though, I don´t think anyone could have 100% prepared me for this! I will try to write more often so you can hear the stories of my life in Iceland. Keep reading and thanks!

A Whirlwind of Plane Flights!

Well I've been residing in Iceland for 2 weeks now!! It has been a crazy mess so far but in a good way. My flights in Boston were delayed 4 times and I got to Iceland just in time to leave 5 hours later to fly to London. After I got into London, and was there for less than 8 hours, my boyfriend Finnur, his friends Robbi and Kristin and I all drove, and rode in an underwater train that you drive your car onto, 4 hours to a small town named Arras that Robbi's friend told him about. It was such a gorgeous little town but it took us less than an hour to tour all the hot spots there. There's lots of pictures on facebook...check them out!! We stayed in the smallest hotel room ever...there was literally just room for the bed and a small bathroom but it was cool and we didn't really spend anytime there though. We made friends with our waiter and he brought us a sppon and two cubes of sugar at the end of the meal and we all looked at each other confused. Then he brought out this bottle of what looked like green cough syrup and it was this crazy strong alcohol that you pour over the sugar cube and then eat. It tasted AWFUL!! The next morning, I was not feeling so great from the night before, we went to Paris. We met French people who don't speak English and thought if they spoke French louder we would suddenly understand. We spent 2 days in Paris. The food was not as impressive as I had heard it would be and the service there was rude. Other than that it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. There is so much detail put into almost every inch of that country. We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, walked through the Louvre, which is the mac daddy of museums. Let me see, we soaked of the sun next to Parisian fountains and the river that runs through the city. We saw lots of street performers, beautiful buildings, went souvenier shopping and soaked in great hot spots of the city. It just so happens that we were in Paris the same day the Tour de France was there!! How lucky! There were so many people line along the streets waiting for the bikers to come through. In Paris we stayed at a little hostel, it was certainly an experience I won't forget. The shower there was so awful. In order to get a weak stream of water on your body you had to hold down a button at all times and stand against the right wall of the shower. On top of that the shower curtain did little to keep the water in so our floor was really wet. The beds were like child size twin beds! Haha it was fun though. Then we went back to London were we stayed at our friend Robbi's (who came to France with us) flat. It was awesome. We went out to eat alot...the restaurants were great in London, but the buildings are not as impressive as France. We were in London for 5 days. We saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and lots of other tourist spots. It was a very relaxing vacation and I loved it. Then we all, yes Robbi included, flew back to Iceland. I was so relieved to be off that plane and staying in one place for more than a couple days. Now I am settled in Iceland, well sort of! I have done all the immigration requirements and now I'm just waiting on some card that will officially allow me to live here. I'm also offically registered for classes. The classes I'm taking are in English one semester and Icelandic the other. Unfortunately the semester that is in Icelandic is the fall semester. You'd think they'd do English first but NO that would be too easy! hehe. So I am being thrown straight into the language. I'm also going to enroll in a practical Icelandic language class and I'm starting to read childrens book in Icelandic. So far I haven't learn a lot but I'm catching on here and there. I'm SO nervous about the classes though. Well now that I've written an essay, I'm going to give it a rest. I'll be back to write soon!!

So I started a blog

This is Heather signing in to write my first blog. I have offically been accepted into the University of Iceland. I had to email dozens of people all the time trying to find a research project to be apart of. I couldn't find one in time to get my resident permit, so I entered into Nutrition and Health Sciences, which I find interesting as well and I can always switch to Genetics in the Spring semester. I have all my other paperwork in and now I'm just waiting for my resident permit. It's a lot of paperwork and stuff to do and thank goodness I have my great boyfriend (Finnur) and his mom to help me since I can't be there. Right now I am working for the next 2 weeks until I leave for Iceland, which will be July 21st at 4:35pm (I already bought the plane ticket)!!! Waiting to leave is so hard. Almost as hard as trying to learn Icelandic (only like at most 400,000 people speak it). So, I arrive in Iceland on the 22nd of July at 6:40am and then Finnur and I are flying out of Iceland to London, England on July 23rd at 3:45pm for a vacation (tickets have been purchased)! I'm so excited. We are planning on driving to Paris, France which is only about a 4 hour drive. I hope that you will keep checking in on me as I go through the ups and downs of living in a foreign country, learn the language, make friends, study, and move in with my boyfriend.

--Heather