Iceland

One month! I can’t believe that I have actually been working on Iceland one whole month! Time does fly when having fun. J

Yesterday (26/4) I had my last day off so I rode a horse in really bad weather, although it is very cool to ride in really bad weather. Then I went to Gullfoss waterfall, and it was really nice. Bad weather but it was really cool to see that humongous waterfall!

I started to wonder what I have learned and if I have changed as a person. I know that my experience in working in a kitchen has grown over this past few weeks, (obviously, or else this trip would have been for nothing.). And the only new different in my self is that I miss Sweden not to much. I will be happy leaving Iceland but I will also miss all the nice people here. Well I’m not leaving this island until the beginning of May.

Tomorrow is my last working day here. I will travel to Reykjavik on Sunday and going to enjoy a week here with my friends. But first, I will sleep, then I will work, and finely, I will write about what I have learned here! That’s going to be my last post on this blog.

Ah, another day off, I dint know what to do but when I heard that my friends will come here in like, 2 weeks. I want to see if the blue lagoon is worth it. So I decided that I would go to the blue lagoon today and I did, FOR FREE! Because I work at hotel Eldhestar.

And that was an amazing day! When I arrived to the destination, we were in the middle of nowhere, the lagoon is surrounded by volcano rocks, dark brown rocks everywhere, I walked a small corridor of rocks to a building, inside it was very sophisticated felt like traveling 10 years in to the future. And the keys, of the keys, the man who invented them must have been a genius, because you use it for everything, it has a chip that you can use for purchases and locking your locker. Now that’s cool.  And the water temperature was so warm (in difference to the temperate in the air) so it smoking. It felt amazing to just swim in extreme pleasant water. Warm, but not painful.

They have lots of stuf, like a steam bath in a cave, that’s was also nice. The blue lagoon is not a place for a kid, because kids want to jump and splash and stuff like that, here it’s more like a spa. There are many boxes with some Silica mud; they say it’s good for your skin. You put it on your face for 5 – 10 minutes then wash it away then you have nicer skin apparently…

And I meet some really nice people, they are there for relaxing, so they just want to talk and talk, one older man and I sat in the steam cave and talked about different age, young men and older men’s advantages and then he said: “if you have the advantages of every age, then you have a good life.”

It was nice, but it would have been more fun if I had some more company, so to you who are going to Iceland soon, bring with you your swimsuit and a towel, I vote for bathing in the blue lagoon!

Here is their website: http://www.bluelagoon.com/

Working alone is so boring! Nico had his day off today so I had to work alone, boring! But it’s quite good for me actually. It puts me in the position there I must remember the rhythm of this kitchen. You see, every restaurant has it own way to cook, it depends mostly on how much space you can work on, what ingredients you have usually and how many guests there are.  So now it was like a trail, to se how much I know and if I will screw up or succeeds. Of course I don’t fail when it comes to the important parts. It went well and the guests was pleased with the dinner

Oh, one other fun thing of today: I mastered the way of the tomato rose, I made some tomato roses for our guest and now I can do it good! Maybe I can use it for our big cooking exam later ;)

Now I have talked to one of my friends in Sweden and he and other friends are coming here when my internship is over. We are going to have a wonderful time! And before they arrive I have to check out everything that is fun and with a reasonably price. :D

See you another day, for now I will hunt northern lights before I go to bed.

I haven’t written anything for days, opps! Well I could say a good lie but the truth is that I’m lazy; I am not really a blogger so to speak. I don’t take so much pictures of the food anymore because we don’t have the time to take pictures; we work at a fast rate. I didn’t celebrate Easter last Saturday, because I was working. It sounds really sad I know but I had at least some company, one other intern sat with me during a break and we ate some pannacotta. All days are work days here it seems. Then I met my family in Reykjavik when I had my day of, it was really nice, we ate some good food and my desire to meet my friends grows even more.

I hope that you had a nice påsklov, mine will start after my internship and that will be so awesome, I hope. And for the last couple of days I have been working the afternoons rather then the evenings, why? It is nice to work a little different then usual and I get to know the new interns. They are also from Sweden. But starting tomorrow I will work evening and maybe take some good photos as well.

I have a great time here and I just love this landscape, one picture is like one pixel its beauty!

I hope that you will travel to Iceland, it is so worth it!

Today has not been so much work, because we have so much food left from the previous days that we could heat up for the staff so it would seem like a waste to make more. Except for our guest, It’s obvious that our guest will have proper made food so I made some simple potato soup. No complains from the guest so I take it as a good sign. After lunch and lots of dishes and cleaning, I went on a walk, the plan was to take lots of pictures but it rained. Call me crazy, but I love rain. It makes me think more than usual.

Then we went to Selfoss (the village west from the hotel) and there I found Reykt hrefnukjöt. This means: smoked minke whale meat. It was the first time I ate whale and it was kind of weird. it tasted very smoked (obviously) and a flavor unlike anything I have tasted. I strongly recommend whale meat for you who want to travel to Iceland.

<- Whale slices and Croquettes

What a weekend. We had a lot of guests on Sunday so I and Nico made a huge buffet and we worked really hard. It went well of course, It is always nice with some challenge.  The day before I spoke with some swedish friends over Skype and the “Hunger games” came up as a topic, I was told that it was good so I and some of the staff went to Reykjavik and saw the movie.

My opinion: good, not the best movie but still worth the money. And the seats were very comfortable, but the thing that blew my mind was after one hour in the movie…they switched to commercial for 20 long minutes, apparently they always have 20 minute break on Icelandic cinemas.

While on our way home from the cinema I remembered that I will work alone in the kitchen the next day (Monday). It was little weird to work alone but the weather, oh the weather, It had been snowing all night so the mountains were covered by snow and it was beautiful. And I heard some good old classic music, for example, Celine Dion´s “Near and far” and “Ghostbusters theme”. On the radio!

Great view at the mountain, sunshine and good food. It felt like there was a absolute peace around me. Oh, right, and I heard the song “Fix you” when I was fixing a broken pie, felt like a good timing with the song.

I can’t believe that it has been almost a week since I arrived here. I have learned much and I will learn more.

I have taken so few pictures of the beautiful landscape so today which is my day off I will take many more! I took a really long walk along the road to just enjoy the Icelandic landscape and got many lovely pictures.

I can’t really say much about today. We started at 8.30 and finished at 22.00. I´m not used to the long hours but I will manage, I am actually not that tired. I am learning much and will learn even more tomorrow.

Here are some pictures of today:

<--- My work place. :)