Chapter 2: Day 29: 19 Feb 2019

Back to reality for a couple days. This morning we had British History and completed our presentations which luckily I had done before we left for the weekend. Before class started Emme came in and was feeling under the weather so we talked for a bit and she asked if I could take her lunch duty. Since, I wanted her to get better and not share her germs with anyone else I said I would love. Lunch duty was fun, nothing too exciting, but it was fun working with a different group of people than I usually do.

After lunch duty I curled up with my heater and attempted to work on homework. I was semi successful and got half of my paper done before Malachi came in and was talking to me for a bit before dinner. When we were done with dinner I relaxed for a bit before having my Career Exploration class. Tonight we worked on resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Since I just had my senior seminar class before coming here I did not need much help on setting those up, but it was still good to go and learn. Once class was over I hunkered down again and worked on homework until bedtime.

Chapter 2: Day 30: 20 Feb 2019

Today we had a field trip! For class today my British History class and the Scottish Heritage and Culture class all went to the National Mining Museum. In the morning we all caught the bus about 40 minutes out of town and made it to the museum. The tour lasted about an hour and was jam packed with useful information…I think. I tried to pay attention, but when there is a about fifteen of us trying to listed and the tour guy is very soft spoken in a large factory, it makes it hard to hear no matter how close you are. From what I did hear I found it very fascinating and would like to go back and learn more about it. While there we got to tour the factory where the coal was sent up to and even got to go into a mock-up mine. It was very scary and interesting to see the conditions people work in.

After the museum we got on the bus and headed back to the house. When we got back to town Malachi and I stopped at the bakery in town and each got a doughnut to bring back to the house. The Heritage and Culture class had afternoon class, so Maddie (my roommate also in British History) went back to the room and both took a very much needed nap for longer than we both planned, but it was wonderful. Around 4 I woke up and had to get ready for dinner duty! Most people will complain about having to work in a kitchen, but I love it! I think that it is very relaxing and a good way to get my mind off of everything. Dinner duty went well and then after dinner we had a cooking class.

One activity that Henry (chef) offers is a cooking class. Since I love to cook and always appreciate free food I signed up for the Scone and Shortbread class. As you can guess we made Scones and Shortbread and got to keep everything we made. There were about 10 of us in the class so we all snuggled in and made delicious sweeties. I mostly worked by one of the professors husbands (Chris) which was fun to talk to him and get to know more about his family and how their travels were the past weekend. Once we were done with the cooking class we cleaned up and packed up our sweeties and were off for the night. After that I found Malachi and we spend the night doing homework, or at least attempting to and planning for our trips in the future. Since we were both tired we actually decided to say goodnight at a decent time which was fantastic.

Chapter 2: Day 31: 21 Feb 2019

Today was our last day of Module 1, so it will be the last day I have the British History class. While I love the professor and enjoy listening to how passionate he is about history I am excited to move on to my next class. After class I packed for our trip to Iceland this weekend! Since we are leaving right after lunch I wanted to get everything packed and ready to go, so I did not have to worry about it later. Around 2pm we (Sarah, Malachi, Ellie and I) were off and heading for the airport! It was a bit stressful getting to the airport as there was more traffic than anticipated, but we made to time our gate with enough time to get a water and start boarding.

Sarah and I ended up getting across from each other on the flight so we talked the whole time which was nice. The flight was just under two hours so it want by quick and before we knew it we were in Iceland! Once we landed we went through customs and found a can. Since we got in late we did not want to have to try and find the bus route. We hopped in the taxi and headed to our AirBnB.

Our place is located about 40 minutes out of town which we did not know, but luckily there was a grocery store nearby that was still open. After a bit of struggle trying to get into our place we made it in, dropped our bags and went to the store for some food. Once we got back to the house we made some dinner and all had a relaxing movie night.

Chapter 2: Day 32: 22 Feb 2019

Our first morning in Iceland! We were all kind of tired from the last week so we all slept in a bit. Malachi and I were the first ones up so he worked on homework while I caught up on journaling. After a while Ellie got up and I went in to see if Sarah wanted me to start breakfast. We laid in bed for a bit before I got up and make Sarah and Malachi breakfast! When breakfast was over I cleaned up and we all relaxed and hung out while trying to figure out our plan for the day.

After a while of relaxing we figured out how to get into the city by the public bus to go to our meeting spot to get picked up for the Blue Lagoons. When we got into town we went to the hotel we said we would be at and waited..and waited…and waited until we had to call the bus company to see what happened. They said that they could not get us from the hotel and that we needed to go to City Halls, so we walked over there to learn that we had to wait a half an hour for the next bus.

Once the bus finally got there we got on and learned that we had to do a bus transfer at a garage which added more time, but we finally got to the Lagoons an hour later than expected. Luckily we still had 3 hours to enjoy the Lagoon, face masks, and sauna! It was a fantastic night and felt so good to relax, float and watch the stars. After the baths we headed back to the garage and expected to get a ride back to our AirBnb like was confirmed, but just our luck we ended up getting stuck there until we had to call a cab to take us home. After a long day we were happy to be home.

Chapter 2: Day 33: 23 Feb 2019

This morning we all decided to sleep in since we were all under the weather. It felt good to get extra sleep and have a lazy day. We had no plan for the day and tried to find something to do, but it was a gloomy, rainy day so we were just lazy and relaxed around the AirBnb for a while.

We tried to find a way to city center or a place to go walk around, but there really was not anything to go see in city center. After a while we wanted to get out of the house, so we walked down to the coast and explored around before stopped at the store to get food for dinner.

Since food is so expensive we decided that making dinner would be the best idea! It was very fun to make food and have a night in watching movies, playing cards and doing puzzles. We tried to look up tours to do, but did not have much luck so we decided that we should just play it by ear tomorrow. We were all about ready to go to bed when we learned that we had to be out by 9:30am so we decided that we had to find something to do. After A LOT of research we finally found a tour that took us around the Golden Circle so we booked it and went to bed for a few hours.

Chapter 2: Day 34: 24 Feb 2019

After about two hours of sleep we were up (5:30a) and getting ready for the day. I made breakfast for everyone, we cleaned, packed and caught our taxi to the bus station. As per usual when it came to transportation out taxi was about 15 minutes late, but we were close enough to the bus station that we still had time to get there and catch our tour. On the tour we got to see Kerid Crater, Gullforss Falls, Geysir & Strokkur Geyser, North American, Eurasion Tectonic  Plates in the Pingvellir National Park and a lot of the beautiful countryside! I am so thankful that we were able to go on the tour and actually see Iceland before heading to the airport.

Again because of our luck the plane was just over an hour delayed and we had to stand in a  crammed, hot corner for about 45 minutes and then got moved to the bridge from the airport to the plane for another 20. When we finally got our seats we were all hungry, tried and ready to be home. Since we had been in the airport for so long we were hungry and wanted to buy a bit of food on the plane when we learned that their oven was broken and they ran out of cold sandwiches. And just like that our bad luck continued. Since we all had a head cold our ears were hurting during take off and even worse during landing. Once we landed and got off the plane it was too late to take the bus so we took a taxi back to the house. A bit into our ride the driver told us that his credit card machine was not working and of course none of us had cash, so when we got back to the house Malachi ran inside and grabbed some of his extra cash. It was a very long, but fun weekend and it felt good to be home and in bed!

Thank you for reading! 🙂