Siglufjordur & Akureyri

When the wake up call came at 7am, the boat had thankfully stopped rocking. We ate together as we wrote our DER. In the morning, we went to the Herring Museum, which won an award for the best museum in all of Europe. Some past Herring girls, and a few men and younger women put on a show for us illustrating the kind of work the Herring girls did at that time. It was really fun to see them cut off the heads, gut the fish and send the waste down a slot that collected everything at the end.  They would then salt the fish and pack them in buckets. They also had a little song for us as well as a dance. For the dance, the men stood in the middle holding hands and the
ladies made an outside circle dancing the opposite way. When the music switched to 3 meter we were supposed pair off men with women and waltz around. When the music switched back to 4 meter we had to get back our circle and skip around.

After the show, my group went to the boat house first. You could climb all over the ship, exploring even below where the the store houses, kitchen and bunks were.  It was fun. There were also Herring samples to try. The smoke Herring was probably the best, but there was also a spiced one and a pickled one. Soon they rang he bell to tell us to leave.  In the next museum building we watched a movie and the explored the apartment (bunk houses) of the Herring Girls. It was fun to see all the old dishes, clothing, and records.  Even though the girls worked hard, they said they really loved this time because it was so fun and romantic with all the dances and parties, etc. The last room was of the processing plant of the Herring with lots of machines. Probably the least interesting room for me, but I had fun taking pictures with Quincy, our school mascot, with all the different tools and gears.  We had some free time in town, so I tried to visit the folk music museum, but it didn't open until after we were supposed to be back on the boat.

After the lecture I was able to go to my cabin and take a nap and now am journaling in the chart room as we pull into port. The scenery is beautiful. This is how I imagined Iceland.

We arrived in Akureyri and went to the Botanical Gardens, but were only there for 30 minutes and it was difficult to look at things or take pictures at the fast pace the tour guide took.   Then we walked past a statue with a sad tale of an outlaw.  At the church we had 20 minutes of free time to explore so we went down many steps to the bookstore. There they had children's books about Trolls, Elves, hidden people, etc in English, German and Icelandic. I was really interested, but had to get back to the bus.

We couldn't be late because the 6pm talk for the day was a guest speaker, the president of Iceland! He was an older man, wearing a sweater, and seemed just like your grandpa. He was a very eloquent and verbose speaker. He presented on Iceland's use of geothermal activity, the sustaining fishing practices, and his opinion of why Iceland is doing so well after the economic crash in 2008.  The most interesting part of his speech for me was when he said a professor at MIT had done research and said if the US wanted, we could have enough geothermal power to power twice as much as we use right now. How crazy is that? Iceland has great CO2 readings (like non-existant) and about 90% of their energy is renewable resources. Such a green, clean place. And they are peaceful, fairly neutral country-they don't have an army.  Interesting fact, Russia and US met in Reykjavik in 1986 and made great strides to nuclear disarmament for the cold war.

After dinner Shannon, Xochitl and I walked into town.  We found some fun troll statues to pose with and went back to the bookstore.

Summary:
Wow moment-getting the meet the President of Iceland and hear about geothermal potential.

Worst part of the day-not having more time in the botanical gardens

Human/nature connection-Did Native people use the earth's geothermal potential much? How expensive would it be for the U.S. to convert to Geothermal Energy? Is there a risk of creating earthquakes when trying to get this geothermal energy?

Teaching connections-I picked up a Children's book about Troll folktales at the bookstore. I really want to bring all this great Icelandic folklore back to my students.  Of the 7 tales the first 2 are kinda depressing, but the other ones seem interesting or fun that my students will enjoy.  We might be able to draw parallels to other folktales around the world.  The Icelandic story of Bukolla reminds me of a Baba Yaga tale from Russia.