Day 25

July 5, 2018

1:03 AM Iceland Time

Today Þora and I went to a pool I hadn’t been to in Kopavogur. After going to that pool, I have now been to 7 out of the 10 pools in the greater Reykjavik area! Afterwards, she took me to see some more of my relatives. She introduced me to her older sister and her eldest brother. They were all very excited to meet me! We first went to her older sister and talked about our shared ancestors over coffee. (I thought I drank a lot of coffee, but in Iceland they drink a lot of coffee any time of the day. They don’t add a bunch of crap to it like we do in America with creams and sugars, and the portions are small; its great!) She had some old pictures of Skarpi, Þora and their other siblings as well as their parents. We made plans to meet up later in the week to go to another pool that I haven’t been to with her.

Þora and I

Þora's sister and me

Next Þora took me to see her eldest brother Gisli who is 81. She had told him we were coming, and he was very excited to meet me. He had plates of fruit waiting for us on the table, print outs of our family tree from Islendingabok, and a map of Iceland he wanted to give me. He was very eager and interested to hear about my side of the family! He even remembered when someone from my side came to visit Iceland during Icelandic Independence Day back in the late 50’s. Þora has a guestbook that her grandparents kept with signatures from all of their family’s visitors over the years, and it seems like my relatives that came to visit are different than the ones my parents originally thought had come.

I am the first in my family to visit Iceland since then, and I seem to be bringing a lot of the family back together. I guess most of the family doesn’t really talk to Gisli much anymore, and they have been a little vague as to why, but my presence has brought them back in contact! We talked a little bit over an hour, and we had to go to make dinner since her daughter Brynja and her boyfriend were going to come over. He didn’t want me to go, he said “you should have come over earlier, we have so much to talk about!” I guess the family finds him a bit boring since he talks rather slow and can go on and on for a long time about one thing, but I found him to be very sweet. I may see him again before I leave, but Þora didn’t seem too keen on going back to see him.

Þora made us a nice dinner of lox og kartafla (salmon and potatoes) and her daughter Brynja and her boyfriend Petur joined us. We were talking about family connections and Petur had me check to see how we are related and turns out we are 7^th cousins! When we were just about done with dinner, Þora’s husband Jonbjörn made it back home from their summer home in Djupavik. He is the marine biologist I had been talking about in one of my previous posts. We talked briefly, but I had to run out the door to work.

At the museum there was an event tonight, hosted by the youth group Endur Hugsa that I have been working with. They had made some vegan food and had a few art performances. I took pictures of the event, but I didn’t understand most of what was going on since it was all in Icelandic and they were talking pretty fast. I could understand about 15% of what they were saying, but that was about it.

The event ended late, so I thought I was going to head home and go to bed, but when I got home Þora and her husband Jonbjörn were drinking wine and wanted to enjoy each other’s company. We talked and talked about all sorts of things; the history of Iceland, our family, American politics, Icelandic politics, traveling etc. They are so sweet, and they treat me as if I were their own daughter. And man are they hilarious! Jonbjörn and Þora are so cute together. Jonbjörn talks a bit slower, and Þora talks fast. When Jonbjörn would try to explain something, Þora would get annoyed and try to finish what he was saying, and he would get annoyed of her talking so fast. We were all laughing pretty hard! They may plan to come visit me in Hawaii next year hopefully! I would love to have them come and visit!

Anyways its getting late and I am pretty tired. Stay tuned!