Pueblo Vikingo y Santa

Last weekend I hung out with Óskar from work and his friend Matthea, and we stayed around the Akureyri area. First we went to a Viking village festival which was a site where archaeologists found old Viking ruins. Miðaldahátíð á Gásum was the name of the festival and it means the Medieval festival in Gásum (name of the village) and it was about a 30 minute drive north of Akureyri. The houses reminded me of teepees from the Native Americans. There were people dressed up in traditional Viking gear, and doing traditional Viking things like making ropes from animal hair, making tools and instruments from wood or bone, and playing traditional games. It was fun to walk around and see people doing their thing and looking at all the handmade things they were selling. I ended up not buying anything, but the stuff was still pretty interesting. I tried the meat soup which every Icelander knows and loves, especially when its left in the fridge for a couple of days I've been told. It was lamb meat and had a lot of natural spices and it came with bread. It was a bit salty, and definitely not my favorite soup, but still rather good. I also saw "the bossman's" wife at the festival and we also saw Óskar's sister and nephew. It's a small world.

I know the bossman's wife, because one day I saw Guðmundur (bossman) at the grocery store after work, and he invited me to his house for dinner. Not sure if I have already told this story, but I am assuming I did, and I'll leave it at that.


Making a mold for something.

Bending some metal.

Crazy looking fish that they dry (look at next pic).

Fish (look at previous pic) drying.

People trying their hand with a bow and arrow.


Making jewelry to sell.

Fernando the fierce! With a purple hat!

Two good ole Vikings, and beer?

A tent/house with antlers as a decoration, or maybe some other meaning.

Stack of horns and bones used to make weapons or toys or tools.

I really wanted shoes like these. And the pants reminded me of my towel shorts.


The town (more like 10 houses) was really great and lively. However, after the town, we went back to Akureyri and were trying to decide what we would do next. Then I discovered there was a Christmas house 5 minutes south of Akureyri, so we obviously had to go.

In the Icelandic Christmas, there are 13 Santas (all brothers), their parents, and a cat. They are usually evil or mischievous. Some of them include the peeping Tom, one that steals food, and one that makes your clothes dirty. The parents and the cat also eat naughty children. They leave presents for all the good children if you leave your shoe out (similar to Los Tres Magos on January 6th that I remember from my childhood). The naughty children get a potato or nothing or eaten.


The store definitely looked and smelled like Christmas.

Two very naughty Santas AKA Óskar and Matthea.

Óskar bought a Christmas malt drink and put it in front of some figurines with some of the Santas and the cat.

A cute mini building on the side of the store, with a cross on it. It's in the ground, like the old Icelandic houses used to be. Not sure if this mini house is used for anything or is just partof the decoration.

After the Christmas house, we went to this place called Brynja which is the Akureyri ice cream shop. This ice cream can only be found in Akureyri and the family keeps a tight hold on their ice cream secret that makes it unique. It was pretty good, and definitely unique, although I wouldn't classify it as the best ice cream I've had. One thing I've learned about Iceland though is that it is similar to Texas in that "everything is bigger in Texas" and "everything is better in Iceland"/"everything is better in Akureyri." If only they also had good Mexican food.

On that note, if you want to make a lot of money, you could probably set up a Mexican restaurant in Akureyri and charge $5 for a regular taco and I'm sure people would buy it.

So a great weekend and I made a new friend (who is coming to visit Boston in November with her family!!).

Until the next post, breathe.

Au revoir.

Corte de Pelo

This post is in memory of my long hair. I decided to get a haircut and since I usually get the normal men's cut, I wanted to try something new. So I wanted to give the haircutter person artistic liberty to do as he pleased. Maybe it was the language barrier, but it didn't turn out too great. It's not as short as I usually get, and I usually just let it do its thing. It was super expensive, the most I have ever paid for a haircut, roughly like $45, and that is cheap in Icelandic standards (assuming you don't know the people and therefore get a discount). Anyway, I went to this place that only cuts guy's hair. There were some magazines and a pool table in there, and the place seemed really popular. There were some guys though, who didn't really need a haircut, but I guess they didn't think so. Maybe it's just that I don't feel the need to cut my hair every two weeks. So here are some before and after pics:


OK, so this one is in California, but you see the long-hair.

