Final Day in Iceland

Tuesday started out like the days before it. Breakfast at Sunna, and I walked down to a small shop to get myself some things in case we couldn't stop for lunch. But at 11 we headed down to the Culture House, where there is a permanent exhibition of the Icelandic Saga Manuscripts. An interesting thing about Iceland is that the language has remained mostly unchanged since the settlement of the island back around 870 AD. That means that the Icelanders, minus slight pronunciation changes and the introduction of new words, speak the language that the Vikings spoke, true Old Norse, or as close to it as we have in the year 2009. So, with very little training (mostly in reading the abbreviations used by scribes) elementary age children (and any Icelander really) can read the original Sage manuscripts without much trouble! Our guide/teacher at the Culture House was very excited to share this with us, so much so that she was quite flustered while talking. We were able to look at (behind a glass display case, at least) old, and in a few cases original, manuscripts of Njal's saga, the Prose Edda, Egil's Saga, and much more. It was an amazing experience. Then, we were able to write on vellum parchment with traditionally accurate inks and feather quills that our guide had prepared for us. It was quite awesome.

We had a quick break, where I went to the bookstore and bought an Icelandic copy of the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturlusson, and then went to a gift shop with Courtney, which almost made us late to the bus (good thing I had bought food earlier). We made it to the bus just in time, and then went on an hour and a half journey to Reykholt, the home of Snorri Sturlusson, the most well known Saga writer in Iceland. We had a guided tour by a woman who was very knowledgeable about the history of the entire area of Reykholt, telling us much about the old church that had been there. We stopped by Snorri's pool, which was the man's personal hot spring pool. We then headed back home, after helping to push start our bus. The bus driver provided some very stimulating conversation, both on the way to Reykholt and the way back, mostly about his views on language planning/policy/purism in Iceland, but also some about the history.

I went down to the Cafe Babelieu, which some of the girls had visited before. It was owned by a New Yorker expatriate who had moved here when his partner's visa to the US had expired. I was hoping to run into him to say hello, but an Icelandic woman was working the place. I had some coffee, Broccoli Soup (wasn't a huge fan, but I figured after I had gone through the ordeal of figuring out what "prokkoli" soup was, I owed her the right of trying it), and a delicious slice of Cheesecake. I walked back to Sunna, packed my suitcase, and then intended to turn in, as we had to be ready to leave by 4:30 the next morning. But, a knock on my door alerted me to the fact that Colette, Sarah, and Beth were going to the Celtic Cross, an Irish Pub in town, and wanted to know if I want to join. I did, and had a pint of Egil's Lager while writing postcards home. We headed home around 12:30 AM, and I went to bed.