New apartment

EDIT: I forgot to mention, the bedroom has both a keylock and a hook lock (the kind where there's a loop on the doorframe and a hook on the door). We didn't check to see if the bathroom has a lock or not, but the front door has a peephole. I'm not sure if it showed up in the photos, but there's a wallphone right next to the front door in-between there and the bathroom.

EDIT x2: She just called us and said we can move in the foldout/sleeping couch, and she'll move out one of the beds.

I'm moving out of the student apartments and into an apartment near the main shopping street. The room is a little bigger than the room I have now, and it comes furnished. Everything is included in the rent, even internet (which isn't wireless). It's a "shared apartment", there are two other "rooms" besides ours - one hosts two Polish guys who've been living there a while already. The kitchen and bathroom is shared. The rooms are further apart from each other than ours and our flatmate's right now.

The rooms are in better condition, it seems fairly soundproof to the traffic noise, we have our own fridge and television (the fridge is about the same size as the fridge we share with our flatmate now). The freezer is shared and is in the kitchen. There's a washer and dryer in the laundry room, and the landlady pays for and brings the laundry detergent to the bathroom. The rooms are meant for two people to live in them anyway. The room is non-smoking.

The landlady is around sixty-five years old, I think. She's Icelandic, she has a son who lives in China right now. She studied abroad in England when she was younger. She doesn't rent to Icelanders because every time she's rented to them, they've messed up the room and been too noisy and stuff, when all the foreigners she's rented to have been just fine. She has cancer and can't work, so she gets her income from renting out the rooms. She says it's the most fun she's ever had. She's talkative and really nice. Rent is 45.000isk ($396.86 US as of now) per month and rent is paid one month in advance, so the first month we pay twice that.

Here's the outside of our apartment, from the street.

Here's the stairway. We're on the top floor. On each floor and as you go up the stairs, there's random artwork on the walls. The windows on the staircase are clouded over so you can't see through them though.

This is the entryway after you go inside. It's what you see once you go in the door, close it, and are looking from our bedroom to that spot.

Another photo of the entryway. To the left you can see the bathroom and to the right is our room with the door open. By the way, the apartment is probably around thirty minutes walking from the apartment we have now, I haven't timed it yet.

Inside the bathroom. The medicine cabinet has something that looks like little window shutters on each side.

Our room. There's a tv, four tables (two glass, one wood, one the tv sits on), two beds (one with a blanket over it), a dresser, a closet with shelves on the right and a spot for hanging on the left, three chairs plus one office chair, two heaters and two windows. There's also two sets of coat hooks, one by the door and one on one side of the closet. On the walls in various places there are hooks for hanging stuff.

We asked if we could move some of our furniture into the apartment but she didn't want us to, and on second thought it would be really hard to get it in the door and up all those stairs anyway. She said we could switch the blinds out with the curtains we have and we can put stuff on the wall, it's just the furniture she didn't want us to change. She said "The way I see it, you're the ones living here so you're going to have to live with whatever you do to the room, not me."

Here's the kitchen. The cupboards are stocked with pots and pans, dishware, and other things that I can't remember right now. We also have enough room to put anything they don't have in the kitchen that we already own, in our room.

The left side of the kitchen.

The right side.

The clock and shelf on the wall.

The view outside our right-most window, to the left.

View to the right.

Next time we go, I'll take photos of the side of our bedroom that we forgot about, and also the front door from the stairway.

We found the ad by looking at this page, which is an online version of the rent ads that are in the newspaper by the same name. She had posted the ad in English, probably because she said she doesn't want to rent to Icelanders.

Aside from the apartment being at the end of the main shopping street downtown, it's also right next to a bus station, two second-hand shops, the "Foss Hotel", and "11-11" grocery store. These are all within two blocks of the apartment.

As for the school, a couple weeks ago they sent an Email to everyone asking them to fill out the attached form and either Email it back to them, or hand a printed version to the office, by the fifteenth of this month. The form asked if you were renewing your rent contract for another year, and if not, where you were going to be staying in summer. It also said if you're not going to be staying another year, to go online to the student housing website and sign in, making sure you say there that you're moving out as well. When I asked at the school, they said you're supposed to give at the least one month's notice, and at most three month's notice. After that it just depends on how fast they can find someone to move into your flat. I couldn't remember my username or password for that site so I'm going to the office on Monday to ask about it. The office for student housing is on the upper floor of one of the school buildings, next to the counseling/student services center.

I updated the photo album with around eighty photos before I wrote this post, so you can see them here.

Christmas, New Year's

Over Christmas Jox from Sweden came over, and we did a lot of walking around and visited different shops. We didn't go outside of the capital area because Jox didn't care about seeing touristy places. On the 23rd is when we went down Laugarvegur, the main shopping street of the downtown area, and the shops were open late. There were carolers holding candles, (I think?) the Red Cross giving out free hot chocolate, a few booths selling cotton candy and sugar-roasted almonds... I bought a small bag of the almonds for something like 500kr (which is a bit expensive if you ask me, but I was in the Christmas spirit at the time).

