School

Today Aino and I went to the Uni to see if we had passed the entrance exam. We both did, she's in group A and I'm in C. There are three groups that students can be put in and when Snorri's mom went to grade school the first group was for the best/most well behaved students, but I'm not sure if that's still the case. In the orientation I went to, which was for a different Icelandic program (diploma instead of degree) but had some shared information, they said the groups weren't based on test results. So I'm not sure which is correct.

Online we have a list of books needed for each course, so on the school computers we looked that up and wrote down the titles. We needed Embla, Icelandic-English and English-Icelandic dictionaries, "Icelandic for foreigners" and a workbook for that book. The campus bookstore in Háskólatorg had Icelandic for foreigners but not the workbook or Embla. Aino and I reserved copies of the workbook and found out that to buy Embla you had to go to the Uni's actual book printing shop.

The shop was just a block or two down the street, to the left of Háskólatorg. It was small and had books piled everywhere, some computers on the wall to the right, and some tables with random Icelandic magazines. They were out of Embla so they told us to wait fifteen minutes so they could print some copies of it. When we paid for the copies (1.800kr each) the pages were still warm.

The free cake and coffee mentioned in my earlier post, as well as a free bus pass for students, don't exist anymore. The page saying there was free coffee was outdated and the bus passes stopped earlier because of the economy. The school was having a music and drinking party tonight but neither of us wanted to go.

When you buy food at the Háskólatorg food shop (not laid out like a cafeteria but more like a super tiny grocery store) you get a student discount on certain items like coffee and lunches as long as you have your student card. It's either that, or you can't buy those certain items without the card - I forgot which.

I've been eating a lot more in general here than I was at home. I have to keep going back to the grocery store every three days. Tomorrow I'm going to a party and possibly the flea market to look for used dictionaries, and then next week my first classes start.

video of a walk from the school to my apartment.