Vikur tvö

Hit the two week mark and it feels pretty good.

Me and Binni went and saw the King's Speech at Sambíóin, an Icelandic movie theater. The movie was in English with Icelandic subtitles which was actually helpful to me, being that I could hear actually phrases being said in English while figuring out exactly what the casual Icelandic translation is. Before the movie Binni bought some more of the super dark licorice and I tried it and I couldn't even finish one strand. It was that strong. The theater could be compared to a smaller theater in the U.S. not like at Rave or Harkins. About halfway through the movie, the film quit rolling, the lights turned on and everyone got up and left. I asked Binni what was going on and he said it was an intermission to make you buy more snacks. I was initially taken aback, but it makes sense I suppose.

On Saturday the University of Iceland organized an "Introduction to Iceland" tour. It was from 11-5 and man it was cool. Our final destination was the Blue Lagoon,

http://www.bluelagoon.com/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Lagoon_%28geothermal_spa%29

one of the most famous tourist spots in Iceland, but by no means did that detract from its glory. On the way to the blue lagoon we also had many stops at various landmarks and turnouts that gave us a chance to see most of real Iceland looks like. Our bus tour guide was a very witty older man who had been doing these tours forever and he said we were privileged to get to see the real parts of Iceland in real Icelandic weather since it was super windy and rainy.

Some of these pictures I have stolen from some of the people I went with since my cell phone camera is not the best. It was pretty crazy seeing houses and buildings disappear in only 15 minutes of driving and be replaced by fields of black lava rocks, green moss covered stones and fields of grass and bushes. The conditions were far from ideal to go sightseeing in this country, but seeing landscape like this was almost unreal. The highway we drove on is asphalt laid, one lane each way with no shoulder on either side of the road. The aren't exits for distances rivaling the desolate arid areas in Arizona and California.

We made it to the Blue Lagoon at around 1:30 and stayed til 3:30. The picture is of Sarah, who was the most excited to be there. The water was a mystical light blue and smelt of sulfur. When you walk in, you can rent a towel or a swimsuit, go change in a dressing room, and go into the Lagoon. Showering before you enter is strictly enforced since the lagoon is not chlorinated. There are two entrances/exits to the lagoon. You walk out of the dressing room in your swim suit into a cafe type food/drink place. There is a zero-depth entry ramp that you can use to walk into the water and out a glass door or you can open the general exit door to a patio where it's a good five seconds until you can get into the water. I did not see the other entry and a long five seconds it was. It was rainy and very windy and yet as soon as you get into the water, the geo-thermal powered heat warms your whole body. Even though your head is above the water, there is enough steam to keep your face from freezing. There are facial cream stations around the lagoon where you can put on some sort of facial mask that makes your pores open up. This place has a man made waterfall, steamrooms, and a built in bar and restaurant. Pretty cool stuff. When we were finally ready to leave, we had to walk through the gift shop and passed a bath-and-body works type lotion kit with actual blue lagoon creams and saw its price tag of over $200. 

http://www.bluelagoon.com/Shop/product/544/luxury-kit/default.aspx

Leaving the blue lagoon fully content and ready for an uneventful ride home, I was in for a surprise. Most people were tired from swimming and were trying to sneak in a quick nap before we arrived home, including me. But I felt the bus slow its speed and veer off the paved road into a field of black lava ash. I look out the window and I see a huge cliff and hundreds of sheered black rocks at the bottom with waves crashing mercilessly upon them. Our tour guide said if we wanted to climb up the cliffs and we get hurt, we have to tell our insurance companies he told us not to climb them.

The wind here was for some reason absolutely ridiculous. It literally took people 10 seconds to hold themselves steady to snap a photo. Our tour guide also said that if we come back in a couple of months, this place will look completely different because the sea is eating away the cliff and rocks as we speak. The height of the waves that crashed into the rocks looked straight out of a movie. Personally, this last stop was to me comparable if not more than to the Blue Lagoon. It definitely was a wild trip and I really hope to go on the same tour again in the late Spring or Summer to get the opposite end of the weather/landscape spectrum.

Brjóstsykur

So since I'm a pretty cheap guy I have been resisting the urge to check out the Icelandic candy/chocolate scene. But today after making a trip to the post office I passed a store called 10/11 which is a late night food and drink shop. Basically like a 7/11 but with more variety. Maybe they were trying to 1-up 7/11 with their name, but one thing's for sure and it is they ain't got Slurpee's. I decided to pick up a chocolate bar, some candy which have a curious confusion behind them and some nasty looking licorice.