There were at least three spots where various people were singing into microphones or music was playing just on this one street, too. On the Youtube account there's videos of at least some of the things I'm talking about.

On the 24th of December, at least in my group of friends, the Icelanders go around delivering gifts to their friends for the day. Roxy and Snorri came by to deliver presents to me, then left shortly after to do the same to the rest of their friends. Jox and I just stayed at home if I remember, because one of us was sick.

On the 25th we went to Snorri's house for a dinner with his family. After that Jox and I walked around outside in the snow for a bit, looking at the Christmas lights on the houses.

For New Year's we went to Snorri's house for a dinner with his family again, and then everyone sat down to watch the annual New Year's comedy show which parodies all the Icelandic events that happened over the year. Some of it's political and some of it is "cultural", like the fact that one music video got really popular and was used to draw in tourists.

First I was sick for part of Jox's stay, and then Jox got sick after I recovered. So we didn't do a lot. But Jox just bought a plane ticket to come back on February 13th, to try and get a job here.

After Jox left I haven't been doing much, it's just school. Today I went to the fabric store to buy fabric and ribbons to make something like this, a Nordic flag garland. It seems popular to put bunting on Christmas trees with the flags of the country you're in here, and it used to be that you could find paper flag garlands with all the Nordic flags together on one string, but now you can only find them with a single flag (so, a pack with only Icelandic flags or only Danish).

I was thinking of getting a job in the summer, most likely working at a kindergarten because you don't have to have any qualifications except passable Icelandic for that. The first and second semester of school will probably be the hardest too. I heard that here, they make the first years of a major harder to try and weed out the people who aren't actually that interested. I don't know how true that is though.

Sorry that I haven't been sending many postcards, but I'll try to remember. I haven't been doing anything so it feels like I don't have anything to write about.

Concert, Snow

A few days ago I went to a concert for Jónas Sigurðsson by the pond. It was 2.000kr for a ticket and the venue was (what I imagined to be) small. The seats were like movie theater seats, red and covered with fabric. It was a shame we had to sit because this was definitely dancing music. In between songs they explained how they came up with the song ideas and such but I couldn't understand most of it. I couldn't understand the song lyrics either.

Yesterday was my first day back at school after my week's vacation, and today was the first day of snow! It only snowed for a few minutes that I saw (maybe five?) and I think it turned into mini hail by the end, but it all stuck to the ground. I hope it snows more later today, it's still ten in the morning so there's hope.

A friend, Edward, is coming to stay with me through December and some of January. We're going to buy some Swedish Christmastime things (food I think?) so he feels more at home.

There's a Halloween party and my friends are all going, the theme is "Wild West". I don't think I'm going and I don't have a costume anyway, but two friends are going as Uncle Scrooge and Goldie. I was thinking about getting together a thief costume, but there's no point if I don't go anywhere (although I might just keep an eye out all year and have it for next year).

Misc. stuff

We saw a lot more films before the festival ended (on October third). I had my moving in party, a lot fewer people than we invited were able to make it. I forgot to take photos or videos. Next week is the midterm break so I don't have any school, I just plan to do homework.

At the library is a book exchange (take one, leave one) and I saw an Icelandic-English-Icelandic mini dictionary there so i was thinking of getting it.

Protests have been really frequent here, it seems like almost one every two days. I went to one the other day which was a big gathering - a YouTube video was circulated to promote it - and next week there's a "camp out all night" protest. Here's some videos:

Walking to protest
Protest one
Protest two
Downtown in evening (we were talking about a movie we just saw)
Bridge (it changes colors)

Here's a picture from one of my classrooms.

This is a "Choco Ice" waffle I got from the Waffle Wagon, a yellow van that drives to events and hangs out downtown on weekends and sells waffles. It had vanilla ice cream and chocolate but it was too sweet and I couldn't finish it.

This is the view outside my front door, the clouds here are really cool sometimes.

Film Festival

The Reykjavík Film Festival is going on and some of the movies are shown just a few blocks down from my flat. I went to the festival last year too. So far we've seen:

"Steam of Life" (good)

It's basically filming Finnish men talking about their personal lives while in saunas. It was good and had good music, although I was got really sleepy partway through. I went to the vending machine later and got a drink but instead of water I got "Orka" by accident, an energy drink. I had thought it was water because the label was white and blue but the brand (Egils) is a soda brand so I should have known.

Then we watched a few Icelandic shorts. One was "Try Again" (good), about a man who is about to attempt suicide and gets interrupted, so by various circumstances gets locked out of his flat in only his underwear and has to deal with various neighbours. There were no subtitles but it was easy enough to understand that I got the gist of it. Another was "Knowledgy" (okay) which was great until near the ending, which left me with a "could have been better" feeling. It was about a film student who's late on his rent so the landlord makes him film some things to make up for it.

