Welcome to Iceland, may I see your credit card?

I knew before coming here that Iceland was going to be expensive. The friendly folk at Lonley Planet claim Iceland is second only to Japan in cost of living. I successfully managed to overlook the cost of goods in Japan for 3 years (perhaps to the chagrin of my bank account) thus thought 2 months here would be a cinch. However just how expensive the supermarket in Sauðárkrókur is versus the rest of Iceland caught me a bit off guard. Even though I am on an account, I cannot bring myself to take chicken breasts to the cashier at $44/kg - no matter whose money it is! In order to quench my chicken appetite I’ve purchased legs at a reasonable $12/kg. Last week I was in Akureyri, Iceland’s second largest town at 15,000 people and went to a store with prices that were remarkably comparable to Canada. I was in shock. Amazingly Campbell’s Mushroom Soup goes for about $1 there compared to the $2.50 that I shell out. The chicken legs were probably free...

However being an island nation, fish is a bargain in comparison. Anyplace where smoked salmon lox is cheaper than salami can’t be all that bad. Thus my sandwiches have comprised mostly of smoked salmon and for that I can't really complain.

Meals

The only meals that I really have to cook are dinners. Breakfasts, lunches, and teatime snacks are in the university cafeteria. Mmmm… teatime… Icelandic cooking isn’t the friendliest to calorie counters, and the teatime cakes are dreadfully delectable. Once the clock hits 3, it's off with the rubber gloves, off with the raingear and out the door for a relaxing afternoon tea. Trevor, my predecessor here, said teatime was his favourite. Now I know why.

Accommodation

Thankfully I don't have to pay for lodging because I have read that for rustic (shall I say meagre) accommodation anything upwards of $100/night, even as high as $800/night, is not uncommon. My accommodations are definately better than rustic, thus would probably fall somewhere within that range. However, if I do venture out of Holar it may cost me a small fortune to find a place to rest my head. It's a good thing there's lots of camping.

More Icelandic Moments - Photos

To view the collage, click on the collage.
Or to view each individual photo, click here.
Or perhaps a slideshow of them all, click here (this may require some time to load depending on your connection speed).

Því miður, ég tala ekki íslensku. Talar þu ensku?

I'm sorry, I don't speak Icelandic. Do you speak English?

Friends have asked how my Icelandic is coming and I have to frankly reply that it's not. I have resigned myself to not learning it for the following reasons:
1. Icelandic is not easy. It would take some serious brainpower and time to learn - two things that I already seem to be slightly short of.
2. Almost everybody speaks English.
3. I am only here for 2 months – thus spending time studying does not seem to be an efficient use of my precious time. Plus, who wouldn't rather be out exploring than hovering over books?
4. Virtually everybody speaks English.
5. There is very little opportunity for me to use Icelandic once I get home – I may be able to find someone to talk to in Vancouver, but chances are slim, especially since there are only about 260,000 people in the world who speak Icelandic with a native tongue.
6. Nearly everybody speaks English.
7. There is really no one to teach me here. Obviously there are many people around me who speak Icelandic but speaking and teaching can be 2 very different things, especially when one asks questions like, “Why are there 8 conjugations of the word table?”
8. And practically everybody speaks English.

Thus I’ll stick with my native tongue for now. Even the French girl who is here for 5 months has resorted to improving her English over studying Icelandic. However I have met several people at the college who have been able to decipher and communicate in Icelandic – most impressive. I'll still try to pick up a few words here and there, but any ambition that I had of becoming fluent is quite honestly, beyond hope.

---

If you are more ambitious than I to learn Icelandic or just want to hear what the language sounds like, there is a great website hosted by the University of Iceland called Icelandic Online. It offers basic Icelandic lessons with sound demos as well.

Postcards from Iceland

For those of you who may be wondering if I made it to Iceland or not, I thank you for remembering me stationed atop of the world. I did make it here and am surviving quite well. I apologize for the radio silence that has fallen on my communications. No excuses really, except that I have been experiencing the experiences that Iceland has been offering.

