On Tuesday I took a trip to Borgarnes which is the closest town to go to the grocery store to stock up on a couple of things with Ólöf and her sister Inga. (Ólöf goes by Lóa, but I never knew how to spell it correctly so I just decided to stick with her name as I knew it… but I will now be saying Lóa). Afterwards we had coffee in a cafe with an beautiful view of the ocean and on our way back to the farm we visited a troll garden. We walked around a bit and Inga showed me a part of the waterfalls where the trolls had become part of the rock because of being caught in the sunlight which was neat to see. When we came back Halldóra came by with the kids and before we knew it it was time to milk the cows again. After dinner we drove over to the church in Reykholt and checked out the cemetery, church and library.
I had started knitting a hat on Tuesday and finished it Wednesday morning and throughout the day two different groups of people came by the house to chat with Lóa and meet me as I am also related to them. We milked the cows in the evening and when we were finished Helgi had made his way to the farm from the airport, shortly after Jón Þór and his wife came by to drop off the twins. There were a couple of different conversations happening and I had quite a bit of trouble trying to understand anything as there was just so much going on around me. I’ve been able to understand the subject matter of quite a few conversations and am picking up more words everyday but by no means can I participate in conversations. I don’t know how to say anything besides the odd word, but it does feel pretty great when I understand something. I was invited to Arnar’s wedding this Saturday night and told Helgi what the old man had been saying while he was gone and he joked that of course we were getting married and that it would be a double wedding on Saturday. Ha! What a guy. Anyways I’m really looking forward to the wedding party, Arnar and his wife are already married so this is a celebration. I was thinking I may be able to get some use out of the dress I brought with me but the wedding has a dress code – Icelandic sweaters. Fantastic.
Yesterday Halldóra came by again with the kids and we had a nice day chatting just about life things in general. I really appreciate how much I’ve gotten to visit with her, she really is a great person and we’ve had some enjoyable conversations. (I can’t remember if I’ve written this already but she has been a part of Alþingi (parliament) with the environmental/feminist party, cool eh?)
Lóa and I looked at the book that Eydís and Karl had given me about 50 ‘crazy things to taste in Iceland’ the night before so she decided to make “saltkjöt og baunir” which is a pea soup with salted lamb. I think everyone was worried that I wouldn’t like it but I love pea soup so much, especially after the couple trips to the cabane à sucre while I lived in Trois–Rivières and Québec City. It was quite good… I’m going to need pea soup when I get home avec sirop d’érable.
For dinner we had rice pudding which I normally don’t like and avoid all together but it was down right delicious. After dinner I helped Helgi come up with a couple of games to play at the wedding as he is MC-ing and then we went for a walk to see a couple of waterfalls. The simplicity of nature is utterly incredible, we sat in the meadow of the 3rd waterfall and chatted for a bit before heading back home and calling it a night.
To end I’ll just say that this experience has been amazing.