There are some myths about Iceland.Many people, and I was among those before I came here, think that Icelanders are nature loving and relaxed. That is not true. Okey, now I mostly met people from Reykjavik, and as any people from a capital city these might be a little more focused on their carer compare to people from the countryside. On the other hand, since two third of all Icelanders live in Reykjavik and the Reykjavik surroundings it might not be completely wrong to look at these people living in Reykjavik when measuring the Icelander.Also something to say about the studies here. Compare to Sweden I have never had to study this hard to feel that I am accepted in the classroom. I don’t know all law schools in Europe but I could take a guess that the Icelandic ones would do pretty good when it comes to quality and demand of the students. I talked to one student who said that only 25 % of all law students pass their first exam. The rest has to take the semester again. She also told me that its not strange to take the exam three times before you actually qualify for the second semester. If you don’t pass? Maybe you should try something easier.

Me and my studymate – Nina.Then, while they are studying they keep on being effective in other areas. Almost every one is working. Many become parents already in their early 20s. How they find time to work, raise a kid and read at this level… well the last thing to do would be to call them lazy.I think you now will understand me when I give the advice to lawyer from the rest of the world. If you ever will compete against an Icelander, be sharp and do not underestimate them.Still, even though the high level, I do not want to scare someone of thinking about studying here. All studies are definitely not as hard as the law-studies and you probably don’t have to take care of children and work while you here. But actually, maybe you would like to work. An unqualified job often pays about 100 Swedish kronor per hour. The Icelandic economy is growing fast, and it is definitely not fishing that is the biggest income anymore.One very good thing with studying here was the quality of the education. One of the teachers has not only represented Iceland in front of the EFTA court, he is also internationally known as “one of very few Scandinavian lawyers with more than 20 years of relevant experience from Brussels and Luxembourg”. I can give you a part of his cv as an example:

• Member of a Board of Appeal, Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market, Alicante, 2002-2005
• Director of the Department of Legal & Executive Affairs, EFTA Surveillance Authority, Brussels, 1999-2002
• First, Principal Legal Advisor in, then Head of the Brussels Antenna of the European Ombudsman, Mr. Jacob Söderman, who was based in Strasbourg, 1997-1999
• Administrator in the Legal Service of the European Parliament, Brussels, 1996-1997
• Principal Legal Advisor in Strasbourg for the European Ombudsman, 1996-1996
• Administrator in the Legal Service of the European Parliament, Luxembourg and assistant to the Director General of the Service, Mr Gregorio Garzón Clariana, 1994-1995
• Legal clerk to Advocate General Claus Gulmann at the European Court of Justice, Luxembourg, 1991-1994
• Administrator in the Department of Research and Documentation, European Court of Justice, Luxembourg, 1987-1991
• Assistant Attorney in the law firm Advokaterne Bredgade 3, Copenhagen. Subsequently admitted to the Bar, 1985-1987

The best things of studying here though is to do all the stuff you can’t do home. I have already showed you some of the trips we did when my Susanne and Frédéric’s Doris were here. I can give you some more pictures.Vestmanneyjar offered some nice cliffs.

It was also both fun and a bit romantic when us two cowboys took our ladies for a ride. Though it was not really scary since, as you can see, the horses here in Iceland have very short legs.

The Uppsala group Fidde, Christopher and Hanna came for a short visit. They brought some extremely bad weather. Just look at this hails which has fallen down in the Ice lagoon.

And in same trip, here are the famous Svartifoss. (Press on the picture). And below there is some pictures from when my buddy Helgi took me, Fredy, Janina and Julia to the waterfall Glymur with its beautiful surroundings.

Glymur as well as at Essja gave us a little bit of climbing. Notice that it is 3 month time difference (Glymur August, Essja November).

Essja was our nearest mountain, and it gave a bit of a different experience in the end of November (above), compared to August (under).