Right before the haircut and very "IN YO FACE."

Side curls.

This is the infamous cut and the style the guy gave me. Emo looking. Bangs. Good thing about it is that the guy cut the front of it first, so I was able to see in the mirror what I would look like if I had gone with a mullet...

Here's what I did with it when I got home and still had some gel hair product in it.


Front the top.

From the side, no glasses.

Eyebrow-raising.

Typical.

Don't be fooled though, my hair usually just lies flat in my face or all over the place. Not worth the bother to style it. Although Béla did show me a video for keeping my hair or getting a mohawk up without costly products...bar soap.

That's all for this post.

Bless

Trabajo y Carros

Well work is going dandily. I am working on two projects. The first, ethanol distillation, consists of using a simulation program (ChemCAD) to see what equipment needs to be used and is gives me a cost estimation. It is not a very good program, well maybe it is good, but it sure is frustrating, especially since I'm new to it and still trying to figure everything out. (Today I switched from version 5.2 to 6.0, to it is much cleaner-looking and hopefully will be more Fernando-friendly, which can be hard to do.) The second project, dealing with biodiesel, I have not really explored, but it involves labwork, hopefully. I will work more on this once the asphalt people are done doing their asphalt experiments in the lab (furnished with a ping pong table) and we can set up our equipment. On a different note, Construction has been going on at the office since I arrived and it will not be completed by the time I leave. Here are some pics from work:


My boss Ásgeir showing off his skills, but still loses to Sindri. Fiddi in the background as we invade his lab space.

The kitchen or food area.

View from my desk, with some guy fixing electrical stuff in the ceiling.

Restroom, with accompanying shower...

View to my right. Zhanna, the Ukrainian electrical engineer, and Guðmundur, the project manager of this office, but I like to call him the bossman.

The mug I use for water and coffee. It's bigger than the other mugs and it brightens my day.

Overall it's a nice office. Oh and the floors are this rock carpet thing, pretty cool, and fun to walk on barefoot. For some reason everyone wears sandals or sandal-like shoes while at work, and when they go outside they wear their other non-sandal shoes. I just walk around in my socks while at work, cuz I don't want to bring my sandals in case I need them at home. Maybe it's an Icelandic office thing, or maybe it's just this office. Either way, I think it's a good idea.


So this one day after work there were these random cars in the town center and a couple of people looking at them and talking in funny languages and so I photographed them. Later on that night in the evening news, they had a story about the cars and the people who were driving. No idea what the story was about, but something about driving around all of Iceland. I think the people came from Norway or perhaps Sweden or maybe Denmark or possibly...well, one of the Scandinavian countries. Why they were driving around Iceland...the world may never know, but I think it was to show off their cars.

Cars looking all 60's/70's in downtown Akureyri.

Map of Iceland and some other stuff.

Army-looking things.

Oldies.


These cars are from Akureyri. Guess the locals want any chance to get to show off the local cars.

Nice color. I wonder if I dye my hair this color blue if it will fade to a lightish green.

The engine, if you're interested in things like that, which I am not.

The interior, if you're interested in things like that, which I am not.

So that's all for this post, but I have many many many many more stories to recall and tell. Until next time.

Bless.

Cuando vinieron las muchachas

So two weekends ago Jenn and Cynthia drove from Reykjavík to visit me and Akureyri. They arrived at my house early Saturday morning and we all had breakfast together. Later on that day we had planned to go with some of my co-workers to climb a mountain nearby, named Súlur (which means pillar). My boss, Ásgeir, and another co-worker, Sindri, came by the house and we all crammed into Ásgeir's car to meet up with yet another co-worker, Dagný, and her two sons. We then drove to the foot of the mountain and parked by the city landfill and compost site. As one may guess, it smelled really bad, so we were all happy to begin the 2 hour hike. The weather was cloudy and halfway up the mountain, it started to drizzle. Dagný's sons were really shy and cute with their chocolate raisin breaks here and there.