Already, it has been 3 weeks since I left Vancouver’s YVR and landed in Reykjavik’s KEF. I had my fair share of trials and tribulations getting here, the first of which was at customs entering the country – not the warmest welcome I can assure you. Next I was transported by taxi, bus and then car to the edge of the world, here to Holar - where I did receive a warm Icelandic welcome.

Where, What and How is Holar?

Holar i Hjaltadal is a small village about 12 km inland from the ocean, perched on the side of the Hjaltadal Valley in north-central Iceland. An area of once great religious significance, the village is, and has been for the past 900 some-odd years, home to Holar School. Nowadays called Holar University College, it is here that I have been volunteering as an Aquarium Technician. Yes, a fancy title for a tank cleaner but you’d be surprised that when cleaning tanks, the number of issues that arise and require more than just the knowledge of a water bucket and scrub brush. However that’s not to say that I am good at solving all or any of these problems – it’s just a title. Back to Holar though...

The town, village, berg, is very small. On most maps it would constitute little more than a speck of dust or a pinprick. Here in Iceland though, it is a full-fledged dot. With a population that swells to a whopping 200 during the school year, the summer has about half that number of residents. Of the summertime transients, there are about 15,000 tourists that flock to this area to take in the history that Holar has to offer. The buses have already started arriving, though by June I hear that they will be thick as the mosquitoes will be.

Needless to say, a village this small does not have any stores, shops or cafes. Here I can lead a quiet country life and live a slice of Iceland that most tourists don't get to see. The largest nearby town, Saudarkrokur, is 30 min away by car as is the only supermarket. The supermarket, named KS (pronounced Cow-Ess), is known for it’s exuberantly high prices, even by Iceland standards. But they are the only one in town, literally, so it's a feeding frenzy of laissez faire capitalism.

What have I been doing?
When I left Canada, I was telling people that I wasn’t really sure what I would be doing other than cleaning aquariums as a volunteer. That, however, is exactly what I've been up to for the past two and a half weeks. In theory, it’s easy – grab a brush and scrub. In reality it is not that easy. Cleaning the tank itself is not that hard. The algae scrub off of the rocks and glass without too much difficulty. It's the cleaning of the gravel and sand, then putting it all back into the tank so that everything is presentable that presents the problem. An artistic eye and a patient attitude are virtues in this job, both of which I've been striving to cultivate. But the job is getting done and I am proud of the results. Though, whether visitors to the aquarium will notice the TLC or not, is another question.

---

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and take a look. I'll be updating No Postage whenever there is something noteworthy or when the wind blows just right - whatever happens first. If you like, please leave a comment, or send me an email when you get a chance. Takk Fyrir!

Icelandic Moments - Photos

Just a few pictures of Iceland to show that I have actually made it here. To see the photos full size and not overlapping click here. Otherwise you can simply click on the photo to enlarge.

Welcome, ようこそ, Bienvenido

It was time to create a blog. The problem was, what should I call it?

Since it was going to be a blog mainly documenting my travels to share with my friends and family, it needed a name other than simply “Thoughts of Bobby” or “Bobby’s Blog.” I thought of a few, but it was only in that half asleep, narcosis state that one reaches at 22000 feet after 10 hours of being boxed in window seat 26A, did I stumble across the title. On a subscription leaflet in my Discover magazine, it read: 12 issues, $24.95, SAVE 58%! NO POSTAGE NECESSARY IF MAILED IN THE U.S. Tempting I thought as I squinted through the blackness. But for a title of my soon to be created blog, how apropos! In this age of electrons whizzing down wires, presenting information at the touch of a fingertip or movement of a mouse, postage seems almost obsolete. Don't get me wrong; I love to receive a solid hold-in-hand letter. But more than likely, gone are the days of travelling where you sit down with a pen, a stack of postcards as thick as your thumb and a roll of stamps as long as your arm and go at it.

So through this blog I hope to send each one of you a little postcard of where I am and what I am doing. A little less invasive than a mass spam-mail, though a little more personal than sending nothing at all, I thought this blog would be a great way to passively keep in touch with friends and family.

Come now. Visit often. Stay as long as you like. And there will be no need to allow 6 to 8 weeks to receive your first issue.