By the way, this is the surroundings at Helgi’s family’s summerhouse (above). Cant complain about the view, can you.Sometimes you did not even have to leave the city to get a cool experience. One evening at seven, this was the Northen light view from our door.And of course, there is loads of fun stuff you can do in Reykjavik. For example; four of us took a boys night out and went to a Skid Row concert. Another thing I really appreciated was to eat fondue. A Swiss speciality, though Fredy said that its really not suppose to look like this. To the right you can see the weekly sorting of socks. And here we have one of our regular dinners. The food in Iceland is pretty bad. Because of that we were lucky to find many good souses. Finnsson – that’s the hero who knows how to improve boring meat.

We ended our trip as we started it. With some crazy bathing. This time though we fought from 6 in the morning to 22.30 in the evening. Our goal was to visit all 14 public baths in Reykjavik and its closest suburbs area and to only use bus and walking as communication. It became 42 heitur potturs in one and the same day. Impressive, if I may say so.

Merry Christmas from us in Reykjavik! Our very own Christmas card.Danke fur die Bilden Susanne und Jan….und danke fur die Fußen Frédéric 🙂

Alone… for the first time in six weeks.
I have had visitors here a very long time now. Mum, dad, my sister, Susanne, Fidde, Hanna and Christopher. The last left 04.15 this morning. And now… …now it is time to work. There is so much schoolwork I have to do, maybe more then I am suppose to actually manage… Six exams, one case study, four papers and two more presentation… there is not enough time. So please… don’t ask if you can come at visit right now, I hate to say no. Those of you who have studied have probably experienced that schoolwork might suffer a bit if you have visitors for a week. Then you can imagine six week in a row.

Now I am going to stop complaining and actually show you some of the stuff that we did experienced when all the people where here.

First it was my parents and some beautiful waterfalls in the south.

The next week we visited the pool of the legendary Snorri Sturluson. I guess you all know this Snorri guy, the most renowned figure in medieval Icelandic literary history (come on – you have read Snorra Edda and Egils Saga). He started up as a lawspeaker and politician but as every clever guy he soon left it for something more interesting. Some say that his big interest was to write. I know better because I have visited his pool. In this pool Snorri forgot his work as a lawspeaker for the Norwegian king. The king (who probably never had visit an Icelandic bath) became furious and sent out a decree demanding Snorri’s return to Norway, dead or alive. The night to the 23rd of September 1241 one of the Kings jarls, the one that wanted to govern Iceland (probably this guy knew about Icelands wonderful baths) showed up in Snorri’s village with a contingency of 70 armed men. Snorri hide, but he was betrayed by a priest who led the soldiers to the writer. The priest had been promised by the jarl that no harm would occur to Snorri. Unfortunately honour wasn’t one of the jarls stronger virtues and the priest later found Snorri hacked to death.
What can we all learn about the story?
That it is nice to take a bath sometimes.

Actually I think my parents took about seven baths while they were here. They were wise…
But yes, we did do more then bathing. For example we had some fun with the scooters we hijacked. Sometimes parents go crazy, especially mum, she stated it.

And I almost forgot, with a rented four wheel drive we went out to the middle of nowhere and hiked through some lava tubes. That is big caves in the ground created by lava flow in an eruption. The torch was very handy I will say.

Tölt on a horseback came the next day. Though I think some of us prefere dogs compared to horses.

Some days later the best part of my stay in Iceland started to take form. Her name is Susanne and her visit was very welcome.
With her, Frédéric and his girlfriend Doris the big travelling on Iceland started. My parents told Susanne before they left Iceland that she must make sure to hinder me and Frédéric in our running along the edges all the time. Well here you se her hindering us on her first waterfall – Godafoss – the waterfall of gods.

Later we climbed Vindbelgjarfjall and just next to the romantic lake Myvatn Frédéric found a new love. Or at least the horse wanted to make love.

