First Week

Words to describe this first week would be stressful, exciting, fun, beautiful, and expensive. It has been stressful getting settled into Iceland. I can't register for classes, get internet, or a bank account until I receive my Kennitala (an Icelandic social security number) so that has been really stressful. Although almost my whole dorm is having the same problem. It was also a pain to get my phone to work with an international sim card, and although it finally is working I have no access to my address book. That means I can't add new contacts to my phone, so I have been writing them in my notepad. Things are also expensive here, and grocery shopping is rather confusing with most things being in Icelandic. I'm also not used to cooking all my meals, so this a new experience.  Hopefully by the end of the semester I will have some new cooking skills, so far its been mostly sandwiches and toast for me. :)

But besides all of this, everything else has been great. Iceland is so beautiful and I am so happy that I came here (check out my pictures at http://emilyiceland.shutterfly.com/). The past couple days the weather has been really nice and Reykjavik is just so beautiful in the sunshine! I spent one afternoon by the pond (Tjorn) that is less than a 5 minute walk from my dorm taking pictures, watching the ducks,  soaking up the sun, and writing in my journal. My dorm is pretty nice too. I get a single room with lots of storage and we have a nice kitchen on each floor. My floor spends a lot of time in the kitchen, either cooking or just talking. There is usually always people in there and it has been nice to get to know everyone. We have students from Croatia, Japan, USA, Canada, Norway, Germany, and Pakistan on my floor. An Icelandic student even moved into our floor the other day and she is super nice and strangely her English doesn't really have an accent--if anything it would be like a Midwestern US accent (although she's never been to the US). It is definitely good to have an Icelandic student in the dorm because she can tell us what we should do while in Iceland, where to shop, etc.

So far I've only had one class, British Literature, which is going well. All lectures are recorded and slides put online so if I ever can't go to class, it is not a huge deal (she also doesn't take attendance). Although right now since I am not registered I don't have access to the website where those are posted. It seems most classes here get graded mostly on a final and/or midterm. 40% of my grade for this class in on my midterm and 60% on my final. The other classes I am taking, which start on Wednesday, are Pronunciation and Speech I  (Icelandic language class) and Icelandic culture.  So right now I only have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, although I may need to pick up another class (even though this is considered a full schedule at University of Iceland).