Golden Circle Tour (Day Four)

I am a little behind on my bloggin due to a day without internet. However, Yesterday was day four on our trip in Iceland. For our last day we went on a tour around amazing places in Iceland. The tour was from 10am till 4 pm, which seemed really long, but it was not at all. 

Our tour began with a little tour around Reykjavik, and the historical places that the town has. The buildings that were shown in the city were the city hall, the art museum, the sports hall, and the first high-school that was in the late 1800's. We also learned about Iceland's parliament, and how they have the oldest parliament and first established parliament which was in the year 800. The tour guide also mentioned a lot about what Iceland is most famous for, and of course it's geothermal energy, Volcanoes,  and the Vikings. He mentioned how important the Icelandic Saga's are in Iceland because they are one of the oldest pieces of literature that their country has. Another interesting fact I learned was that because the vegitation in Iceland is basically none because of the soil, that farmers are given money if they plant trees. I thought this was really interesting because when looking around Iceland, there really is no trees at all. 

  After our tour of the city, we set on the road for some hot spots in Iceland. Some of these hot spots included the techtonic plate, geysers, a cathloic church, and a crator. The techtonic plates was the first place we visited, and after taking Earth Science this year I thought that the plates were so interesting. I was suprised by how far apart the European Plate is from the American Plate. The tour guide had mentioned that every year the plates grow 1-2 centimeters further apart from eachother. (So if you want to become rich, you should move to Iceland and buy land, because every year you will have more and more land!) After the plates we visited some geysers, that reminded me a lot of Yellowstone. Except during this whole tour it was raining which made the tour interesting. After the geysers we saw this AMAZING waterfall. When we got to the spot we were on the top of a hill, and we trekked almost fifteen minutes down to a waterfall, much like Niagra Falls. However, this one you could walk right up to, which was fantastic. I would totally recommend this tour because of the wonderful sight seeing it has, that you will not see anywhere else. After the waterfalls, we were lucky to get a special treat of being able to see how the geothermal energy was produced. The powerplant to make the geothermal energy was HUGE! and it was super interesting to see how they produce their energy. Also almost all energy in Iceland is made up of geothermal energy, and you can actually get free "gas" in your car if you have a hydrogen car. At gas stations they had "hydrogen" stations where you could fill up for free. I thought this was super cool, and maybe one day it will hit the states, which could save a lot of American's alot of money. 

Here is Iceland!

Flat Stanley's on the tour bus!

Hre is the Techtonic Plates, one side Europe the other America

Techtonic plates!

Techtonic Plates Continued!

Flat Stanley & the Techtonic Plates

Flat Stanley & Waterfall!

Me & a waterfall!

Waterfall by the Techtonic Plates!

Techtonic Plates above, & an Icelandic Flag

Glacial River leading to Atlanic Ocean, Wishing Pond 

HUGE WATERFALL!  

Flat Stanley & Waterfall

Flat Stanley and marking Rocks! (At the top of the waterfall)

Rocks (When you cross a boarder, or make it to the top or bottom of a mountain it is typical to make your mark by stacking rocks!

Last But not least my FOOD!


SNIPP SNAPP SNUTE!

NORWAY

I cannot believe it!!! I am going to Norway today, it's weird to finally be saying that because for almost 14 years the one place I have been wanting to visit is Norway. and now Im finally going!!

 THIS IS HOW EXCITED I AM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MORE TO COME!!!!!!!

SNIPP SNAPP SNUTE!

Whale Watching

Dont worry I'm still alive. We have had no internet for the past day because the Wi-Fi was not working correctly. However, yesterday was filled with some good memories and laughs, and also a little sickness. We got to sleep in till 11, which was really nice because the jet-leg is still killing all of us, every chance we get to sleep we sleep even if it is 10 min on a bus, you can look around and all of us are sleeping. Anyways, yesterday we got the chance to go whale watching, which is perfect and gorgeous to do in Iceland, if it's not raining and you don't get motion sickness. From the moment we got onto the bus to the port to go whale watching it was raining, but that wasn't holding us back. When we got onto the whale watching boat, we suited up in these ridiculous jumpsuits to keep warm. (I felt like I was a little kids getting my snowpants on for recess.) As we headed out into the sea, three other girls and myself thought it would be funny to have fun in the jumpsuits and take funny videos and pictures. Oh and we created a boy band. So we took halerious pictures which I will post, and did some dancing (or tried to, because the boat was rocking back and forth a lot) and then I think Karma hit three of us. After a wonderful goofy time at sea, when we were about an hour into the sea, three of us girls including myself got motion sickness, and from then on, it was no longer fun. However we had some really kind Icelandic crew workers taking care of us!

Here are some pictures we took!

Here is Kristin, Myself, Moriah, and Paige 

This is our boy band, "The Fever"

Snipp Snapp Snute!

Shopping & Dinner (Day 2)

After our school visit we went shopping at the local shops. It was a lot of fun, and we found some really cool and interesting things. I myself found a lot of clothes that I would die to have, but there was no way that I was going to pay for them! Oh how it would be to rich here! :)

Dinner consisted of going to a resturant called 79, that was located in downtown Reykjavik. Almost all of us girls got hamburgers, and the waitress asked if we were from Minnesota, and we all were super suprised. With our Hamburgers we had some Icelandic sauce that was made up of Egg and butter, and it was delicious with fries!






<<<------ Here was my nummy dinner! 




Snipp Snapp Snute! 

