Day 76-Spencer's birthday party

   March 20-We finally got around to having Spencer's birthday party with his friends.  His actual birthday was March 3, and we tried initially to do it then.  However, there was a nasty bug going around here and kids (and adults) who caught it were laid low for a week!  We never caught it and we have wondered why that was the case.  No one we have talked to over here has had their flu shots, but we got ours back in Gunnison during the fall, so that may have been our saving grace.  It could also be that we had already been exposed to this particular flu strain earlier.  If this is the case, I hope that we did not bring it over here with us!  We have also noticed that most kids stay up an hour to two hours later than our kids, who are still sleepy in the mornings despite getting the extra sleep.  So, we also have considered that we and our kids have less stressed immune systems, which are better able to fight off the virus when we got exposed to it.  Of course, we may have simply gotten lucky!  In any event, once Spencer's friends finally got healthy again, Sally's folks were visiting, so we had to put the party off again.  This was finally a date that would work for us and his friends. 
   Sally's folks brought over some stuff for the party, like birthday hats and goldfish crackers, but we needed more items, so Sally and I went to Borgarnes in the afternoon to go shopping.
We also had to stop at the bank, because I have not yet figured out the banking system over here completely.  Most payments are made electronically, so I tried to pay Spencer's kindergarten bill directly out of my bank account.  I had asked around previously and had been able to figure out where numbers go in the form so the correct account would be credited.  However, as I was finishing up the transaction, I was prompted to enter a PIN.
Since each account has four PINs, I was not sure which one to use.  I guessed wrong a couple times and found myself frozen out of my account!  So, we went to the bank and the very helpful service staff showed me which PIN to use and unfroze my account.  We are back in business: spend, spend, spend!

Hinrik Nói and Spencer

   If Spencer had his way, we would only have left him at school for five minutes today; he was so antsy to get home and
get thing around for his party.  We pulled him out of school a little early and came home and got everything around.  He invited four kids, but Elísabet's parents got their wires crossed and forgot to bring her over, so only the three boys showed up.  (We saw Elísabet's mother later on and set up another time for her and Spencer to get together.)  We also had Alex's friend (and Einar's older sister) Þorgerður come over to be the party translator.  Despite the excellent English instruction that they are getting at Hraunborg (heh heh), Spencer's friends don't understand enough English for us to use it much.  We probably could have gotten by with broken Icelandic, English, and lots of body language, but if someone got into trouble or there was an altercation, we wanted there to be someone they could communicate with effectively and easily.

 Spencer had thought long and hard about his party and we tried our best to include all of the activities he wanted.  First, I made a circle on the apartment floor using Scotch tape and the girls taught the boys how to shoot marbles.  Hinrik Nói and Þorgeður exhibited some skill and even were able to put some backspin on the marbles, but the boys quickly lost interest and went back to playing with the Matchbox cars that Sally's

Hand-painting. Einar, Þorsteinn, Spencer,
Alex, Hinrik Nói, Þorgerður, and Joslyn

mom had brought over from America when she visited.  Second, we limboed.  We forgot to play the song, but it did not matter.  Again, the girls were more interested in the limbo and the boys quickly lost interest and went back to the toy cars.  Third was hand-painting.  Alex and Joslyn painted pictures of cars on the boys' hands using water color pencils.  The boys were actually more taken in by this than I had thought they would be.  We had a tough time getting them to wash their hands for supper later on, because they were afraid they would lose their pictures.

   Fourth, we played a faux-Icelandicized version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.  Spencer changed it to tape-the-horn-on-the-Viking.  He and Joslyn drew and colored a Viking on the back of some wrapping paper the day before, which we hung on the wall.  Each boy grabbed a pre-cut horn, colored it, and then put it on the Viking, while they were blind-folded, of course. 

   Fifth, we had a scavenger hunt.  Sally had hidden Matchbox cars wrapped in tissue paper around the apartment and the boys got to hunt for them.  Each got the one he found as a party favor.  Given their prior fascination with the cars Spencer already had out, this further fueled the fire and they spent the remaining time until supper running their cars around the apartment.

