Whats new... I wasn't feeling well on Monday, I had a terrible sore throat, and upon Steinberg's insistence, I went to the emergency room. He was hoping that if i had strep throat we could get me medicated before it spread to the rest of the crew. Well... no strep for me ... just a cold, BUT when I got to the emergency room a doctor walked right out to see me, and after a half hour the bill was a hundred bucks... of which John paid. It was an interesting Iceland experience.

So today was the last day in the field... and we are all both happy and sad. I am injured, and have a slight cold, so I am excited to be able to rest and relax, but Iceland will be missed. Today a backhoe came and backfilled the site, and then we had the pleasure of re-turfing. It was so warm and beautiful though that it was like our first day in the field weeks ago. Tonight and tomorrow are going to be crazy, with lots of packing and cleaning, but its exciting.

We are all going a lil crazy and I think its time to leave. We get goofier as time passes, and some of us I think have been going somewhat insane. We leave the house Friday at 2am to head to the airport... and then we will be back in Boston noon, eastern time. Its hard to believe its time to go. Most of us have had moments where we said 'I just want to go home' but that seemed so far away... now its here and its bittersweet.

But Iceland have been an amazing experience and the prospect of coming back next year looks better and better. Check out new pics that I just put up! And be sure to check out tess and ken's pics. Ken has panoramas of the sites and such which are AMAZING and interactive.

It's been a while since I've last blogged. Time is running down here and there is so much to do. Our weekend trip was absolutely amazing. We drove all over Iceland, and saw a ton of amazing sites (which i have pics up from). Even the hostel we stayed in Saturday night was pretty sweet. Tess has pictures of the room up on her flickr. We've been digging like crazy and have been blessed with great weather. ... as a result i got pretty terrible sunburn on my ears that I have been suffering through. There really hasn't been much rain, but I know that can change very quickly... and I'd rather work looong days in nice weather, than shorter ones in terrible rain. This last Saturday was our day off and we all just appreciated being able to hang around the house, do some shopping in town, and just veg. It was much needed down time. I am getting homesick now but its bittersweet. Its so beautiful here that I will miss it when I leave, but I am anxious to get back to real life. Rumor has it the project heads are grooming us in the hopes that we come back next year, which a lot of us are thinking of doing, so it helps for me to think that this won't be the last time I am in Iceland.

A lot has been happening here. I worked a few days at Seyla and dug a huge hole even deeper. The weather the past few days has been absolutely amazing, however the farmers here haven't seen nearly enough rain. We are finished at Seyla now and the whole crew has been moved to Medalheimur, the site that had all the thufars. We opened up a huge strip along it and have been digging (mainly with shovels) like crazy. The dirt is so dry from the lack of rain that it constantly goes into our eyes and lungs. But we still have to appreciate all the sunshine... at any moment we can be digging in horrible rain, and that's much worse than some dirt. We've uncovered a series of walls that would have belonged to a turf building which held sheep. The pictures on flicker show the 'unit' punctuated with stone and turf lines. Essentially we spend our days mapping these walls, and pulling back the turf to better understand the building, which appears to have had an addition that truncated the older building. The days fly by though and this weekend is our big excursion... 8 of us... "the kids" ... are going on a weekend trip to Snaefellsness (which is a place with a glacier) and then we are spending a night at a hostel. On Sunday we are going to the 'Golden Circle' which is Geysir, Gulfoss (a waterfall) and Pingvelir (whish is essentially the mid atlantic ridge above water). The weekend is gonna be hectic but amazing... and we are hopefully gonna be able to do it all for under $200 which is good enough for me. Its our only overnight adventure and we are gearing up for it, having already stocked up on junk food for the many hours of driving. Anyway... things are essentially amazing here... Everyone is getting tan and I am going blond (go figure) but we all start the day in 4 or 5 layers of clothes... which come off, and go back on, regularly throughout the day. The dinners here have been excellent and they will be missed while we are traveling this weekend. Check out the pics... I added about 100 more ... :o)

Today was an interesting day... I dug more at Stora-Seyla... check out my pics to see how freakin deep that unit is. It was absolutely freezing today. The highlight of the day however is that I am learning to drive a standard. I only stalled about 13 times... which is apparently pretty good for iceland. And no offense to my bro who tried to teach me to drive stick the first time, but Doug (the guy teaching me) is much more patient. Needless to say I am pretty impressed with myself :o) ... I hope to keep it up and actually learn. Thats all for now. I think there is more horseback riding in my plans for tomorrow... its my only day off this week (back to work on Sunday) so I have to make it count.

