Our first few days....

Let us begin with how awesome it is to be in ICELAND! After an uneventful plane ride and ample questions on what to expect, we arrived at Keflavik airport at 6:30am, in time to watch the sunrise, and met the three other students who had arrived earlier. In full force, we forged fiercely onward in our personal turquoise bus for 45 minutes to the lovely village and our home, Solheimar. Famished, we wolfed down the breakfast buffet waiting for us at Brekkokut, our guesthouse and home for 12 weeks. After a tiring day, we settled into our rooms and enjoyed a much-needed naptime. We were greeted by Palin (pronounced pow-lean) and were given a tour of Solheimar, with its various community spaces and workshops. We are all looking forward to partaking in candle-making, weaving, ceramics, soap-making, wood working and the other excellent artistic ventures of Solheimar. Then we visited Sesseljuhus, our future classroom and the first sustainably constructed building in Iceland. All around us, the village of Solheimar is the picture of sustainability, with grass roofs, wind mills, and geothermally-heated greenhouses abound. Not to mention, the staple pool and hot tub (heittur pottur!), both heated with geothermal water and used abundantly by all CELL members. After exploring our new home for the next 3 months, we all went happily to bed dreaming of adventures to come!
The past few days have been filled with community lunches, pool excursions, exploratory hikes in the area, wild blueberry picking, informative classes and crash courses in Icelandic. We will all be fluent in Icelandic by November. Probably. The reading assignments are already piling up, with book reports, Icelandic Saga’s and history to learn. We couldn’t ask for better instructors than Meg and Jeffrey, who are even better roommates, travel-buddies, and friends. Tomorrow is the big hike from Landmannalaugar to Thorsmork! We are all very excited to get on the trail, even though the weather may prove to be a bit… soggy. More mind blowing, pulse quickening adventure recounts to come.

Michelle and Angelique
(photos by Elizabeth-Anne)