After school, I hang out with Sturla a lot. Mom takes us home, me on my scooter, mom on her bike and Sturla kinda runs along with us while we all talk and have fun. One of our favourites is to stop at the Icelandic bakery on the way - a pictures is here for you to see. Oh my, they make really neat things. Sometimes we stop at a famous hot dog stand or go swimming after school because they are all close and between Sturla's and my house. Sturla's family is from Brussels so he speaks Icelandic, French & English. His mom & dad are Icelandic and he has 3 brothers & sisters. This is where I got to stay for five days while mom went on her glacier class trip for her school. We had a 5-day sleepover! :) fun...
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Mom and I spent the past week in Scotland, mostly so that I could see real castles and it is very close to Iceland. Well, I now know what it feels like to run around and feel how kings, queens and knights lived in the Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle and Urquart Castle were the main ones. I learned to paint models for strategy games, watched the soldiers that'd served in Afghanistan had just arrived back in 'Scotland. They marched down the Royal Mile (High St) from Edinburgh Castle - some held swords. We toured the old vaults underground Edinburgh which are believed to be haunted with an old history of hundreds of years, well the whole place is full of stories 1000's of years ago! Jamese IV that had athe bible brought here by translation from Hebrew to English was born in Edinburgh Castle. A couple days later we headed north to Stirling Castle, the oldest in Scotland - it is strategically set on a high hill overlooking the land. Mary Queen of Scots lived here among other King James', Charles and we saw where they lived, cooked, fought battles. Heading north to Inverness, we took a boat up to Uruquat Castle which is in ruins but on the Loch Ness where we could see the remains of towers, rooms and the main gate knights brought all up from the loch. It was attacked so many times by the English and someone by the name of McDonald, I think. I wondered if there really is a Loch Ness monster in the river, which is very deep (750m) from old glaciers that scraped it. I saw a submarine that someone used to find the Loch Ness monster. Loch is gaelic & means lake in english. The best part is mom bought me two swords at Stirling castle that I played with at the castle, on the train and carried with me everywhere.
In March, I started at a private school, Landakotsskóli, that specializes in language so that I could be with more English-speaking children. A big stone church is beside my school, even tho it is not part of the school it's next door - a very old with a long, long history when Christians first came to Iceland and converted people from a pagan life. It was getting kind of hard to be in the Icelandic-speaking school even tho my teacher and friends were so great, it feels so good to have friends that speak English. I'm still learning Icelandic and every week there is a wood-working class, among other interesting things. There are only 7 of us in grade 3 class. I use my scooter to go to school now, mom usually bikes beside me. One family is from Nelson, BC - they lived there for 10 yrs and now live in Reykjavik cause the mom is Icelandic and dad, a Canadian doctor. They are coming to Kelowna in August so maybe I'll see their two boys, one is the same age. My best friend is Sturla, he's very cool, and comes over almost every day after school. Sometimes, mom gets us something at the bakery on the way home, or go swimming and for ice cream, or just jump and play on all of the big lava rocks behind where we live. When we were all walking(Sturla)/biking (mom)/scootering (me) along, on Wed, Sturla said, "Niall, when you grow up, you should be a dare devil." Mom laughed so hard she almost fell off of her bike. He knows me pretty good even tho we've known each other such a short time!!! I turned 9 years old Feb 28th :) At school, my class sang 'happy birthday' in Icelandic and English,, then gave me a huge Icelandic flag. Mom brought cream puffs & coconut things with yellow happy face balloons. After school, mom and I went for a lil bite to eat at a place called The Laundromat Cafe on the main street downtown Reykjavik, called Austurstræti. It's a neat cafe with cozy rooms downstairs for kids to read books and hang out. On Saturday, mom took me to a horse stables where a woman, Karine, took me for a ride on an Icelandic horse through some trails and lava fields on the edge of Reykjavik. On Sunday afternoon, all the boys from my class came to my birthday party at Skemmtigarðurinn Smáralind, where we played lazer tag, table hockey, drove bumper cars and ate pizza. FUN!!! Last but not least, for my birthday I learned it's most important to think of others who may not have as much. I lent $25 to a guy named Lernik who lives in a village named Syunik near Kapan, Armenia. He's going to buy two bulls and hay for his cattle with the total loan which he pays back thru a micro-lending program called KIVA. If you'd like to lend the same guy for my birthday present, that'd be brilliant, the link is by clicking here at Kiva. Caving: ice crystals!! On Mon nite, mom and I went caving at a cave is named Raufarhólshellir. I wore a caving helmet with a bright light so I could see in the pitch black. I liked the cave wall, it looked like smeared, smooth lava in bright oranges and black colors. The cave floor was covered in ice cone formations, they looked like clear crystals! I took a huge ice crystal and lava rock from the cave, home for my collection. Reykjavik Winter Lights Festival last weekend was an Icelandic celebration of the winter and the growing light after a long period of darkness. At school, all the children and my friends dressed up kinda like halloween in Canada but nothing scary, for example there were farmers, anything you can think of, and since my shirt had a snowboarder on it I was a ROCK STAR :) We could bring a treat of anything we wanted so i took a bag of M & M's...Yummeeeee! We are never allowed sugar so this was real cool.
