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| sorry Liana I got you three legs......... |
The following are things I wondered about before my departure to Iceland. They may sound silly, but I think it will be helpful to provide you more information about our program.
- Room: We stay in the
guest house Brekkukot in Solheimar. As a group of 6, we get two double rooms
and two single rooms. There is a pillow, blankets, and towers in each room. We have
shared bathrooms, a living room, and a full kitchen.
- Laundry: Solheimar has
a laundry room in the building where morning meeting takes place. It is about 5
minutes walk from Brekkukot. CELL provides laundry powder. You will get a tour
to the laundry room on you first day in Solheimar.
- Packing list: Besides a
big back pack, you would want a day pack for short hikes. It only needs to be
big enough for a water bottle and some layers you take off during the hike. Nice
rain gears are important. We were in the rain for around 5 hours last Saturday,
and everyone was wet. This semester, for 4 times we stayed in our sleeping bags
overnight, and all of which were indoor and with heat of some level. If you
have extra personal care products by the end of the program, you can leave them
in the storage room in Brekkukot for the next group to use. Thank you fall
group for your shampoo and conditioner!
- Grocery shopping: We
went to the grocery store in Selfoss multiple times during the first month. There
is also a small grocery store Vala in Solheimar that carries both fresh and
packed food, and other groceries.
For some reason, I only learned the following facts after
I came to Iceland, but I feel it would be better if I knew them earlier.
- Solheimar is an
eco-village where many people with special needs live.
- Reducing meat consumption
is part of the program in order to being more sustainable.
- It is in the CELL
handbook that you cannot have visitors over nor go visiting somewhere else
individually during the program.
I write them down here because I didn’t get
the above information from official sources before I came here, and I think you
should have the right to know about them. However, I’m not at all critiquing
the program. Instead, none of these have been obstacles for us to overcome
during the program, and they shouldn’t be so for you to apply for the program
either. Maybe I should let you guys to unpack the gift yourselves, so it can
become a better experience.
Our fond of this group and this program has
been well expressed through all of our blogs and our 20 minutes long video (yes,
we’ve made a video for this semester! Keep an eye on the official website, and
hopefully it will soon be available to you), but I just can't wait to let you
get more excited about all the things you can expect here in CELL-Iceland!
- You get to make friends with interns from all over the world.
- You will learn Icelandic knitting with Icelandic yarns
- Movie nights at least twice a week.
- Trips that covers half of Iceland. We always say that a trip is not completed without waterfall and hot pool. I guess now we can add horses, sheep, border collies, glaciers and rainbows to that sentence.
- You can walk into the kitchen and find desserts made by a random person in your group, and that makes your day! We’ve experimented on many recipes this semester, and they all turned out very nice, especially the gluten-free ones.
- If you don’t see the above happening in your group, it proves we are the best CELL group ever HAHAHA.
I think the best part of our group is that everyone is so supportive at your hobbies/ideas/decisions that sometimes you feel there must be something wrong with them. Julia taught us to make bean sprouts, and we had a launch event when she finished knitting her Icelandic sweater. Chen would rush out from her room every time we had desserts, and we always saved the first spot for her. Emily gave a very impressive presentation about the Trash2Treasure project she had done in her school, and she makes really good cookies and spinach tarts. Elizabeth’s recent interest is doing hand-stands everywhere she goes, and she could always find someone to do it with her. Liana definitely has a mania for olives, and we always had good time talking about foods together. We are like a big family: Hank is the father, and we are his six daughters. We share everything in our lives during the past three months. I believe the magic of being in our group is that you only have to suffer one-sixth of your sorrows, and you get to have six times of the happiness you could ever get on your own.
- You will learn Icelandic knitting with Icelandic yarns
- Movie nights at least twice a week.
- Trips that covers half of Iceland. We always say that a trip is not completed without waterfall and hot pool. I guess now we can add horses, sheep, border collies, glaciers and rainbows to that sentence.
- You can walk into the kitchen and find desserts made by a random person in your group, and that makes your day! We’ve experimented on many recipes this semester, and they all turned out very nice, especially the gluten-free ones.
- If you don’t see the above happening in your group, it proves we are the best CELL group ever HAHAHA.
I think the best part of our group is that everyone is so supportive at your hobbies/ideas/decisions that sometimes you feel there must be something wrong with them. Julia taught us to make bean sprouts, and we had a launch event when she finished knitting her Icelandic sweater. Chen would rush out from her room every time we had desserts, and we always saved the first spot for her. Emily gave a very impressive presentation about the Trash2Treasure project she had done in her school, and she makes really good cookies and spinach tarts. Elizabeth’s recent interest is doing hand-stands everywhere she goes, and she could always find someone to do it with her. Liana definitely has a mania for olives, and we always had good time talking about foods together. We are like a big family: Hank is the father, and we are his six daughters. We share everything in our lives during the past three months. I believe the magic of being in our group is that you only have to suffer one-sixth of your sorrows, and you get to have six times of the happiness you could ever get on your own.
- Yilin
yyang02@email.wm.edu
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