The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2004, Page 18

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 58 #4
He turned his Landrover onto a small road
and climbed up a steep hill to his small
house that he owns and uses when he visits
Reykjavik. We had a quick view of the
house and area, then continued on the jour-
ney for the two hour ride to his farm which
is called “MiSey”. Upon arrival, his wife
Hallfridur, offered us all breakfast - juice,
flatbread, brown bread and very strong
coffee. While Afi visited with the couple, I
excused myself, being in dire need of sleep,
and attempted to adjust to the time change.
When I awoke, some hours later, Afi was
asleep in another room. Gretar’s 15-year-
old son Haraldur, who speaks some
English, offered me coffee and we enjoyed
a conversation. More coffee - ponnukokur
and hardfish - followed by a tour of their
house and yard. Later, we were served soup
and a special Icelandic dish called abrystir.
Apparently, after a cow has a calf, her first
milk is taken and made into some kind of
pudding. It is very dark yellow in colour,
not very appetizing to the eye - but, it tast-
ed wonderful. Gretar toured Afi and I
around the surrounding community. We
watched Haraldur milk the cows, and then
enjoyed a full supper of roast lamb.
The next morning, while Afi still slept,
I enjoyed breakfast with Gretar’s wife who
spoke very little English which made the
conversation rather funny at times. She was
getting ready to go into the house and
motioned me to wake Afi. The rush was
on. The plan was to go to the airport and
fly to the Westmann Islands. The airport is
only 15 minutes from Gretar’s farm. The
flight costs 3,000 kronur and takes only a
few minutes on a small plane. We were
greeted by a taxi driver upon our landing.
He was very surprised at how well Afi
spoke Icelandic. We were then driven to a
marina where we boarded a tour boat that
would take us for two hours all around the
island, giving us spectacular views. The
boat docked and the taxi driver was waiting
to drive us all over the island, showing us
many interesting spots. He then took us to
his home where his wife had prepared a
lovely lunch. This taxi driver looked after
us for the entire day, and when he dropped
us off back at the airport, he refused to take
any money. We discovered later that he
had paid for our fare on the tour boat as
well. This was the first, but certainly not
the last, time that Afi’s fluency in Icelandic
had a positive effect on our trip. Many
thought he had been born in Iceland with
his perfect command of the language. Once
they realized that he was a ‘vestur-fslendm-
gar’, their friendship became special.
While we were guests at Gretar’s farm,
we were taken to many places of interest -
museums, old buildings containing inter-
esting artifacts, a small church - where the
tour guide played a little organ and led the
singing for the many tourists that joined in.
It was like listening to a professional choir.
On the way back to Gretar’s, we stopped at
another farm where the owner showed us
around and explained his pride in owning
many tractors as well as the information
about how he dried his own grain. The
farmer had also started experimenting with
growing grapes in his greenhouse and they
tasted very good.
On July 31st, we left Gretar’s farm,
loaded our luggage into the car, took some
GIMLI IGA