I've been working my butt off this past week. We've been at this site called Medalheimur where we have been removing thufars so that we can open the a big cross across the whole site. Thufar removal is a physically intense practice! I have some pics up of whats been going on. I spent today raking grass so that Mike could take it out with the weed wacker... Iceland grass is extremely hard to get rid off... the scythe wasn't enough. So even though we are constantly raking and shoveling, I try not to stop because that's when you feel how cold it is here, around 8 degrees celsius today. We are working a 6 day week this week but I am looking forward to a day off... maybe horseback riding again! Anyway ... check out the new pics, especially the ones of Tess and Pete knife and shovel fighting.

SO today was an amazing day! Besides just bumming around the house and walking around town taking pictures I went horseback riding ... for the first time ever. It was awesome... and my ass is killing me. You can check out tess's pics to see one of me on the horse. The ride was only supposed to be an hour but we got to ride for like and hour and a half all over the countryside and past an AMAZING waterfall. I do have a pic up of the waterfall. (or will if my comp dies before i get to upload them). The weather was nice today to... I was able to sit down by the beach for over an hour and then walk up the small hill behind our house. The water here is so blue, and the sand at the beach is black since its volcanic. There is a small playground I discovered near the house with the same sand in the sand boxes... which are essentially giant kitty litter boxes.... There are cats everywhere! But they all have bells and collars and are extremely friendly. I'm thinking of smuggling one home. Thats all for now...

So today I got to dig at a sight called Stora-Seyla where we dug a huge hole, and where the pictures that I am posting on my sight are mostly from. Anyway... i have to go b/c there is lots to be done... so there was my mini update... oh also its beautiful today!

PS I posted the link to tess's pictures too ... see side menu :o)

SOOOO I can't figure out how to post pics but heres a link to a page I created so you can see them http://www.flickr.com/photos/9592880@N03/

They don't go in order but thats not important.

Anyway, today I got to stay at the house and float soil samples, which was fun with our homemade float tank, of which pictures will be posted soon. And there is this little black kitten who keeps running into our house (who goes by many names: Conrad, Ambrosious, Mitten, Flash, and Bucket) which is fine by me, but John, the director of the project, isn't so cool with it. It was 8 degrees (Celsius) the past few days and rainy, but we worked through it... needless to say the highlight of my day is the hot tub after our showers at night... and delicious soup from the restaurant we have dinner at: Kaffi Kroker.

That's all for now!

I had my first day in the field today!!! I was doing stuff with these things called thufars, which are these obnoxious mounds created from the constant thawing and freezing of the soil. I also got to play with this very expensive machine called a total station to plot points for the site. I'm so exhausted! BUT we went in the hot tub after showering today which was amazing. Also, it was a crystal clear day, which is unusual, and you could see the tops of all the mountains, some with patches of snow at the top. This weekend we are going to try and climb a mountain called Tindastoll which I am really looking forward to! I should have pictures up tomorrow of how amazing it is here!

First few days

We survived the 4.5 hour plane ride and made it to Iceland at 11:40 at night… although with how the sun was it seemed like what 8ish would be back home. After getting our luggage, buying cheap booze at the duty free stop, and going through customs we got in the cars to head out to where we are staying…a 4 hour drive. We made a couple of amazing pit stops first. 1) To a Viking ship, and 2) to the home of Valur and Gudrun, friends of John’s, who let us use their bathroom, and …. SURPRISE … fed us cream filled pancakes, pancakes rolled with sugar inside, hanging leg (awesome smoked lamb) and a jam and oatmeal cake at 2 in the morning. Their view of neighboring Icelandic farms was amazing and the experience in itself was surreal. As we ate we heard stories of the areas history, particularly the history of several churches which ended with local people stealing both the church bell and the church’s silver chalice to keep the treasured symbols in the hands of the locals. We finally got to our place at about 5:30 in the morning and to bed around 8am...
I woke up at 10 though so that I will be tired for tonight before start work tomorrow. We were able to spend the day unpacking and then taking a trip around the area to all the sites that we will work on these next few weeks. Supposedly its really cold today, but this is how I imagined it would be … its something like 43. It's beautiful here as the pictures will show and I feel like I'm in a dream. Its all not that real to me yet. Hopefully I will have more to discuss soon...

Also I will figure out how to add pictures eventually!

Coming Soon

Iceland stuff coming soon... once I get there. Lol!