Just had my first official Icelandic lesson, and it was brilliant - exactly the right level :) I feel like such a cheat, already having West Norwegian to help me (especially when I look at the poor souls who have been learning Icelandic for years, but only have English, or English and Polish to help; although the Swedish speakers fare a little better).
As you probably know if you've seen the photos, we had an awesome weekend up in Akureyri with a mate's dad: first time swimming outdoors, first time skiing, first symphony orchestra concert, first shovelling of snow, first taste of traditional Icelandic food (dried fish, sheep's head bits, sheep's testicles, cod-liver oil), first crepes (next lot tonight at a mate's place - it's Pancake Tuesday), first museum visit, first Chinese take-away (ask Luce how much it cost, I can't bear to think about it), first domestic flight, aaaaaaaand we got to see the northern lights for the first time, on our walk home from the airport (also another first for me) in Reykjavík.
Workwise, I've finished transcribing the recordings I made in Denmark, and can now start entering the data to have a good look at it. While it's taken a billion years to sort through, it's been worth it, because there are a few occasions where I realise that I've misheard something, or got the wrong impression about the dialect, the first time round. I've sent off my first abstract for a conference in June in Edinburgh. And we had our first Icelandic Syntax Discussion Group meeting last week, and it was seriously fun - just playing around trying to understand someone's tricky theoretical analysis of an obscure fact in a couple of obscure Norwegian dialects. *bliss*
I love it here!
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2 comments:
I am just a random passer-by and I'd like to say that I find your blog kinda relevant to my interests - which is deciding if I want to go study to Iceland for one year via student exchange - I gotta say your writings made me even more enthusiastic about it ^^
So, I hope I'll see you post more often, perhaps revealing some valuable info in the process (things like how not to get bankrupt within a month with Big Mac menus costing something like 11€ and other prices not lagging far behind).
In either case, I'll definitely keep an eye on this blog :>
Hi Z-lot, nice to meet you :) Basically, you don't eat out, and you do as much shopping as possible at Bónus, the cheapo supermarket! I think it's livable here, but you're not going to save anything...
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