4 weeks

It's 4 weeks till I venture into the icelandic waters. 28 days till the blog becomes the exciting, fantastical masterpiece that we all know it will be! Woooo!

If you'll allow me a moment of sincere immaturity, I'll be staying very near the world's only phallus museum which contains "a collection of phallic specimens belonging to all the various types of mammal found in the single country".
Excuse me while I giggle.

Icelandic food

I've been looking at what kind of food I'll be expecting in Iceland, the obvious one was whale (which I won't be eating) and plenty of other seafood. Apparently puffin and guillemot are both popular dishes, unfortunately my mother is a keen birder and likely won't bring herself to eating those.

Oh we're an ethical/fussy bunch!

Icelandic skyr looks interesting, it's technically a very soft cheese but it seems to be a form of yoghurt. The happy surprise is that it's naturally fat free. 'Fat-free dairy?' I hear you cry, yes! Joy!

Reindeer, lamb, horse and sheep seem mainstays that I'm certain I'll be eating at some point.

The biggest test will be the famous fermented shark dish, which I'm sure I'll be more than equal to!

Also potatoes. They eat a lot of potatoes. Just like here then!

Thanks for reading!

For the first week of my trip to Iceland I will be holidaying in Reykjavik (25/07-31/07) and I'm stuck on figuring out things to do so if anyone has any suggestions then I would love to hear them!

Thanks for reading!

Some more interesting Iceland facts:

The country has a population of around 300,000 people but they get around 500,000 tourists a year. But despite this their language is very pure, there is an Icelandic language council that keeps the language from becoming changed by foreign influences, the language has stayed very close to how it originated as Viking.
I'm learning Icelandic so I can speak some Viking! Coolio!

The Icelandic alphabet has 32 letters but no C, Q, W, Z. And has some that I struggle to say.

Thanks for reading!

The town on the northern coast, Husavik will be my place of residence. Conveniently it has a little picture of a dolphin next to it, yaaay!

Hello viewer,

Thank you for taking the time to visit my new blog and I hope you become a regular audience member!

I'm Jack Ball. I am a Conservation Biology student at the University of Cumbria. I will soon be embarking on a 30 week placement in Iceland working as a research assistant to a phD student studying cetaceans (whales & dolphins). This blog will be all about that placement and my adventures and experiences along the way, I'll make it as interesting, entertaining and personal as I can.

My journey will start on July 25th, myself and my parents and brother are all staying in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, for a week as we holiday about. (Yaay). On the 1st of August I shall then fly over to Akureyri and take a bus to my destination of Húsavík, which is called by the Icelandic tourist board the 'Whale watching capital of the world'. An exaggeration I'm sure it isn't!

So before I start my placement I'll be posting about my preparation and some interesting stuff about Iceland for example, their Christmas day starts at 18:00 December 24th and lasts till the end of the 25th. From what I've heard the Icelandic party hard, but I'm sure I can out-party a few of them.

Thanks for the view and I hope to have your continued support!

P.S. It should get more interesting when I get to Iceland so patience will pay off!