The next day was just as good as the day before. On a hike we found a cave with hot water, me and Susanne wrote or names in the volcano Hverfjall and Frédéric called the guy running the world famous Phallological Museum to ask if they could open their doors for us the very next day.
His answer was affirmative and we ha a nice time. “Trevligt” as you would say if you where a pure Stockholmian.
One object might be very interesting, both for those of my friends who would like to end as a judge and for one of the studentorganisations at my homeuniversity in Uppsala. Maybe one of you want to have a very special christmas present?

I think this will have to do for a while. It is time to do some university work.

Ate sheep head tonight. It was not that bad as expected, as long as you didn’t think about what you were eating, or as Frederic said when Lucia put a look of disgust on her face:
– Stop worrying, it is just in your head.
Then he and Emilia really started to hug in on the scull. Fredric wanted to try it all, even the unidentified thing he found very far in to the sheep’s nose. But what was it?
I told him that sometimes you might find some stuff deep into humans’ noses that isn’t really meant to be eaten. Still he had to try it.
This time he was the one to put on the disgusted expression.
– Probably not the best part of the lamb.

_
Ready to eat. _______________________ I can see you
(Thank you for sharing your photos, Emilia and Lucia)

Yeah, well I have had my hard times. But the best thing to concentrate on when trying to make hard time easier is… football!
It started with buying tickets to the European qualification Iceland against Spain. After a short council, me and Frédéric decided to walk the line, paint our faces and join the crazy Icelandic crew.

Some days later I made a deal with some of the Spanish exchange students. If Spain would win, I would have to repaint my face with the Spanish flag before I went out. If Iceland would win, the Spanish would be the ones who were to paint their faces with the Icelandic flag. Yes of course most things were in their favour but still; this was not a very bad deal for me. I could imagine myself with the Spanish flag in my face going to a Spanish fiesta with some happy Spanish people. I could also image myself enjoying the sight of my Spanish friends with the Icelandic flag in their faces. Why they agreed on this? Well, they were pretty sure it would be an easy victory.

Happening number three was the mission from the newspaper back home, Upsala Nya Tidning. They wanted a story about Icelandic football and asked if I could find some good stuff. First I thought I didn’t have time for this because of all my home reading. Then I asked my self: what would I prefer to do? How would I like to remember my time in Iceland? Me sitting in my room, studying? Or me meeting some Icelandic people talking football? Quite an easy choice and two days later I meet the manager of KR:s in the clubs boardroom. KR is the biggest, oldest and most successful football club in Iceland. The Icelandic describe the club as “The Manchester United of Iceland, either you love this club, or you hate it.”
The story was published the 8th of September.

So if you ever want to learn some stuff about Icelandic football, you should try to get the Saturday’s edition of the paper. Or ask me. I did learn some very interesting stuff, that’s for sure.

This week, the University also organised a football tournament.
We put up a team with one Spanish, one Italian, one Swiss, one Norwegian, one Swedish and three Germans. It sounded like a very good team. Then we did our first mistake. We let the Italian take care of the organisation.
There was some uncertainty if we had subscribed to the tournament.
We were informed that the tournament started one hour later then it did.
And then neither the Italian or the Spanish guy showed up. It was a bit bad because apparently our organiser (the Italian) had given us a team-name, but none of the rest of us knew this name so we did not know when we were suppose to play.
Finally the Italian came, and even before we had our first match (I have still not heard anything about the Spanish one). The problem was that the game now started two hours later then it was expected and new problems occurred…

Then finally, the big thing:
Iceland vs Spain.
We did the preparations. We ate the football food. We ran to the bus (to get the feeling of being a real sportsman). We put on some Icelandic shirts. We stood up and sang the national anthem. And we screamed.
I think I let the pictures tell the rest of my story.

Finally I got some use for my big mirror.

Emilia did us some good football dinner

In the 86th minute Spain scores 1-1 and saves some of the Spanish honour. The ball is just passing the goalkeeper.

Emila was happy afterwards.

This guy from Northern Ireland might just not be as happy on Wednesday, when Iceland is up against his country. Linda, on the (or maybe his?) other hand – is always happy.

