Settling in

(This post was originally written around the 10th of March. Since I did not have Internet access at home then, I simply saved it as a document, and I'm finally publishing it now).

So, it’s been about 10 days in Iceland so far. By now we’ve settled into our cozy apartment, and we have become regular clients at the local supermarkets and bakery. There’s one nice supermarket (Nóatun) and a crappy one (Krónan). We´re going to the second one so far since it’s the cheapest one, though it’s still much more expensive than the US. The bakery (Björn´s bakery) makes pretty good bread.

This weekend, we met an Italian friend of J downtown (a 10-15 minute walk from home). We went to a couple of places and had some beer and chatted with some fellow foreigners in Iceland.

We went to visit the National museum too, which is quite impressive not only in its material contents, but more so in its presentation. It’s right by the University, where we’ve been stopping by almost every day with a laptop to check our emails (we still don’t have Internet at home). We have a TV here that the owner had left in the basement. There are 3 channels available (and a fourth one that needs a subscription). One of them plays the same video clips during the morning / day, and most of them seem to show lots of American stuff, including a lot of trashy stuff such as Trading Spouses, the story of Britney and Kevin, etc.. I did see today some home improvement show (in Icelandic) which was peppered by 5 minutes segments showing people how to clean their toilets using certain brands of cleaning products.

Work wise, I’m still looking around though there is a place I kinda like already. It’s a bit frustrating not having Internet here since it helps with that stuff (and with online Icelandic lessons!)