Arrival

The course began by everyone meeting at the Iceland University of Education in Reykjavik. But perhaps we should not get ahead of things?

Because the participants were from several different Nordic countries, first everyone needed to fly to Iceland. The group from Finland, that is, Eila and myself, arrived at the Keflavik airport on the Monday afternoon.

The weather was cloudy. It looked like it could rain at any moment...

...as it did.

We boarded an airport bus to Reykjavik. The ride went uneventfully, and by observing my surroundings I learned a new word: apparently, "neyðarútgangur" is "emergency exit" in Icelandic.

Once we arrived to the bus terminal at the Reykjavik end, next up was a short taxi ride to Iceland University of Education, where the other course participants had already gathered.

Everyone here?

This became a very short meeting, as the whole group climbed into another bus to begin the final leg of the journey, from Reykjavik to the course location at Laugarvatn. One of the students from Iceland, Birgir, doubled as a bus driver for the course.

We stopped at Selfoss, which is a town approximately two thirds of the way from Reykjavik to Laugarvatn, to shop for food and anything else we might need.

		About fact boxes
	There is some academic content on the later pages of this report, placed in fact boxes like this. This one, however, only wanted to introduce itself.

Arrival, part two

In the evening, we finally arrived at Laugarvatn. As is evident from the picture, it is a geothermal area: there is a hot spring at the shore of the lake.

Later one of the teachers told me that the Icelandic way to build a sauna is to find a hot spring and construct a building on top of it to capture the steam from the boiling water. There was one built this way at the shore of the lake, and it seemed to work quite well. The steam led up through the floor of the sauna heated up the room.

Our accommodation for the week was at The Division of Sport and Physical Education of the Iceland University of Education.

To wrap up the day of traveling, we had a welcome dinner. (Yes, the dinner was certainly welcome at this point.)

The course program was briefly explained, which concluded the first day of the course.