My trip to Iceland
On Friday 20th July 2012, I was lucky enough to be one of the eight girls going to Iceland to represent Buckinghamshire and England at ‘Landsmót Skáta’ (Scout Jamboree) that was held on the shores of Úlfljótsvatn to celebrate 100 years of Scouting in Iceland. We met at Gatwick and we flew out. It really did not seem real to me, that it had finally come after a long countdown, not until we touched down in Iceland and I saw the mountains in the distance, the barren landscape, and I finally realised that this amazing trip had started.
We stayed the first two nights in Reykjavík. On Friday evening we went to the amazing Hamborgarafabrikkan (the Hamburger Factory), whose menu looks like a newspaper, and who announce every Icelandic baby who is born by ringing a bell. It is the place to go for your birthday as they announce a birthday every five minutes and sing happy birthday now and again. It was great and while we waited for a table, we sat down by the harbour and got to know each other more.
After eating we wandered through Reykjavík and bought some food for lunch the next day, before returning to the Hotel Cabin where we sat and chatted some more. We had hot chocolate before going to bed at around midnight, which is 1 am in England, so we were a bit tired the next day, but very excited as we were going on the Golden Circle Tour.
This included two power stations run by steam, one of which has a very good museum; Þingvellir, the place where the first parliament was held every summer, and where you can see the crack between the American and Eurasian tectonic plates; the waterfall Gullfoss, where we had lunch; Strokkur, where the geysers are and where Isabel, Saffy and I got a bit wet; and a lot of sitting on a coach looking at a beautiful but very barren landscape. However it was very sunny and a very interesting tour and we all enjoyed it, even Aurora, the county bear.
On Sunday I took over the job of looking after Aurora from Saffy. Amy, Anna B., Ellie and Bridie wanted to go shopping for presents for their families but the rest of us went to Reykjavík Zoo. It was a rather … different type of zoo than you would find in the UK. There were goats, horses, rabbits, a mink, a reindeer, a fox and some sheep, which we found slightly bizarre but cute. We were amazed and thrilled to find that the shop sold Brain Lickers, a really nice, sugary drink that you lick off the roller at the top, and Isabel’s, Saffy's and Jess’s tongues went blue! We soon found the kids’ end of the zoo too with little boats which could not go in a straight line and Isabel, Saffy and I got stranded in the middle of the lake, and Jess only just made it back in time. There was also a little raft which you could go on and pull yourself across the lake, which was amusing. Me, Jess and Alice went back to the café while we waited for the others. Isabel burst in laughing a few minutes later – they had been rocking the raft and Saffy's foot had slid into the lake and the raft had banged into her leg. We could see her outside the café, pulling off a sodden walking boot. She wrang her sock out and about a bucketful of water came out! Luckily Jess had spare socks with her, but Saffy's shoe was still wet and she squelched as we walked back to the hotel with Bev and Alison.
After a highly amusing lunch that involved Mountain Dew, a conversation about Siamese twins and LOTS of sugar, we collected our bags from the basement and went out to meet the coach, only to find we were the last group to get on, meaning that there was only space for four of the eleven huge rucksacks, so Amy spent the journey sitting at the back of the coach surrounded by our rucksacks. We arrived at the campsite and unfortunately Alice sprained her ankle because she fell out of the coach with her rucksack on her back. She was taken off to the medical tent where she waited all afternoon while we put up our tents in the pouring rain, apparently telling people when they asked why she was there, “I fell out of a bus J”.
Once we were inside the kitchen tent we managed to arrange for a man with a trailer to help us bring down our bags as he was already bringing it downfor the Scottish Guides next to us. Bridie then showed her strength by carrying a table down by herself while Anna and Ellie could not take one between them. Everything was wet but we carried on and were soon happily sitting down to supper before the opening ceremony that was quite good, but a bit wet. The man who was running the camp told us that “for those of you from Britain, we have ordered the rain especially so that you would not miss it”. We were also told that it had been very hot and dry until the Thursday just before we arrived. Páll Óskar then performed at the end, apparently the biggest pop star and the most famous gay in Iceland. Again we went to bed at around midnight, which was to become the norm that week.
On Monday morning we signed up for a hike that afternoon and then discovered the swings where we spent a lot of time over the week. After lunch we discovered that we would be doing the hike with three Icelandics and no guide. However they had done the hike before. Their names were Arnthör (15) whom we called Arthur; Sæbörg (15) whose name means “Sea rock” so we called her Cliff, but she didn’t answer to that and so she was Sæ (sigh); and Halldor (13) who told us to call him Bob without telling us his real name. It was a very interesting and fun walk which took about 4 hours, but that included sitting on the moss and chatting for ages a couple of times and numerous stops to sit and eat blackcurrants and blueberries.