I just picked some random chocolate bar with a panda on it to try it out. They don't have Hershey's chocolate here so there are a lot of other brands to choose from. I also picked a box of candy coated chocolate called Smarties.

So here is why these candies are whack. Apparently, in Canada they have M&M's which are the same as in America. But instead of having pure sugar Easter-colored Smarties like we have in America, they have this M&M imitation brand of Smarties which tastes basically like M&M's with more of a candy taste from the thicker candy coating on the outside. They also claim to have the exact same product as American Smarties, but they are called Rockets...silly Canadians!

The pack of licorice looks pretty intense. I wanted to try some Icelandic licorice because my Icelandic "buddy" told me that the licorice over here is super flavored, a huge step of from the Twizzlers back home. This was the cheapest kind and I didn't want to buy a whole bag I knew I probably would not finish. I haven't tried it yet because I am prepared for the worst.

Finally got a prepaid phone over here since that's the only kind of service that is supported. No Sprint, no AT&T, no Verizon, no nothing. It is only a good deal if you have the same service as your friends because then you can call them for free. So it is arguably a better deal than anything in America if all the people you call have the same phone service. My phone did not have a SIM card so I had to borrow my Icelandic buddy's sister old pink Samsung. It's actually a very nice phone which is cool. I walked pretty much all the way across Reykjavík to find a blasted phone charger for it though. Iceland's weakness is definitely accessibility whether it be for electronics or just trying to find contact solution (which I have come to the conclusion that they only have it in Optometrist's offices). I guess because it is an import country some less common things are just hard to find.

*Alsæla*

Ég uppgötvaði að...

It looks like I very well may be playing more soccer this semester than ever before. Today I discovered a group of international students who play soccer every Tuesday and Thursday on an outdoor turf field with waist high surrounding walls. Most all the students playing are also studying at Háskóli Íslands. I was surprised at how well organized it was and the amount of people that were there. It was like showing up to play indoor soccer at a nice soccer facility back in Texas but without paying anything. It is outdoors and very well lit which couldn't be more perfect. Reykjavík was full of dense fog and misting rain, but surprisingly it did not substantially affect the players footing on the turf surface. My only complaint is that the walls are not as firm as an outdoor hockey rink per say, and the ball was kicked out of play and well down a hill a couple of times, and since the turf is lined at midfield and around the edges the students play with out-of-bounds. In high school, me and my friends never had out-of-bounds which led to continual play and play off the walls but not here. Most everyone wears flat indoor shoes, but you know there had to be the one Spaniard that wore his cleats and blasted shots every time he touched the ball. I was talking to a student from Rome that said last week they played with 10 people, perfect for two teams, for about 2 hours in the snow on the turf. He said it was just a really good football match and everyone was playing well and the conditions made it that much more fun. Very exciting.

My classes are pretty enjoyable aside from the fact I have a class at 8:20 Mon-Thurs. No class on Friday though. I have also figured out that there is no uniform end date for classes. There is a general end date for classes and a general time period for finals, but many classes end early. For example, my Icelandic Medieval Literature class final exam is April 7th. April 7th! That gives me a whole month of only 2 classes to deal with. My other classes might even get done by the first week of May I don't really know yet. Maybe if classes get done with early I can use the opportunity to travel more of Iceland or even more of Europe, as many of the U.S. students are planning to do. Most of my classes have weekly homework worth 20% of my final grade and a final exam worth 80%. Finally, classes where it pays not to do your homework! We have a week off of class the week of my birthday in February and an Easter break right before the Final Exam period.

On a final and unrelated note, I watched Fever Pitch (1997) which is not about the Boston Red Sox fan, but rather about the original idea of a mad English football fan who lives and breathes Arsenal football. Colin Chisholm if you are out there reading this which I know you are, you should watch it, because I was thinking of the relation to you and Oklahoma football the entire time. Good show.

Ég heiti Kris.

One week update

So it's been one week since I got here and a long week it has been. I got here not knowing where anything was or who anyone was, had no food, no internet and no sleep. Since then I've got a much better hold on things and it feels pretty good. In Gamli Gardur there are 43 rooms I believe and everyone is nice and friendly. I have met Americans from Minnesota, Tennessee, Washington (state), Kansas, Canadians from Halifax, Ontario, and Toronto and others from China, South Korea, Finland, Australia, and some other places I can't remember at the moment.