While some of us went home, me and Frédéric went on for some more singing. The only sad thing is that we did not at all understand what we were singing.

Then our Icelandic friend Matthias came along. He is known to be a calm guy.

Frozen but happy, the Spanish girls went on to their fiesta.

Save our souls. Law classes have started.
I was looking forward to study law again. Well, some small clouds might have been wandering through the sky. This because I’d noticed that some people, after I mentioned that I was here to study law, got a different look at their faces. As if they did not expect it, as if I lost something and wasn’t anymore a person on the same level, as if I had a big monster in my head, as if I was running to my grave…
Then they recovered their breath and answered:
– Well, you have to read a lot.
Yeah maybe, but that is nothing new. I am use to be with friends who aren’t studying law and who don’t need to study quite as much as I have to.

Then the classes started. First, to give you something to compare to, I’ll tell you about the opening lectures in some of the other faculties.

In one of this classes the teacher and the students told their name and where they came from. In the introduction for the Icelandic for beginners they went trough the Icelandic alphabet (it should be said that the students I know in this class have already taken more advanced classes in Icelandic). And yeah… maybe I should mention something about the first lectures in the culture class named “folklores, mountain women and liquor”…

Nae.. I guess it is time to tell you something about the lovely law classes. Some of our university lecturers are really great lawyers. Like the one who has been working with… kind of everywhere in Europe. For example, he was working as a lawyer for one of the general advocate in Brussels. This instructor of mine is a masterpiece. Almost every case he brings to the classroom is about the free movement of liquor. And he gives about 200 pages to read to every day. He is teaching one of my five classes and I am happy that not all teachers give us this much (otherwise it would be 5000 pages a week). Sometimes, when this experienced lawyer realize that the people in his classroom aren’t in reality on his level and that it has been time fore a break for a while, he look at us and ask:
– How much do you need? Three minutes? Five? Not as much as seven?
One day, I think it was on a Wednesday afternoon, when he had been teaching for three ours he looked up and said:
– Yeah, yeah… I can see that you are tired. And that you would need more then ten minutes to recover. But… that won’t happen. You get ten minutes, and that’s it!

I know some of you actually thought my university was a shack. Well, at least it has a statue in front of the main building.

It is crazy, it is so easy to become a part of a new society, to become a member in a new group. There is something happening all the time. There are bath that’s need to be taken, walks that we do. Then you have to cook and do dishes, maybe take a bath, oh man, those Icelandic thermal pools. Every day there is school, courses in the Icelandic language and the culture. On lunch break we might go for a bath. Wednesdays is football days, when a group of exchange students go to one of the football fields and kick some ball. It is great fun, like the world cup every week, mixed in two teams.

Jean-Piere Papin takes the corner. Yes, it is the Atlantic Ocean in the background.

Just to give you one example: Like the last goal, when Ballack (of course that isn’t his real name, but he is German so that is what I call him) interrupted an attack by Jean-Piere Papin and passed the ball to me. I took it, dribbled Jürgen Klinsmann so good that I he almost fell into the Atlantic Ocean. Then I speeded up and suddenly realized that now there was no one between me and their great goolkeeper – Oliver Kahn. (As you probably noticed, there are a lot of Germans in Iceland). It might be scary when a German goalkeeper runs out to cut you of. But I kept cool. I did not try a Zlatan. Instead, as JOHAN elmANDER, just before Oliver tackled me, I sent the ball to Ole Gunnar Solskjær, who came running from the right.

The rest is history, World Team One had beaten World Team Two.
I celebrated the victory by taking a bath with Chapuisat, Jean-Piere Papin, the Germans and Lotta Schelin.

One of my wonderful goals.

We did not run all the time.

…but when we kicked the ball, we did it with all our strength.

Hi there! Press the button on the top named “Sometimes you just want to go home”. If you understand swedish you might also try “Ibland slår fördommarna in”