Day 56-Leap Day

   February 29-Today was a typical, run-of-the-mill Wednesday for us.  The kids went to school during the day.  The adults went to yoga in the evening.  It snowed today and by the evening, there was nearly six inches of new snow on the ground.  Besides that, there is not much to report. 
   We have a list of things that we want to blog about on slow news days, so this is the
perfect time to get started on it, by explaining the morning routine that we have developed here.  The alarm goes off at 7am and we hit the snooze button a couple times as we try to wake up.  Spencer often comes into our room a little before this time or while we are trying to wake up, holding the iPad and wanting to know if it is time to wake up.  We tell him that it is, and he puts on his day clothes and settles in with his iPad games.  We adults get up and rouse the girls.  Since each of the schools provides a complete breakfast for the kids, they have different options for breakfast.  Spencer and Alex usually choose to eat here and at school, whereas Joslyn often skips breakfast at the house and just eats it at school.  The girls head out of the door a little before 8am and get on the tour bus that serves as the school bus.  Usually, Spencer and Sally play around on the iPad for a little while before the three of us walk over to Hraunborg to drop off Spencer.

   Then, Sally and I head to her office and up to the staff/faculty lounge.  Depending on the staff and faculty in the lounge, we sometimes have great conversations with Sally's coworkers.  There are two national newspapers in Iceland and the morning editions are in the lounge, so we often look through them to try to learn some more Icelandic and to figure out what is going

on in the world.  Sometimes someone will bring in a baked good for the others to eat.  The school also provides crackers, cheese, and cream cheese spreads, so many people get their

breakfast here as well.  

   The biggest draw for us in the lounge, though, is a shot of morning

caffeine to finally wake us up.  There are five different sources of coffee in the lounge and another water heater for tea.  The Icelanders love their caffeine, morning, noon, and night!  We have fallen in love with the espresso machine.  We

usually make two or three double shot espressos, to which we add milk and sugar.  After that, I head back to the apartment to get work done here and Sally heads to her office.  She works on her laptop until the battery runs out and then she comes home to recharge it using the voltage converter we brought over with us.