To the Sea!

I have arrived in Hafnarfjodur, the harbor town at the sea. Many thanks to Hafsteinn for the ride down from Reykjavik, and the additional language lessons!
I am in the Viking Hotel for the night, then tomorrow I will help with setting up things, and begin my stay with the vikings in the Gym! I am really looking forward to meeting new folks form around the world.
The hotel is very cool, at least in my book! Very eclectic and what wild and inspired décor. Carved stones, fantastic wooden chairs that are carved, and a host of local crafts for sale in the gift shop.
I will of course be taking pictures of things for all to see. My room is a cozy one, and while it might be small by what US folks are used to, it IS an old building. It has a shower bathroom, two (twin?) beds. Coffee maker, TV, little desk and lamp. I would say the space is sort of like some of the older Victorian hotels we stayed at in SFO, and even some I recall in Sac. So in my book, it is just fine.
They have a geothermal hot tub, and I intend to use it tonight...remember to remove the silver jewelry first this time..... You would think after that trip to Thermopolis WY. I would remember...NOT!
Thank goodness them Carhart's are tough enough to polish the ring up a bit.
So we went to a local coffee shop for a quick coffee for Hafstein before he ran off to a family function, and I had some tea and a sandwich- very yummy. I did also have a bit of desert.

This town is said to have a large population of the hidden folk. Elves and such, and they even have a tour that takes you to their homes. If time permits, I might try to do it. It sounds like fun, and you know how I love local tales and myths, even if they ARE real.
Oh, yes, the language lesson, or rather help with pronunciation. So, we know about the LL sound, and the D with the little line on it. We know the thorn, which looks like a capital P that slipped a bit to the middle of the upright- a hard TH, like in Thorn...
So the next phase, the G us a sort of, well it is hard to describe, it is based on the Greek letter X, which does not help me having never had Greek or Latin, but is it a sort of back of the throat not quite a cough sound. Yeah, you just have to hear it, a lot and try to get it right!!
The F in words like HaFnarFjordur get a soft B sound, so it is more like Habnarbyorthur to say.

And then there is the case of the double N, like in Hafsteinn. It makes sort of an ending D or almost a light T sound, so it is more like Hafsteid.

R's get a rolling sound like doing a bad Scottish accent, not the glottal style as in German.

Okay. If I focus, I can say a street name and almost get the pronunciation of things. I still have no idea what it is I am saying. Knowing the vocabulary is at least 1/3 of the battle. If I know the word for a street translated to “dead whale beach avenue”, I can always ask for it that way.

So, 8:30 in the morning your time, and most of you are probably still asleep, it being Sundayu and all. 3:30 in the pm here so I will go for a soak and then come back to type more on the tiny keyboard, and maybe try a SKYPE, that is if ANYONE IS UP!

Alrighty then! I have had a nice lunch with tea and desert, a toasted ham and cheese sandwich with a little side salad.
Then psassing a bakery aI stopped in.Jjust to look mind you. And then this vanilla cream waffle cookie called my name, and I ended up having two deserts today.
To add insult to injury i went across the street for dinner, and there was another desert with my name on it. Dang it, three in one day. Okay no more deserts for me this trip.
So, dinner. Would you believe that the tagliatori pasta with garlic roasted lobster tails and vegetables and a side salad, cost less than the chicken salad dinner. Guess which one I had! Mmmm Lobster.
Ths hot tub was nice and the sauna was even better. a fine evening all in all. To bed now, for tomorrow we begin getting things set up for the market!