Hi again!

After 3 weeks full of work and travelling and new experiences, I have finally found the time to write an update for that blog.

As announced I will now try to find (not too many) words for everything that has happened in the past 3 months, that I spent in Iceland doing my EVS.

I left Germany on the 18/08, taking a plane from Berlin Schönefeld to Keflavík. My mum and grandma were there to say goodbye to me and my dad went with me to Iceland for one week. Before this last goodbye I already had completed a whole marathon of saying goodbye to all the people that I love, so the prospect of it being finally over, was kind of a good one.

We arrived in Keflavík in the late afternoon and it felt a little bit like coming home, because we recognized a lot of things. Iceland even greeted us with a rainbow to make up for the cold wind. My dad got the car we were going to rent for the next few days and luckily it was big enough for two people and 2 huge suitcases. Packed like that we drove the 50 km to Reykjavík and checked in our hotel.

The first thing we noticed there, was the open window and the heating running on full power – welcome to Iceland! 😉 The evening was spent in the city, eating burgers and ice cream and realizing how well we still know downtown. In spite of all the different emotions we slept tight and so we could start the next day with a lot of energy. Which was good, because we needed it for the 600 km to Laugar. The drive was just amazing, that`s something you can’t really describe, you have to experience it.

With every hour we came closer to my new home and the tumult in me got bigger and bigger: In retrospective I can say, I never have been this excited and scared and nervous before. At some point we really reached Hjalli and I knew after one second that I will be happy here, I just felt it. Cornelia and Alli welcomed us, we brought my suitcases into “my” house and then had dinner together to get to know each other better.

And after that arrival everything started. I visited Litlulaugaskóli, the place I work at the most, for the first time, met my new colleagues and Christina, one of the volunteers who was here for the last project (Chance to change). A huge thank you dear Christina for telling me so much and giving me the feeling, that I could do it! At the end of the first week I finally got to know the children, who I now call “my children”. Especially Valdi greeted me really friendly and told me, that he will teach me Icelandic, what he really does every day. 🙂

Of course I had a lot of first times here: The first day at the primary school, my first Icelandic lesson with Cornelia, my first movie in the cinema in Akureyri (Monster University in Icelandic :D), my first normal school days, my first day in the kindergarten and at the high school library, the first time at the swimming pool and the gym, my first real guitar lesson and so many more things. And about each one of these moments I could write 10,000 words at least. 😉

Some of my working hours I spent working outside at the farm with really nice weather, cutting sorrel to keep it from spreading its seeds even more and raking hay.

With a lot of work and so many new experiences and challenges the time was running and is still running. Soon one and a half months were over and the EVS On-Arrival-Training (short OA) took place in Úlflótsvatn. During the OA I got the chance to meet 20 wonderful people, who are also volunteering in Iceland right now. In 5 days we learned a lot about EVS, non-formal learning, other EU projects, Iceland, the other volunteers and about ourselves. But beside all the learning, we had enough time to play table tennis, talk, sit in the hot tubs and visit some beautiful places like the Blue Lagoon. I had a great and special time at this training and am already looking forward to the mid-term training in January.

As I came back to Hjalli afterwards, I had the feeling to come home, which felt sooooo good! 🙂

By now I have something like an everyday-live here, but still every day is special and different and I get a lot of new experiences on each of these days.

The adventure continues!