3rd Day in Iceland

Monday started with some breakfast and then a meeting with the group. We went over a reading we had that proposed a view of Icelandic language planning/purity that we had not yet heard, which was nice. We then set off for the Icelandic Language Institute for a talk by its director, Ari Pall Kristinsson. I had done a project last semester on the ILI, and had read about Kristinsson, so it was really cool to hear him talk and get to meet him. He was quite a bit younger then I had expected him to be. But he talked to us about the role of the ILI and the Icelandic Language Council in preserving the language and what kind of trends had been noticed for the future. A great lecture to start the class out with. An interesting side note about Iceland is that there are no family names as we have them in the United States, minus a few exceptions. A child takes on their father's first name with -son or -dottir added on. So I would have been Adam Toddsson, and my sister would have been Kady Toddsdottir. This works in a nation with about 320,000 people, but I wonder if they will be able to keep this system if they grow larger.

After our meeting, we had the afternoon free. The majority of the class, minus myself and maybe three others, went off to ride Icelandic horses in the countryside. I later learned that Icelandic horses are NOT Icelandic ponies. One of the first laws in Iceland was to restrict the import of horses into the island, once an Icelandic horse leaves the island, it cannot return, and Icelandic horses are the only horse with a 5th gait, and it is supposedly so smooth that you could hold a pint of beer while riding without spilling a drop. I decided to go by the University of Iceland and look around. It was a very interesting place (maybe for a master's degree?), with some wonderful older buildings and some very modern and beautiful buildings. I went into the bookstore and spent a bit of money on a shirt (even though I was hoping for a sweatshirt) and some books. I then walked to the main shopping streets or Reykjavik and went to the Kebab Husi∂ and had a Doner Kebab, which was good, but not as good as Germany. I did some shopping, and am pleased to say that I was quite often talked to in Icelandic, a language that I have no command of whatsoever. I ran into our professor, Claudia, and we went and looked around a cool Icelandic bookstore, which we both recognized as a mistake when we parted with more of our money. 

After a little more wandering, Claudia, Kristiana, Sarah and I went to dinner at a place called Vegamot, which is named after the street it is on, not vegetarian food. I had a nice BBQ pork sandwich with a Thule Beer, which was the "Beer Deal" for the day. After that, I went back to Sunna, watched a little bit of How I Met Your Mother, and then went to bed.