But yea it's going well so far and I'm looking forward to my first full week of class. I am taking three Icelandic courses all taught in English: Vocabulary I, Pronunciation and Speech I, and Icelandic Medieval Literature. Unlike learning Spanish in middle and high school, I have a much higher drive to learn Icelandic since I can use everything I learn as soon as I step outside the classroom.

I figured I should put up some pictures of our community kitchen. It's a good way to see people you don't have class with or usually see any other way that live in the dorm since we all have to eat! I am most impressed with the Asian students and their cooking habits. I asked one student from China how many students were here from China that he knew and he said 14. Many of the Chinese students knew each other before coming here and many were in the same high school class from what I understand. It's a little intimidating when I walk into the kitchen and there are 3 or 4 of them all cooking together and speaking their native language to each other, but it is nonetheless impressive the dishes they can make. They are always cooking rice, slicing vegetables, and boiling meats and they have quite the collection of sauces to top it all off. So whenever I walk in to make eggs and bacon or just boil some ramen I feel quite inferior to them.

I also did my first load of laundry today. It took a while to figure out how the washers worked but I eventually got it. Apparently for some non-American washers you have to select what degrees in Celsius you want to wash your clothes which baffles me. These washers look like robots though and sound like them too.

Another thing I ran into a lot from casual conversation to sign for gasoline prices was that every place besides the U.S. uses the metric system. So anytime I talk about how heavy something is in pounds, or how much something is in inches like snow or rain, the person I am talking to mentions that they use centimeters and kilograms. The speak of the temperature in Celsius. They speak in kilometers instead of miles. They measure gasoline in liters and it's hard for non-Americans to think of how much a gallon is. Gas is very expensive here by the way. I saw a sign for gas that said 210 Kronurs (about $2 USD) per liter of gas. 1 liter = .26 gallons, so its the equivalent of around $7.50 USD per gallon back home. It's ridiculous! It makes sense that more stuff is expensive in Iceland because it's an import country because it's an island an has to import everything they can't produce themselves but still that's a lot for gas. Nevertheless, my icelandic 'buddy' that I was assigned through the University of Iceland exchange student program still offers to drive me around and pick me up anytime I need to go anywhere.

As far as things I've been doing leisurely, I've watched two Icelandic handball games at a bar/pub place called Hresso. Apparently handball is the one sport Iceland is nationally recognized in and they are actually very good. They won a silver medal at the last Olympics in handball thus having the most medals per capita because of their small country population of around 300,000. It is quite the atmosphere when Iceland does well during the matches because the place is completely packed with people standing in the aisles between tables just to see the game on the TV and every time Iceland scores everyone yells and claps loudly. Handball is basically Iceland's substitute for English Premier League soccer in the UK. Also, Binni's mother had a graduation celebration because she just finished her master's degree in public health education so she had a bunch of family and friends come over to the house and I got invited. I met Binni's brother, sister, mom, dad, uncle, and talked to a couple of other people too. The food was great and everyone was nice. After that me and a couple of Binni's friends went downtown in Reykjavik and I got to see the vast amount of people that roam the streets late at night. Before that night I had not seen too many pretty Icelandic girls during the day, but now I understand where and how to find them all. Binni tells me all I need to do is tell them I'm from Texas and then they will fall into my arms. Sounds good to me.

Until next time, Takk and Bless!

Matt Nelson

since I'm feeling good at 2:39 Iceland time, this one's for you.

this was part of my first purchase ever in Iceland. I know you are so proud.

I also got a library card since the Iceland national library is on campus. there was this Icelandic version of a Che Guevara book and flipping through it made me really want to read the English version.

uh dats it.

ljósmyndas

This is my home:

Gamli Gardur - room 103
v/Hringbraut
101 Reykjavík
Iceland 

The outside (it says HOTEL because they rent it out to tourists in the summer but it is owned by Student Housing)

The Inside

Turns out, there is no super hub of all the food, school supplies, cosmetics and electronics like Wal-mart in Iceland. I should have expected this, because it is a relatively small country with 60% of the whole population of Iceland based in Reykjavik. The cheapest place to buy groceries is called Bónus. That being said, most groceries are more expensive than in America for sure, especially cereal which runs about $7 for some reason. This is one of my receipts from my first trip there. 

One of the things I like seeing is all the different types of food that have Icelandic or other languages written on the label. It's all new to me. Here is a cup of blueberry yogurt from Bónus.

