their visit. This lead to Shan doing 12 loads of laundry which took most of the day. Luckily, the University has five washers available for free that you sign up for and he signed up for large blocks of time and was able to get it all done.
because his teachers wanted to be present for the festivities, but they had missed a couple weeks of school, because they caught the flu that has been going around over here. Then, Spencer missed school a couple days because his grandparents were visiting. Unlike in the States where a child brings in cupcakes to celebrate with his or her class, here the child goes to the kitchen and gets to help cook his or her own cake for the class. Kolbrun, the cook at Hraunborg whose daughter is in Spencer's class, told Sally that as soon as Spencer walked into the kitchen he asked if there was yellow cake coloring. He loves yellow and wanted to make the frosting and cake yellow. Also, each class (age group) of students at Hraunborg is designated by a certain color and Spencer's kindergarten class is the yellow class. When the cake was done, Spencer thought it looked like a yellow blob because the yellow frosting melted into the yellow cake. Spencer said, "It tasted really good, better than you think." In addition to the cake, the child is thrown into the air by the teachers (holding their arms and legs) as many times as they are old. Spencer said "It was kinda fun and kinda scary."
Wednesday has become yoga day for Shan and me and we were happy to get back to the class. There were only ten people in attendance today, which provided a very laid back atmosphere.
I was invited to attend the local knitting club that meets every other Wednesday at Hraunsnef, a local lodge 3 km north of Bifröst. This lodge is an old farmhouse at which the barns have been converted into a restaurant and meeting rooms. Approximately twenty ladies arrived between 8 and 8:30 pm for a couple of hours of knitting and good food. For 1000 ISK (approximately $8) I was served a potato/cheese/asparagus gratin, two different chocolate tortes and coffee/pop. Icelanders love their coffee and think nothing of drinking caffeinated coffee late into the evening. The women in attendance were farmers, teachers from Hraunborg, students at Bifröst, and teachers from Varmaland. I knew about seven women and sat by Gróa (Joslyn's teacher), Emma, and Kolbrun. Everyone was knitting beautiful blankets, hats, scarves, wine bottle covers (in the lopi sweater design) and sweaters.
The owners of Hraunsnef asked the group of ladies a year ago or so to provide hand-made goods to sell in the lobby of the restaurant/lodge. This allows the lodge to advertise itself as having handmade crafts and should help increase tourist traffic. The ladies had filled the small space with knitwear of all types and sizes, quilted hotpads, wooden spoons, paintings, jewelry and the like. The wooden spoons were made by Gróa from local wood that her husband (the local forest ranger) had harvested from the local forests. He is in charge of managing the new forests and needed to thin the area. Joslyn has been using some wood scraps for her woodworking class these past two weeks that have come from Gróa's workshop. I hope to make this knitting group part of my normal Wednesday routine.
March is the month that Icelandic men grow their mustaches to raise money to support prostate cancer research. Part of the reason is that the Icelandic words for March and mustache rhyme. I purchased a thin mustache keychain at the knitting club for 1500 ISK. Most of the ladies didn't pay in cash but instead took down the bank account number and were planning on transferring the money electronically. It is really interesting how little cash is used in Iceland.
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