Day 4

June 13, 2018

8:23 PM Icelandic time

Started the day with Icelandic lessons where we are beginning to be able to make some small conversations and know how to make words either masculine, feminine or neutral. We also have learned some words relating to food. Then we had an Icelandic history lecture.

Some neat facts that I previously didn’t know about Icelandic history was:

-the Landnamsöld (Age of settlement) was from 874-930.

-Icelanders are very proud of the fact that their Alþingi (parliament) was established in 930 and is the oldest parliament in the world!

-In 1380 Norway and Denmark united and Iceland became a part of the Danish kingdom

-June 17, 1944 Iceland was proclaimed an independent republic at þingvellir.

After our history lecture, we went to the Settlement Exhibition downtown. This museum was built on top of the oldest building left from the first settlement in Iceland. The exhibit had all sorts of ancient viking items such as axe heads, nails, keys, tools, glass beads, loom weights,  and fish hooks. I personally thought it was really neat to see the foundation of an ancient Viking building. At the end of the exhibit there was a little section for children that we checked out that was really fun. It had instructions for some of the games that the Vikings used to play. Some of them were similar to tic tac toe, chess, checkers, spinning tops, ect. There also was a copy of the runic alphabet so we were able to all write our names using runes!

 

Then we went and had a guided tour of the parliament building. It was beautiful inside with marble columns, crystal chandeliers and some neat paintings. I appreciated the fact that in Icelandic law they must always use 1% of the building budget of any federal building for art work. One of the pieces they had was this interesting stone circle on the wall with a hole in the middle. You were supposed to press your ear against it, and there would be Icelandic phrases whispered into your ear. One of the fun facts that I learned on the tour was that Iceland had one of the first women to hold presidential office in the world! I also found it interesting that in Iceland there both a prime minister AND a president. 

The past 4 days have been a blast, and I am still super excited for all that lies ahead! We have a full schedule, and pretty much any free time that we have had we use for studying Icelandic and exploring the city. I am loving every minute of this trip! Stay tuned and check back tomorrow for more adventures!