It's about a 15-20 minute walk from my dorm to downtown where the Bónus is, but walking is really not that bad. It's a little cold but you get to see people, snow usually, and get familiar with the city of Reykjavik.

You also might be wondering how I can read this. Well, frankly I can't...yet. Hopefully I will be able to by the end of the semester, but most of the food products or signs have the Icelandic name followed by the English name. You can also pay with your credit or debit card like you are at a Wal-mart back home. The price is ISK will convert to USD and go straight to your bank account. The only difference here is there are foreigner taxes which can add up. I think they charge you an added 7% on food and they nail you with 25% on non-food items like detergent and cosmetics. It's really not too bad though.

Most places take credit cards, but cash is a very good thing to have just in case and you have to have exact fare for the buses if you want to ride one which is 350 ISK. 

The USD is about 117 Islandic Kronur (ISK) so in order to convert from ISK to USD you would divide by 117, but I normally just divide by 100 to make it easier. So as you can tell $3 for a bus fare one-way is not cheap. Walking is the primary form of transportation for most people. Make sure you have a map if you want to walk around in a city you are not familiar with though. I got pretty lost the first time I tried to do that without a map and gave myself a good scare.

I'll end this with some pictures of the snowy landscape during midday in Reykjavik. It's a really beautiful place.

How I came to where am I now

March 2010 – I discovered the University of Oklahoma has a study abroad exchange program with the University of Iceland. I filled out an application to study abroad in the Spring of 2011 with the help of my advisor, Kristian Savic. I also sign a lease for the 2010-2011 school year but only from August 15^th to December 15^th because of my plan to study abroad.

I mean how hard could it be, right?

August 2010 – I moved in to my apartment with roommates Colin Chisholm, Adam Love, and Sean McGee. I paid a visit to Kristian who I visited multiple times towards the end of my freshman year to ask him numerous details and to try to make sure the study abroad process would all work out somehow. He told me that the official deadline is not until September 1^st, so even though we filled out the application very early, we still would have to wait until we get the official acceptance letter from the University of Iceland.

September 2010 – School is going as planned. Classes are slowly getting tougher but nothing too serious yet. I visit Kristian again asking him when we will hear from Iceland. He emails some faculty at the University of Iceland and determines that although the official application deadline is September 1^st, the applications must be reviewed and decisions are not made until October 1^st. Kristian also lets me know as soon as I am accepted I will need to apply for a Student Permit which deadline is November 15^th.

October 2010 – Midway through October, no news from Iceland. I check the mail everyday expecting a packet from Iceland only to be disappointed. Late one night I get an email from the University of Oklahoma’s study abroad system telling me I have been approved and endorsed to study abroad next semester. I got overly excited and emailed Kristian to find out what that meant. He said your application went through on our university’s side but we still have to wait for Iceland’s side. Another week passes, nothing. I send an email to a faculty member at the University of Iceland asking if the acceptance letters normally take this long. She tells me that it takes about a week or two to review all the applications then up to two weeks to ship to the American addresses. A couple days before the end of October, I find the awaiting package in my mailbox. I rip it open and see what I have been waiting for since March: the acceptance letter from the University of Iceland. Hoorah! Along with the letter there are two booklets. One’s title is Guide for International Students and the other’s is How to Apply for a Student Permit in Iceland.

November 2010 – A week into November, I decided to get rolling on the student permit application since it is due in a week. I opened the booklet and proceed to read into the details. These are the key points I picked up on:

Spring semester – Application and all supporting documents must have been received by the Directorate of Immigration no later than 15 November each year.

An application for a student permit shall have been approved BEFORE the applicant arrives in the country. This means that if an applicant is in Iceland before the visa has been issued, he must, without exception, leave the country while the application is being processed.

The following documentation must be submitted with the application:

1. A completed application form for a residence permit signed by the applicant
2. One passport-size photo
3. A photocopy of the applicant’s passport
4. Criminal record check
5. Medical insurance
6. Financial support
7. Housing certificate
8. School confirmation
9. Processing Fee

This was no ordinary permit application. This was a beast from hell.