On Friday night, mom and I walked downtown as all the museums were free, there was acting, music in the street and many shows to go to. My favourite was the blacksmiths working under the night sky making knives, scissors and blades of all sorts as men together working, one man turning the fire burner and other men banging on the hot iron with sparks flying everywhere. One man making a knife stopped once in awhile and played a whistle-type instrument from Siberia, we asked as it was real different sounds. In the Settlement 871 +- Exhibition, there were real Viking men with their sheilds, swords, iron mesh helmets and we saw the remains of the oldest home in Reykjavik which is under the ground and we learned how they built the house and lived there. I made a pirate hat ,ship and eye patch at the Viking Maritime museum on the ocean. There were guys there that talked about space exploration and i learned about star searching before going thru the whole museum about the history of Icelandic fishing and maritime stuff. The big Reykjavik library had all of the lights out and people were all over playing chess or reading books in the dark with flashlightss. Mom and I had brought our flashlight and she read two books to me in the dark...one was about Shrek and the other "The Hungry Alligator". We went to the Art Museum, kinda boring, with some of mom's friends, students from Japan, Spain and France. We went to Burgertime, a burger joint with the best burgers in town and the street is also called Burgerstreet (haha), down at the harbour. Some other activities we could've gone to were hip hop and street dancing, dark rooms, swimming pool night, museum night, making snow houses, singers, actors, circus acts, storytellers, architecture with lights & shadows, video and comic exhibitions, witches story time, poetry slams, dream interpretations, folk songs in the dark and origami workshops for kids. If you want to look at all the stuff it's at this link Reykjavik Light Festival. Hlíðarfjall, Iceland. Snowboarding at sunset. This past weekend, mom and I went on a ski/snowboard trip to Akureyri, Iceland. It's about a six hr drive north of Reykjavik. The ski hill is called Hlíðarfjall. I was so good on a snowboard, mom had to switch from snowboarding to skiing to keep up :) heehee. There's no trees on the ski hill! Way different than Canada. But it's still awesome. It was fun, too, because we went with a group of students on a bus - some of them wanted me to teach them how to snowboard and were really nice. I love snowboarding & am learning how to do jumps. Soccer in cold, dark winter months. We played soccer by bundling up in warm hats, gloves, pants and jackets in January. It averages 0 - 8 degrees C, warmer than Canada yet still cold! Reykjavik is almost to the Arctic Circle, at 64 degrees North latitude. Nothing much stops soccer here. In Feb, now we have a little snow on the ground yet I think we'll keep playing :) The best ice cream in Iceland is at Isbudin, lucky for me it's near the soccer field. They have original or creamy ice cream with all kinds of yummy choices to put in or on top of it. Mom & I bike together to get me ice cream after soccer quite a bit. I think ice cream is best in winter as it doesn't melt! ;) My last day at school for now, in Iceland Nov 28/12 On my last day of school before returning to Canada, my class had a special good-bye time. We had Icelandic cookie treats, my friends told me the things they liked about me, most said I was good at soccer, dancing & fun! My teacher, Heida, gave me a nice Christmas book about the 13 Santas in Iceland - they are all trolls! For the 13 days before Christmas, each troll visits the children in Iceland with presents each night. The children leave a shoe on their windowsill at night for the present. If they haven't been 'good', they gave a potato! My teacher remembers getting a potato from a troll santa one nite, after she poured milk into her brothers boot that went sour heehee. It was sad to say 'good-bye'. Some of hugged and said we'll miss each other. I hope we come back :) Ari and I at the Star Wars Symphony together, Nov 27, 2012. My friend, Ári, from school came with our family to the Stars Wars Symphony at the Harpa Concert Hall, Nov 27, 2012. The music was great, we had a drink at intermision and met the Star Wars darth vader and people after. |
AuthorHi I'm Niall. Mom and Lexie are going to help me to write the things that happen in my adventurous life. Archives
May 2013
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