My year in Iceland: April 2008

Yep, that's right, although it's hard to believe it actually exists here! But first things first. Last update was like 3 weeks ago, so there's a lot of things to catch up with. After the Easter break, we had really hard time in the school, but we managed to do other activities as well. We had a small meeting in one of the banks organized by the students union, visit in local brewery, we also had an excursion around Akureyri connected to our course - Geothermal Energy. Of course we had also some parties, and finally, I was able to go snowboarding!

After the bank event we went to cafe Akureyri for karaoke and poker game. As usual, party afterwards :)

The day after, we went to a brewery - Vfilfell. It's the biggest one in Iceland. I don't know if you're aware of that, but making beer was forbidden in Iceland until 1989! The brewery makes normal beers, as well as so called Jolabjör and Paskabjör, beers available only during Christmas and Easter. The company itself also makes sodas, mineral water and imports wines.
Buying alcohol in Iceland is not a very easy thing, but I'll write about that in the next post maybe.
We had a guide, who told us the story behind the beer production in Iceland, and also showed us the production line.

During our geothermal course, we had a small excursion. We went around Akureyri to see how they supply city with the heat. Our guide was a worker from a company named Norðurorka, which means "North Energy" and supplies Akureyri and surrounding villages with heat and electricity.
As you can see from the pictures, spring has finally come!

The oldest control panel in the world :P Our guide looked like a serial killer to me ;)

I finally managed to find some time to go snowboarding - after the classes me & Magda went to the slope near Akureyri. The price 1600 kr. for renting a gear + 1100 kr. for a ski pass didn't discourage me. It could've been the last opportunity to do some winter sports this season!

Luckily the weather was still great on Saturday, so we decided to go again, this time for longer time and bigger group :)

From left: Petr - Czech Rep., Me, Sebastian - Germany, Tomek - Poland.

Glider between the mountains.

Best driver ever!

As you can see, we got some suntan :)

Fireworks near our dorm, don't ask me about the occasion :P

Other pictures:
Our board. We write everything there - from important announcements to completely bullshit.

As my hair grew to enormous size, I had to get it cut finally. Barber, as everything, is extremely expensive in Iceland. Luckily, we have some experienced :P hairdressers in our group, so for 2 beers I had my haircut done :)