Friday, November 12^th comes around and I have everything except the processing fee which I had to deposit to a Bank in Iceland. I needed to make a bank transfer from my bank to the one Iceland and include the receipt in my application. I also needed to put an insurance deposit on my student housing in Iceland to reserve it for me which was also due the 15^th. I go to my bank explaining the transfers and that the deposits need to be in Icelandic Kronurs, (ISK) their form of currency. The banker proceeds to make the transfers as normal except when she discovers the ISK is not a supported currency in their system. She apologizes but does not know what to do. I could only think that these deposits had to be made today and now because I had to go out of town for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in an hour and I was skipping class to go to the bank. Luckily, I had the OU Study Abroad office phone number in my cell phone so I called and asked for Kristian. I explained the situation and he quickly informed me of the website xe.com that provides up to the minute monetary conversions. I told him the figures in ISK and he relayed me the amounts in USD. I made the bank transfers and jumped in a car to Missouri.

After I finally got back from the tournament, it was November 15^th. I get an email from Kristian saying that the Criminal Record Check I needed for my application had to be issued by the Federal government due to a change in policy for this semester. So basically, the ones I had before by the local police department and the Texas Government were void. I went to the website to find out how to apply for the FBI Criminal Record Check. I found out I had to get a fingerprint scan and after I mailed in the application, the process could take up to 12 weeks. 12 weeks from November 15^th is February 7^th. Classes began in Iceland on January 10^th and there was a mandatory meeting on January 5^th.

Panic ensued.

I scrambled to get a fingerprint scan and mailed the application for the FBI Criminal Record Check on November 16^th. I asked the police officer if he knew about how long the FBI Criminal Record Checks actually take. He said he got his in about a month. This was encouraging since a month would only be December 16^th and I could still plan on going legally. A week later I called customer service to check on the status of the record check. A very irate lady explained to me that it is a 12 week process, they get hundreds of applications a day, and no, I could not do anything to expedite to process. I called the next day asking the same question. The man who answered seemed like an optimist and told me if you don’t have it in 6 weeks, call us. I called the next day and got another annoyed female and another different answer that some have been arriving in 8-10 weeks, but it is a 12 week process.

Uh, what the hell?

December 2010 – the first day of the month I get an email from the Directorate of Immigration in Iceland that said as follows:

In order for the Directorate to process this application further, the following documentation must be submitted:

            Criminal Record Certificate. The certificate must be issued by the country/countries where the applicant has resided for the past five years. Criminal Record Check must be dated no earlier than 6 months prior to being submitted to the Directorate. Please note that individuals, who have resided in the U.S.A. during the past five years, intending to apply for a residence permit in Iceland, must submit a Criminal Record Check issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to the above the criminal record background check that was submitted with the application is not sufficient since it is not from the FBI.

Panic ensued.

I emailed the sender of this email begging for an extension while trying to explain that their whole system was flawed and 12 weeks from the time I received my acceptance letter is passed when classes start in Iceland and I needed a temporary residence permit in order to wait for the FBI record check while in Iceland.

She responded with an email granting me a deadline extension to February 1^st, but no the Directorate of Immigration could not give me a temporary residence permit.

Finals come and go. I moved out all my belongings from my apartment (my lease ended) and drove home not knowing where I would be living in a month, whether it would be in Iceland or in a van if I had to go back to OU in the spring.

The end of December, I emailed the same lady who granted me the extension deadline to remind her that I was still waiting on the FBI record check. She responded that she would hold my application until January 15^th. If I still didn’t have it by then, let her know. What that meant, I had no idea.

January 2010 – January 1^st was spent in Pasadena, California watching my brother march with his high school in the Rose Bowl Parade. My flight was scheduled for January 3^rd, and I still didn’t have my FBI record check. The last time I called to check the status of my FBI record check was around December 28^th. They said it still wasn’t ready. I canceled the flight and missed the mandatory meeting. I got home January 4^th from California. That afternoon my dad throws me my mail. There is an envelope from the address that I sent the FBI record check application to. I open it up and there it is. The date of completion said mid December on it. It took two weeks to ship I guess. A miracle regardless. I rushed to the post office and mailed it USPS with a delivery date of 3-6 days for $30. For some reason I did not choose the 1-3 day option for $50 I don’t know why. $50 to mail something just seemed ridiculous at the time. Six days pass and no email from Iceland. I am spamming their inbox with emails asking them if they have it but I am not receiving any response which is very unusual.

Tuesday, January 11^th – I’m already missing class. I decide that I’m going January 14^th even if I don’t have the record check. If I don’t have it by then I’ll just email them and let them know. But with or without the record check I’m going anyway. I look at flights for Thursday, January 14^th and find a flight from DFW to Boston then Boston to Iceland. I try to book the flights on Priceline. It says the flight(s) are full, please choose another set. I do. It says the flights are full again. I choose available seats and everything and yet it still tells me the flights are booked. I go to Expedia. Same thing. I go to Bestfares.com. They don’t even have flights listed for that day for some reason. Travelocity. Same thing.

