We just spent our last full day in Iceland, the entirety of it in Reykjavik. We began our day by heading to the University of Iceland for two lectures from faculty there.
Rikke Pedersen, head of the Nordic Volcanological Center and professor at the university, talked to us about the effects volcanos have had on the formation of Iceland and the current monitoring techniques they’re using to track which of Iceland’s 30 volcanos may erupt soon, including Eyjafjallajökull(Ay-uh-fyat-luh-yo-kull), the big eruption in 2010.
Next, Gísli Már Gíslason gave us a lecture about the fragile ecology of Iceland and the way renewable energy production still has harmful effects on the environment. We found the Eduroam wifi network while there!
After these lectures, we had the afternoon to explore the city. We tried hot dogs with fried onions and a special mustard.
Some of us went to a church built on top of the hill in Reykjavik in the 1800s.
Many of us also went to the Settlers’ Museum, built around the foundation and framework of a house built by some of the original Vikings in approx. 870 AD. The museum was small, but had plenty of artifacts from the area and was very informative!
Tomorrow, we are up at 4:30 a.m. to head to the airport for our flight to Copenhagen!
-Benton C.
