Wednesday:  Day of Rest

Thursday: We attempted to go on a trip up north by after 30 minutes in the car we had to turn around because you couldn’t see 2 meters in front of the car and the wind was fierce.  We retreated back to the dorm and planned to spend the afternoon at the skating rink.  It was nice to get out on the skates and play some hockey.   

Friday: We lounged around in the morning and then went to the sports hall in the afternoon.  As a group, we’ve rented out the sports hall every Friday evening for 2 hours.    It is nice to get everyone together to play some volleyball, soccer, basketball, and floor hockey.  In the evening, the school organized a dinner at one of the restaurants downtown.  Since a local men’s store was purging its inventory because it was relocating, most of the guys bought several new sport coats, ties, and shirts and wanted to wear them out on the town.  So we all got dressed up for dinner.   

Saturday:  Day of Rest followed by the Easter Vigil Mass.    Sunday:  In the morning, we had a traditional Polish Easter breakfast.  Then we were joined by the Chairman of RES, David Stefansoon, the Slovkian professor, Dusan Holobek, and Sigrun, RES student’s problem solver, on a trip up the east side of the Fjord.   Our first stop was a historical site, to see how the Icelanders used to live 70 years ago.  I can’t believe that these were the conditions that Icelanders lived in only 70 years ago…no running water, no electricity, and dirt floors.  And this house was actually the home of a wealthy settler.  It was crazy.   Then we continued on to a mountain north of Akureyri, just at the mouth of the Fjord.  The sites were amazing and we took snow cat to the very top.     How did we get down from this 25 minutes snowcat ride?  With sleds!!!  It was so much fun and I have a lot of bumps and bruises to remember the trip.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures goes down on sleds, but I’ll try to get some from a couple other people this week.  We got home from the trip around dinner time and RES has organized a cookout for us at the dorm.  It was a great dinner and great company as we were joined by the Managing director of RES and another of RES board members, who was incidentally our grill master for the evening.  Dinner was followed by a poker game with a buy in of 200 kr ($3).  Mike you’d be proud since I won the first round and 600 kr.  I then played poorly and quickly lost the 2^nd and 3^rd round.  I was a lot of fun and in the end I broke even so I can’t complain.    That was the day, but I’d like to elaborate on the snowcat ride.  This is a message for Warren Miller and all other ski movie producers (since I know this blog is on their daily read list).  You are missing out on Iceland…it is an untouched paradise for heli skiing.  As I was riding up, I was formulating a nice narrative but pictures speak louder than words.                 

Monday:  Day of Rest with a game of Ultimate Frisbee in the evening.