At roughly the halfway mark, Dagný decided to go back down with her sons and Jenn also went with them because she was not feeling too well. Ásgeir, Sindri, Cynthia, and I set out to conquer Súlur like it's never been conquered before. It was the first time any of us had climbed this peak, and it was much more difficult than any of us had anticipated. Nevertheless, it was really nice and we had many adventures along the way. We saw premature berries (blueberries and blackberries I think) growing all around us and we were among the packed ice from the winters, that never completely melt, so it's really old ice. In order to reach the peak we actually had to traverse some snow patches, and in case you don't know or have forgotten, snow is still really cold. The snow that does melt forms many water streams which peacefully trickle amidst the rugged terrain. We even drank from these natural streams, face first. The water was truly natural, cold, and had a slight grassy taste. Delicious and refreshing! When Cynthia and I finally reached the top (where Ásgeir "the speed demon" and Sindri "the super hiker" were waiting for us) we rested, ate some bread and cookies, and signed the guestbook which was on the summit.


The snowy patches we had to cross to reach the top were at an incline, so coming back down was a rather interesting experience. It was my first "skiing" experience. But for the most part it was fun and we had a mini snowball fight (I never pass up the chance to throw snow at people). Then we reached this one part where the downward slope was perhaps at a 70° angle (the reference point being the horizon). Sindri expertly went down the slope and Ásgeir chose to bypass this slope and go down a less deathly way. I of course witnessed Sindri ease of going down, so after some time debating with Cynthia, I took a step down the slope and started sliding (falling) down the mountain and quickly (fell free to calculate my velocity given that I traveled about 50 meters and assuming µ = 0) approaching some jagged volcanic rocks. Luckily the rocks broke my descent, but I had snow everywhere and my hands were freezing and they hurt to the max since I tried to use them to slow me down (µ definitely > 0, ouch). I wish I had a video or pics of this fall, but I don't. Anyway, after I went down, Cynthia also went down by sitting on her jacket.

The rest of the hike down was normal, just chatting with the Icelandic guys about words and festivals coming up. We went back home, ate, showered, and crashed. We then woke up like around 6pm to drive to a barn by Lake Mývatn for a free concert. The bands played rock, some punk, and some indie-ish music.


The barn was pretty cool, there was a lot of smoke, candles and some tree branches hanging from the ceiling. There were a lot of drunk Icelanders and even some free alcohol (those Icelanders are so friendly when they are drunk). Even one of the bands had a bottle of vodka for the people. They passed around shots to most of the people in the front, and then sang a song (entitled Vodka), and then everybody raised their shot, said Skál (Cheers/Salud in Icelandic), and drank. One band had a lead singer (male) dressed in a Snow White looking costume and another singer had a birthday, so everyone sang the Icelandic birthday song. Also, most of the bands' members (male) ultimately sang shirtless as the night went on. All in all a great concert experience; free, fun people, good music, and a relaxed atmosphere. When we returned, Cynth and I didn't even have energy to go out that night/morning, so Jenn went out alone. Needless to say, I was tired and achy the next day. I'm getting old. :(

Guy with the Snow White costume.

Ásgeir and Sindri jamming out.

The girls just having fun, which really is what they want.

The sky after the concert.

Sunday was also cloudy, but we walked around downtown and then past the church to the botanical garden. They had a lot of pretty flowers and interesting trees and plants. We then tried walking to this foresty area with nice trails, but it was rather far, so we turned around and went to the "mall," which is like 5 clothing stores, 2 phone stores, a grocery store, a room store, and a Toys R Us. We bought some food and the girls bought socks and I got a pair of bright green boxers. Later we went to go eat at the Bautinn place mentioned in an earlier post. Then they left, so that they had enough time to rest in Reyk for work on Monday.

Cynth and Jenn with some Icelandic Viking hairy...thing. Also in front of the tourist shop.


Jenn admiring the plants.


Cynth admiring the plants.


Nice flower.


Shrubberies!!!!


This wicked cool plant/flower.

So it was a fantastic weekend and I was still sore when I went to work on Monday.

Until next time, peace.