   Sally made a couple pizzas for supper and then we had the delicious "caramel bomb" cake from Geira Bakarí (the bakery down in Borgarnes) for dessert.  We sang happy birthday in Icelandic and Spencer opened his presents.  By this time Emma (Þorsteinn's mother) and Helena (Hinrik Nói's mother) had arrived, so they had some cake as well and finally pulled the boys away from the toys and left.  Þorgerður got Einar around and they both took off as well.

   We cleaned up from the party and then took off to Varmaland for our evening entertainment.
A public speaking competition is held over here yearly, in which students read excerpts from a book and are judged.  That is where it ends for the 5th graders and 6th graders, but the top two 7th graders move on to a regional competition and the winners there go on to the national finals.  Alex's teacher, Þóra, had given Alex a popular Icelandic poem to study while the other kids in her class were practicing reading their excerpts, and Alex was given the option of showing up to read the poem.  At first, she had been gung-ho to go do it, but as we loaded into the car, she began to express reservations.  She was worried that the audience members would listen to her reading something different from her classmates and decide that she must be the class dunce, who could not manage to read an entire excerpt.  I explained to her that in a school as small as Varmaland, all of the parents would be aware by now that she was the visiting American and that they would not think ill of her for not reading at the same level as her classmates.  However, I gave her the option of not going, since attendance at the competition was completely voluntary.  She decided to give it a try and we headed to Varmaland.
   When we got there, we were a little worried that we were at the wrong place, because there was only one car in the parking lot.  Shortly afterwards, people started pouring in, though.  As our friends and family well know, it is not often that we among the first to arrive at an event; usually we are barely on time.  In general, this actually fits well with the general Icelandic culture.  In this case, though, we were about ten minutes early.  We won't make that mistake again!

Alex's poem.

   None of us understood the readings, but it was fun to listen to tempo of the readings and to try to pick out individual words and the occasional phrases that we could understand.  Alex read her poem last.  It is a traditional Icelandic poem that has been set to music, although we have never heard it sung.  The poem, which dates to the 19th century, celebrates the arrival of the golden plover back in Iceland each year, which is supposed to herald the arrival of spring.  Coincidentally, the first golden plovers of the season were seen earlier in the day down by Akranes.  We knew this because the sightings were reported widely in the national media and all of the attendees were well aware of it.  Since today was the vernal equinox, it is officially the first day of spring, so the birds were right on time.  Now, hopefully the weather gets the news and we start to see less winter weather.

7th grade winners, left to right, 1st to 3rd place:
Eyrún, Sigurlaug, Brynja, Þorgerður, and Alex

   After Alex was done, there was a break while the judges deliberated.  We ate some cookies and the adults drank coffee and talked while the kids drank juice and ran around playing tag.  At the awards ceremony, Joslyn's good friends, Jóhanna and Águsta won first and second places, respectively, in the 5th grade division.  Alex's good friends, Þorgerður and Brynja tied for third place in the 7th grade division.  If either of the top two seeds cannot make it to the regional competition, one of them will go in her place.  While the 7th grade winners were in front of the audience, Alex was called up to join them for an honorary special mention.  According to Sigrún, this was actually quite an honor.  She told Alex that she thought she had been very brave to
participate and that she had read it very well.  Actually, quite a few people congratulated Alex on her reading and a number of the parents told us that her pronunciation of the Icelandic words was very good.  One of the judges came over after the awards ceremony and
complimented Alex on her pronunciation, tempo, and rhythm.  Overall, Alex was relieved that she had decided to go through with it and was rightfully proud of her accomplishment.  The rest of us were glad that she went as well, because it was a great opportunity to experience another uniquely Icelandic event.
   As a side note, since today is the first day of spring, we had twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of night, like everyone else on Earth. This is remarkably different from the short days we had when we first got here.  From here on out, we will have longer days than everyone who is south of us.  The days are getting noticeably longer each day and already it is twilight when the kids go to bed.