The adventure has calmed down a little bit from my last post seeing as I wasn’t moving from town to town (until yesterday) but I still have plenty of stuff to share!
I took Saturday as a lazy-productive day, slept in, did laundry, I even showered! We didn’t do too much during the day, Adda and I had some great conversations again and boy do I want to be like her when I’m older (I think I might be). She is so nice and caring but also has a little sass to her too which I love! Such a beautiful woman to have been able to actually get to know, not just through facebook.
On Friday a friend from Canada, James, had contacted me as he was going to be in Reykjavik with his mom on Saturday and was wondering if I wanted to meet up. So I went into town Saturday evening and walked around with him and his mom for a little bit and we ended up having dinner at a little café down by the harbour. James’ mom is fascinated by cemeteries (like I am) so we walked around the old cemetery in the city centre. After a bit more walking James’ mom headed to the hotel and we made our way back to the car. I drove James to Höfði, the building which had held the Reykjavik Summit between Reagan and Gorbachev back in the day. Afterwards we drove around a little making our way back to drop him off at his hotel.
Sunday was another lazy day with a good sleep in and chats. I went into downtown late in the afternoon to buy a couple of different books on Iceland, one on Icelandic Folk Tales, Snorri Sturluson Edda and a big compilation book of different Icelandic sagas. When I got back to the house one of my 3rd cousins, Ingólfur (who is the same age as my brother) was there and shortly after Maria and her son Uni (half brothers with Ingo) came for dinner too. It was a pretty good time, among many other topics we ended up talking about language and what types of words I would and wouldn’t use in English being from Canada, compared to England or other English countries.
Ingo came back over Monday afternoon so I chatted with him quite a bit and he shared some of his music taste with me via youtube. We most definitely do not have the same type in music he is very into heavy metal, black metal and electronic, dubstep stuff where as I much more enjoy indie pop styles. Play a guitar and some sing me some pretty lyrics… much more my style. But it was still fun, I learnt a little about the different between electronic and dubstep and … another thing do to with drums and bass or something? I think that I’ve decided that I’ll only listen to that stuff when I go out dancing. Anyways, later in the day we did some errands for Adda and picked up pizza for dinner. I drove Ingo into Hafnarjörður so he could meet up with one of his friends and I made my way back to pack up my stuff at Adda’s house.
Tuesday morning I woke up early to drive to the airport to pick up my grandparents. Though they were excited to see me and be in Iceland again I could tell they were tired out from the trip. The had flown from Calgary to Toronto, had a couple hour lay over before boarding the overnight flight to Iceland. I drove us to Adda’s house where she had been up making waffles and had the coffee ready. We chatted for a bit before my grandparents took a much needed nap. While they were sleeping I went with Adda to the hospital to pick up some medication, she stayed in the car while I found my way to the pharmacy. I’m so glad I know how to say ‘talar þú ensku’ I have no idea if the grammar is correct but it gets the point across and then I can communicate… in English. When we got back to the house I started knitting another hat and by two pm the grandparents were awake and ready to eat kjötbollur (meatballs) which is my afi’s favourite. Adda’s daughter Dora (who owns the bakery in Akranes) came to pick us up and drive us to Akranes. When we got to Akranes we met up with Chris… or Diddi as they call him here and he helped us get groceries and settled in the apartment. After dinner I chatted with grandpa about my trip so far and showed him on the map where I had been. He started telling me all these fantastic stories from when he grew up – summers on the farm, camping in a field to watch the sun set on the longest day of the year, being sent up north with other kids from the area when the war started to heat up. He told me about seeing the warships and a couple of planes that had been shot down and his summer on the fishing boat with Guðmundur (the old man from the farm). It was fantastic to hear all of these old stories.
Earlier in the day grandpa said that he didn’t know I was interested in Iceland and that he could have never imagined it, I suppose I never really said anything about it growing up but I always knew that I wanted to come here. I always hoped that he would take me on one of his trips but never said anything. I’m so glad that we are here together now, I know that I will appreciate this experience more then I would have before and I’m so fortunate that we are able to do this together. I’m also looking forward to me dad getting here on Friday so the three of us can share this.