Concert at the Swimmingpool

Hi all, miss you guys very much, now I am a student in university in Iceland, learning to become a landscape architect, lots of fun there. Here are some pictures from the final day of the youthfestival, hope you enjoy, I will be sending more picture soon, take care where ever you are, your friend Arnar.

Updating postponed

The camp is almost over and I am trying to catch up with the last few very hectic and packed days. Its been an energetic and amazing experience here in Hvammstangi, and we would like to thank everyone involved. The blog will be updated when I am back in Denmark. xxx Thomas

Fantasia catwalk - super show!

A packed house of 250 people


Tine starts the show of with a stunning belly dance

Fantasia - the opening of the festival!

Almost ready to go - stunning bodypaint!



The opening of the festival: a rock band on the roof and clowns entertaining!

Of course we have to bring the fire to Hunathing - a symbol of the festival theme.

Cooking with Brynja

Laure and Harumi wanted to explore Icelandic cooking with Brynja.


The menu this eveing: bread and rubarb soup. So off to the fields for fresh rubarb.



Preparing the rubarb

Happy cooking trio


A delicious table with hot sweat/sour rubarb soup.

Meetings with Arnar

Enthusiastic discussion at one of the many daily meetings with Arnar.

Tracking down the local choir

Irene from Spain, who is involed in a a church choir in La Laguna in Catalonia, was interested in learning about the church choir of Hvammstangi.



She found Jenni from Denmark, a resident of Hvammstangi for the last 16 years. She works in the post office and is active in the church choir which is currently on summer break.


Jenni had a very intereesting perspective on the local community. In the light of many foreigners coming to Hvammstangi in the past years - she was one of the first - the community has become more open to foreign residents. The foreigners are mostly women from Scandiavia and Germany who come to work with horses - and they meet 'a guy' and decide to stay.

Work tools - traditional vs. modern technology

Arnar showing us a tradtional tool for cutting grass.


Irene did not quite approve of this old fashioned manual tool and jumped for the the gas powered hedge-cutter.


It was quite an energy ruch for her - she loved it!

International cooking - which food is the best?

Francesca, the Italian girl and Irene from Spain had decided that we needed to taste their home cooking: pasta and omelette.




This obviously provoked the French who came up with a spontanious, but serious candidate for the "best national dish"-competetion: French vine and foie gras!

Yummi! The dinner was great - all dishes blending perfectly on the plate :)

Boat trip - sailing in the fog!

Earlier I announced that the summer had arrived in Hvammstangi, at last! But alas, good weather in Iceland is often very brief and eratic. So of course the weather changed from a clear blue sky to dense fog in roughly 20 minutes - just before our boat trip. So we were in for a cold ride:


We saw many birds, especially the funny Icelandic puffin attracted our attention - it's a miniature penguin who thinks it can fly... it just about makes it 2-3 centimeters over the ocean before falling down again :) a very funny sight! The grand pirze for the cold chilling trip was a whale sighting, a sleek gray body too fast for this cameraman (read: my hands were deep in my pockets, keeping warm :)

Another cultural encounter between the French and the Japanese!

Hiking over a mountain :)

It was time for some hiking – or as it turned out, a 5 hour shortcut to Hvammstangi taking us over the mountain!






















The trip had a dramatic start: we met a herd of horses who ‘stormed’ towards us:



















And what did we do, as naïve city people? PANIC! Were these creatures going to push us over the rim of the cliff, and plunge us into a 30 meter fall-of-death? AAAARRRGHHH. The ‘horsies’ were in fact just curious, in a somewhat overwhelming up-in-your-face-let-me-smell-you way. And thanks to Laure, the French girl who was brave enough to confront these animals calmly, we didn’t jump off the cliff in panic! And off they were, the horses and the city people with pounding hearts, reminded of what nature is all about.


Beautiful scenery!

















Why is Iceland not Greenland and vice versa?















Oh yes…snow in the midst of summer! After a short exchange of ice and snowballs we continued our hike.

















A strange and eerie landscape on the top of the mountain.



















































An amazing sunset greets us in Hvammstangi!

Seals - fat and bulky, yet rather cute!

As soon as we spotted the seals the group, as good zoologists, imitated the lazy attitude of the seals. We hung around in a sleepy trance for quite a while.















However, some wanted to get even closer and this required new tactics – the seal stance par excellence! :


















Hmm… what a Kodak moment!