Week 1 - Iceland is calling 🇮🇸

So here we are, Franzi and Franzi from the Schwabenländle in the midst of the beautiful nature of the Icelandic Westfjords. But let's go back to the beginning.

On Sunday, January 31, 2020, my dear brother Marc (greetings - you stink!) drove us to Frankfurt Airport for our 4-month internship abroad. By the way, he only found out the day before that it was Frankfurt Airport (3 hours drive) and not Stuttgart Airport (20 minutes drive), but he still drove us - thanks for that!

When we arrived at the airport, we were initially amazed at how busy it was... Well, from tanned women in short dresses, to screaming children, to wildly discussing Italians, everything was definitely there. Once we passed through security, we stocked up on alcohol in the duty-free shop - which caused a very confused look from the saleswoman. When we said "We're flying to Iceland," she only gave us a polite smile, we think she thinks we're alcoholics.

In reality, we had informed ourselves in advance about our chosen destination and learned about the ridiculously expensive alcohol prices - a measure of beer costs over 30 euros here, which made our Swabian hearts skip a beat.

The time on the plane literally flew by - a wonderful feeling to be above the clouds again!

Arriving in Reykjavik, we had the first "nose swab," there are definitely nicer moments, but what has to be done must be done! By the way, the test result came a few hours later directly to our smartphone via the Icelandic Corona app.

The first obstacle was to internalize the right-of-way rules of the roundabouts - luckily, there were one every 500m from the airport to our accommodation^^. Like most people in the world, we are used to having the right of way as the driver on the outer lane in a roundabout - there is no reason to pay attention to the inner lane. Not so in Iceland: Here, the inner lane of a multi-lane roundabout ALWAYS has the right of way. Thanks to Mama Schmidke's "Fettnäpfchen-Führer Island" book, we already knew about this rule and were therefore particularly attentive, which most likely saved us from an accident (I can highly recommend the book to the klutzes among us!).

As for Reykjavik, all we can say is - we'll see you again! We'll have more to say about this city at a later date...

The drive to the Westfjords took place on Monday, February 1, 2021. Incredibly beautiful, diverse and exciting! We took over 10 hours for a total driving time of ~6 hours, mainly due to our regular photo/toilet breaks, but also because after leaving the ring road, we were driving on deserted/snow-covered roads (how the locals can still drive at 90km/h remains a mystery to us). When we arrived in Isafjördur, we fell into bed tired but incredibly happy.

The following days were the opposite of our journey: walks, getting used to the surroundings, cooking, and familiarizing ourselves with our workplace - quarantine, you know.

On Friday, February 6, the second "nose swab" was scheduled, or as I called it, "The Game with the Palate" - no idea what the woman who performed the test was thinking at 9 a.m. instead of taking a normal throat swab, she waved the swab at the palate. In the end, she can consider herself lucky that we hadn't eaten anything before^^ 9 hours later, the result was negative! Quarantine over! Freedom! Just 10 minutes later, we sat in the restaurant across from our apartment with burgers, fries, soda, and Viking beer (by the way, the beer was almost as expensive as the burgers themselves, but since it was a special day for us, we treated ourselves). When we wanted to go to bed after an eventful day, we accidentally saw the Northern Lights through our skylight - out of our pajamas, into our winter jackets, and off to the beach. A really beautiful experience that we will not forget anytime soon. After our hands were numb, we quickly went back to bed.

The next day, we took a "short" walk to the ski area, which took quite a while, but after about 2 hours, we finally arrived and were rewarded with a beautiful view and sunny weather. The music from speakers and the many people briefly brought up feelings of "après-ski." When an Icelander invited us to a hot chocolate with a shot, we couldn't stop smiling. A wonderful moment! However, explaining what we are doing here is becoming more and more challenging. When we say that we are at the university here, most people think we are students (which is true, at least in Germany): 'Yes, we are students, but we study dual and work here as interns, so we work here even though we are studying.'

To conclude our first week, we spontaneously went on a snow hike together with Katja (a German who has emigrated here). 6 hours on the go - didn't meet a single soul, a really fantastic feeling, you simply have the mountains to yourself here. A dream! After 6 very athletic hours with little to drink (the tea in the thermos was too hot, the water in the plastic bottle frozen), our first blog entry comes to an end!

Cheers to Germany!

'Bless' (= Bye)!