I quote my dad, “Man, someone don’t want you to go.”

I accept the fact that flights are unavailable for whatever reason on Thursday so I will have to settle for flights leaving Friday, January 14th which puts my arrival on Saturday. I said screw all the dumb flight navigator websites, I’m doing this myself. I book the flights as follows: 8:40 a.m. DFW to Charlottle, North Carolina, 1:45 Charlottle to BOSTON, 8:35 p.m. Boston to Iceland. Time of arrival in Iceland: 6:40 a.m.

Every night from then on was like Christmas but instead of losing sleep over getting presents in the morning I was losing sleep over if I would get any present at all. It was all or nothing when I woke up. There would either be that stupid email I’ve been waiting for since mid November or there would be nothing and I’d be forced to wait another day.

Wednesday, January 12^th – I wake up to news.

A huge snowstorm just hit the Northeast, canceling flights.

An email from Iceland saying they don’t have my record check yet.

Panic ensued.

I check the Boston Logan Airport website. A travel advisory is put on all flights in and out of Boston from Wednesday, January 12^th at noon to Thursday, January 13^th at midnight. Good thing I didn’t book my flights on Thursday after all, I guess.

Thursday, January 13^th – My last day in America. Hopefully. I wake up to an email.

They got my record check and I have been approved to enter the country.

Everything is normal again.

Clutch.

Friday, January 14^th – I have not flown in a plane since middle school so I was pretty nervous that something was going to go wrong like most of this whole studying abroad process already whether it be in security, the weight of my suitcase, or the worst case scenario of a delayed flight causing me to miss my Iceland flight. But security went by easy as pie. I actually didn’t get patted down once. I leave DFW. I get to Charlottle. I leave Charlottle. I get to Boston. For some reason there are not any people checking bags for Iceland Air. There are signs that direct me to the line for Iceland Air but there is no employee at the weighing station. I wait about 30 minutes. She finally shows up. I check my suitcase. I go towards international security. I hand a man in uniform my passport. He takes it very slowly stares at me while flipping through it making conversation. He looks down at it and back up at me as if in slow motion. He hands it back and says “Full….metal…jacket…” I’ve never heard a “have a nice day” sound so dead and void of expression. I get through security and realize I can finally chill out for a couple hours til my flight. I grab some lasagna from Sbarro’s and call my dad. I also facebook chatted Kevin Parsons for about 5 minutes. When my flight finally got called for boarding I walked through the door, down a escalator and took a couple turns surprisingly until I finally entered the plane only to be greeted by two Icelandic women flight attendants in navy blue tailored outfits and hats. There were covers on every seat I passed with different Icelandic words and sayings. Passenger announcements are being recited over the airplane speakers in full Icelandic. I take my seat still shaking from the surreal nature of it all. Colin calls me. I tell him I’m about to do it. He says, man you’re really about to do it. I have a window seat. A lady says hello and sits next to me. She asks me why I’m going. I tell her. She tells me how much of an experience it will be. She is from Sweden. She tells me a story of how she met her best friend through a study abroad program at her university. The next year she ended up studying at her friend’s university. She said to this day they still talk Swedish to each other. Her best friend proceeded to take the aisle seat next to her on the same row. She introduced me. Announcements came on over the plane speakers in Icelandic again. I did not understand a thing. They came on in English. We were ready for departure.

Seeing Boston from above lit up was beautiful. Being half asleep and waking up to a window full of black ocean and icebergs is bloody terrifying.

We land. It is surreal. I get off the plane and take a bus to baggage claim. I get off the bus praying that my luggage did not get lost. It did not. I follow the green arrow saying I have no foreign goods to claim. As I walk more men in uniform watch me as I pass. A lady directs us to a passport check-in booth if we are staying in Iceland. I prepare all my documents proving I have a right to stay here legally. This moment approaching had caused me so much grief over the past two months. I approach the booth of two men. Not being prompted to do anything, I handed the man my passport. He asks with a smile on his face, “How long you here for?” I respond, “Uh, well I’m studying abroad so a semester.” He flips to the first page of my passport, stamps it and hands it back. I look at the stamp and all it says is the date with no indication of my length of stay. I walk down a corridor and that’s it.

I’m in Iceland.

I didn’t know whether to go crazy that it was so easy or to just be happy that I finally arrived.

And that’s my story.

But it’s only just begun…