"Breki" (good)

Based on real life about a fisherman who died at sea. The movie follows his son as he remembers things at a therapy session. The camera was shakey and the picture was the type of thing you would see on a home movie, or memory sequence. Most of it is random memories of the father with his young boy, around five years old. The movie was made as a sort of memorial not just for the son who wrote the script, but for the Director who knew(?) the man as well.

After these and two more shorts which were so terrible it's not worth mentioning, the Directors of a few of them got onstage to answer questions. No one really had any. It would have been much better if they had asked for critique.

Then later, we watched Mamma Gógó (okay) about a lady who gets Alzheimer's and gets sent to a home by her family, while her favourite kid gets worse and worse into debt. I liked the main character, the stuff surrounding her, and the music a lot. But I didn't much care for all the parts that focused on her son. The subtitles were there but they literally flickered on and off, were slow compared to the dialogue, and sometimes turned almost translucent, so it was hard to read.


I had to buy more stuff for school and I need more clothing. My jacket isn't helping much here either because it's too big on me so the wind goes through it anyway. My bus pass was delivered though.

I went to the flea market and got old postcards, but other than that I've just been going to school. I made a study buddy from Britain but we haven't been able to get a study session going yet because he had to go to the eye doctor's, among other things, so his personal errands have become backlogged or something. He has an advantage over me because he studied Danish for at least a year before starting Icelandic, and then he also took formal classes for Icelandic back in the UK.

It's hard finding easy things to study from because even the simplest books for four year olds use all the more complicated grammar. I did find some comics online and I'm going to keep looking for fun stuff, for example these, which you can buy in English in bookstores too.

Uni and culture

Aino, Snorri, Karen, Roxy, and I went to Þingvellir (same place as last year) to do a photoshoot of some dresses Aino had made. It's about forty minutes away. Karen and Roxy modeled, Snorri drove, packed lunch, and took photos, Aino instructed the posing and took photos, I carried bags and took photos. Tourists were blatantly staring at us most of the time even though some of them were wearing much stranger clothing, like neon green boots.

We got coffee and ice cream at a roadside tourist shop which was a few minutes from the actual place. The only restrooms were there - there were some at the site but they were closed. So far the most tourists I've noticed have been German, I've found them in the grocery store at the mall too.

Classes are going alright. I have four classes, all for learning Icelandic (Culture, grammar, pronunciation, self-study, etc.) and have one class Mondays, three on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Aino has signed up for a culture class taught in English where they visit museums and things but I didn't sign up because I was unsure of what my workload would be like.

Most of the teachers are fine except for one who speaks to us as if we're native Icelanders, so I can't understand what she says most of the time. Most of our textbooks are entirely in Icelandic. For classes we follow powerpoints, read aloud from articles and pick out words we don't know, and have group conversations like "When is your birthday? Where do you live?".

There are twice as many foreign students now than before the economic collapse. There is a café on the ground floor of every Uni building. It used to be that annual bus cards were free for students but because of the collapse that isn't true anymore. You can't completely trust the Uni's website because a lot of information, at least on the English version, is outdated. Even so they might change something at the last minute and not tell anyone.

We went to get our bus cards too. There are two windows at the Hlemmur (downtown Reykjavík) bus station, one for regular bus stuff and one for bus cards for students. You have to give them your kennitala (social security number), phone number, Email, a USB with a photo of you on it, and pay them the card fee (either with cash or card). My debit card wasn't accepted for some reason so I had to pay in cash. You can choose to pick the card up in a few days at the bus station or the University, I chose the University and I should be able to pick it up today or tomorrow (after paying for it Monday).

My card also wasn't accepted when I tried to buy more phone credit online, so I had to pay for credit at the 10-11 convenience store a block from my flat. Instead of buying a plastic card you tell the cashier you want phone credit for your brand (mine is Vodafone) and you can get it in 500, 1000, or 2000kr amounts (just round it up to $5, $10, $20). They print a receipt for you and you call the number on the receipt, then you get a text when the credit goes through saying how much you have.

While in town we went to the library and I got a library card. It was somewhere around 1.200kr. I also noticed they don't group books by language like the US does. For example, in the Icelandic history section there was books in Danish, German, English, and Icelandic all on the same shelf. In the US they would probably be in a "foreign language" section then broken down into a History or non-fiction subcategory.

I've noticed in Iceland they use texts for a lot more things. For example, I was texted when the book I reserved at the student bookstore to buy came in. I was Emailed a copy of the receipt they gave me when I bought the bus card. My landlord also contacts me by Email.

Friday Roxy has a party because she just moved into a new apartment so I'll be going to that. I also never had a moving in party so mine will be held next week, it was going to be this Friday until we found out Roxy's was on the same day. My Swedish friend Jox is going to come visit me for a few weeks in December-January and he is also learning Icelandic, it'll be his first time in Iceland.

I live on Eggertsgata instead of Akrasel now and I changed my address with the National Registery, so if you want to mail me something and don't have that address contact me. Remember to mark packages as "gift" or I'll get taxed.

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.