plans plans plans . . .

the language course I´m taking is only four weeks long . . . which means we have a big scary test this Friday morning, and then almost all the participants head back home shortly after that.

I am staying here until October 5 . . . And I don´t quite know what I´m going to do. I know I want to get around Iceland a bit, see some things I haven´t seen, camp a bit, take lots of photographs, talk lots of Icelandic (hopefully improve a lot with practice!), visit my relatives here, and possibly also go see some museums in Denmark and Norway that have stuff that will help with my PhD (mostly artifacts from Iron-Age Scandinavia, particularly iron things - swords, staffs, etc... - and evidence of smiths and how smiths operated in communities). I´d also LOVE to go to the Faroes, and there is a ferry that runs from Seiðisfjorður in eastern Iceland, to the Faroes, Shetland, Denmark and Norway . . . so maybe I´ll take that!

Not sure what I´m going to do next week. One of the participants is renting a car and driving around Iceland in 8 days. I´m going to ask how he´d feel about some company - we both like taking photos a lot, so it could be an excellent photography trip, but he doesn´t speak Icelandic much at all (it´s REALLY tough) so might not be such a great week for language practice. Another option is to do volunteer work up in the north in the highlands, making nature-hike trails etc... I´d have to pay about $40 CAD for 5-6 days of accomodation and food, and then do tough work making trails most of the day, hopefully talking with a lot of nice Icelanders, and maybe getting to see some interesting places and take some photos and go on some extra hikes if I have energy and if my knees and back are feeling ok. There isn´t really any way to get up to the north (or anywhere) for that cheap, and it´s certainly a great deal. So maybe that´s a good starting point for further explorations . . . we´ll see . . . Either way, I´ll be without internet for a week or so, but I´ll post when I return - IF I return: maybe I´ll take up residency in the highlands beside a glacier with a half-troll like Grettir did in his saga . . .