School Visit- Hateigskole

Today we started our day out nice and early. We woke up and had some smørbrød (open-faced sandwiches) for breakfast. I was excited about this because I knew from my experiences at Skogfjorden that smørbrød is one piece of bread not two like how Americans eat their sandwiches. I felt very cultural knowing that.

     
  After breakfast we walked to a small school in Reykjavik, about a mile away from our hotel. The school was very ordinary and different from schools that you would see in the states. The school consisted of around 400 kids, from grades 1-10. We arrived a little early so we walked around the playground, which had some small swingsets, a couple basketball hoops, and a soccer field with turf! When we entered the school, the first thing that I noticed was shelves full of shoes. I wondered why this was, and thought maybe they took them off because they were in gym class. But children than walked by and I noticed that all of them had their shoes off. When we talked to the Principal of the school, he stated that having them take their shoes off when they enter creates a more cleaner environment and also a more homely environment.

Here was all the kids shoes lined up when we walked into the school

Here was the school 

We first were greeted by the Principal Asgeir Beinteinsson, who then gave us a tour of the school. The first classroom that he showed us was the dance class, YES a DANCE CLASS!! Asgeir, the principle had mentioned to us that he believes that the children should have different ways of learning such as dancing. In his school they also were required to take certain other classes such as home economics, art, tech ed, knitting and Danish. He had stated that these "exploratory classes" allow the children to have better motor skills, and also learn in several different ways. I thought that this was a very unique way of learning and teaching. I was quite jealous myself, when the kids were dancing because I wanted to join in. The song that they were dancing to was about how to play basketball. It was also interesting to see how both boys and girls enjoyed the dancing, however the boys and girls were still separated, because obviously boys have cooties! Another classroom that Asgeir showed us was the Home Economics. The students that were in the classroom were 1st graders, learning about Milk. I thought to myself how lucky these kids are to be learning how to cook at age six.

Here are some of the Kids Dancing

   

Here are some 1st graders learning about Milk

       As we had our tour around the classroom Asgeir also talked a lot about how the school functioned and how school works in Iceland. One of the big differences between schools in America and schools in Iceland is that Icelandic schools have classes stay together for four grades. For 1st-4th grade the class will have the same teacher and then they will get a new teacher that will be with them from 5th-7th. The school we visited was grades 1-10. One thing that I really liked in the school's motto based upon respect, cooperation and happiness. This was something that would not be true in an American school, which really caught my eyes. Another thing that I found very interesting was how close the teachers can be with their students. We saw a young girl crying in the office, and a teacher picked her up and placed her on her lap and comforted her. I found this very cool, because as a teacher your one instinct is to help the student and comfort them, but that is not always possible. This could also fall into another thing I found super interesting which was how focused the school was on bullying. During the schoolyear they would conduct several survey's during the year asking the children if they felt bullied or knew someone who was being bullied. Not only would they ask the kids this, but they would also ask their parents if they felt that their kids were being bullied or not. With this Asgeir mentioned that behavior problems is something that they take seriously, and if the child has a behavioral problem that it is the parent's duty to fix that. In Iceland they actually have the parent's sign a contract placing them in charge of making sure their child is behaving properly. 

   Here are some more pictures I took!

The Home Economic's Classroom

The Tech Ed Classroom

The Soccer field right outside the school

The Children Playing on the Playground

The Children in Iceland do read the Hunger Games!

SNIPP SNAPP SNUTE! 

Blue Lagoon (Day 1)

Yesterday we visited the Blue Lagoon. When we first arrived we didn't know what to expect but we were later suprised by what we would be experiancing. Upon entering the actual lagoon, we walked along a path that was inbetween large rocks on either side. These rocks were super interesting because they are what the terrian in Iceland is made up of (molten lava rocks, magma). When we entered into the Lagoon building we were given these hi-tech bracelets that were used for everything in the Lagoon, such as locking our lockers, and paying for our beverages. When we walked into the Lagoon, we were suprised by how warm the water actually was. It was so refreshing and warm, I wanted my very own. We then all put this mineral face mask on, which tingled a little bit. Afterwords, we decided we needed a refreshment of which we are all legal to have now ;) it was spendy but so worth it.

After the lagoon, we went to this Italian resturant, and I had some nummy Lagsana. And after dinner we all were so tired that we went to sleep, or tried to. The sun here doesnt go down until 2 o'clock. But that wasn't a problem for me, because I woke up today in my clothes from last night, turns out I was really tired. 

Snip Snapp Snute

God morn fra Iceland! :)
 After a long day of traveling, we have finally made it to Iceland at 6:30am (Icelandic time). Our flight over was a rather culturally diverse experiance, I can most definately say that I was "BREW"ing. We are now on a shuttle bus on the way into Reykjavik, and I thought what a more perfect time to make a first post. First off, I have to say that Iceland is BEAUTIFUL, but it is not that kind of beauiful you see in a tropical foreign place. Iceland has it's own beauty to it. As we head into town, the one thing that is completely different is the landscape. The terrian around us is piles of rock everywhere, which makes sense because Iceland is the most vocanically active country. I would say that this was a perfect awakening view, with the sun rising over the mountains in the horizon.


I am excited for today, as we will be starting are new Scandinavian adventure, today is our trip to the blue lagoon.


Snip snapp snute nå er eventyr ute!**
(Snip smella snout nú ævintýri út) -Icelandic


**In every fairytale, this phrase is what ends the fairytale, so I think it was fitting to use it in for concluding my fairytale stories**