In the evening we decided to make a gate to quell our gate envy as all the Icelandic groups had built huge amazing structures including hammocks, a bridge, a turnstile, doors, a lighthouse, and a swing. We also put some bunting across in an attempt to stop people running across our site, but most of the flags were ripped off in the night by the wind, which was also a blessing as they sounded a bit like ducks quacking as they flapped in the wind. It was also brought to the attention of the leaders that someone had lost their underwear, the person having shared a room with them at the hotel thinking the bag under the bed was a pillow case, so I offered her my spare underwear, and Amy made a washing line and spent one afternoon washing various items of clothing so that it would not just be knickers hanging there.
On Tuesday we had our first tent inspection which we failed as we didn’t know what to expect and weren’t ready with some people having their hair up in towels after a shower. Luckily though, it was done by some English leaders so they were quite nice about it. We were a bit worried after seeing some Icelandic leaders inspecting the big Icelandic group next door to us.
Our activity zone for the day was in the Peace and Creativity area, but after making glitter pictures we got bored and went to the swings and hung around the main arena area where we met Bob and Sæ again with their friends and made friends with Konny, Theodora (Teddy), and Ingilbörg, also from the same place, Svanir. We also made friends with Sigrún from Kópar. All of the people from Kópar had knitted their own matching hat and so they were the “yellow hats”. Saffy kept wearing Sigrún’s hat. Bob would not give his up because he had a “hot”. He explained that the Icelandic word for a cold is also the word for hot. In the evening we had a campfire with our subcamp and a million flies. It was interesting to hear some Icelandic campfire songs and to see some of the amusing sketches that they chose to do as their performances.
On Wednesday morning we went to the flag break at the Icelandics camp next to us. Anna was selected to go up to help. As the flag was raised all the Icelandic scouts saluted in a very Nazi-like way, which was a bit disturbing for us, so we did the normal guide salute. Afterwards we went back to our tents, and this time we were prepared for the inspection, all in our matching hoodies, all saluting, ready to sing taps to boost our “Scouts” score, Isabel and I waiting at our gate to say “Halló en velkomin”, but nobody came. Five minutes later the Scottish leaders from next door turned up, one in her pyjamas saying, “Terribly sorry, we weren’t ready” and we were too surprised to say much so we just said hello and lined up with the others. Singing taps at 10 o’clock in the morning was a bit awkward (“day is done”, not; “gone the sun”, behind a cloud; etc) but they were perfectly jolly and gave us a good mark. Our activities for the day were in the Viking Village, where we made felt flowers, chain mail bracelets, little necklaces and writing things on our arms in Viking letters, before chatting to the sheep and the rabbit and the stinky pigs we had met on our first day.
In the evening we had the Search and Rescue games. You had to be in groups of seven so we were joined up with the Cheshire Guides as they were six and we were eight so we could have two teams of seven. The first seven had to do a quiz about first aid, and I was in the second group, and we had to tie our legs together like a three legged race except all of us together in a circle so everyone’s legs were tied, and then follow an arrow on a GPS device to move around an area and open some boxes. Halfway through we were told that we had to match the boxes. In the end they stopped us because we couldn’t do it. For the last challenge Saffy and I joined 5 of the Cheshire Guides. Our task was to carry someone on a stretcher after tying them on and bandaging their “bad” ankle. We sent up Saffy because although it would be easier to carry Georgie who was quite small, we had had a tip off that our person would not be carried by us but by the people next to us. Therefore we were carrying one of the leaders from the Hertfordshire Guides. We didn’t come last, but it was very heavy. Afterwards Saffy kept going on about how it was the best challenge and I was thinking “you didn’t have to carry the stretcher!” but I didn’t really mind.
On Thursday morning a rescue helicopter landed and we were allowed to go into it and look at everything inside. It was awesome!! There were so many controls and a stretcher and emergency kit and I loved it. Our activity for the day was across the road so we went and checked it out and found that we needed a towel and spare clothes as we would get wet and muddy. We went back across to the main camp and saw the helicopter take off. Then we went back to the Viking Village but we were too late to do any of the activities.
In the afternoon we did indeed get wet and muddy and very, very cold. The assault course was particularly tricky in flip-flops that did not fit me, but I enjoyed it anyway. Isabel, Alice and I went back for a shower and met a long queue. Suddenly Ellie and Bridie burst out. Apparently some of the Icelandic girls inside had walked out of the shower cubicle totally naked, which had totally embarrassed Ellie and Bridie. As we weren’t too wet or muddy we decided to have a shower with the hose instead, although Isabel decided she’d prefer a proper shower and joined Anna in the queue. Luckily a nice boy connected the hose to the taps as it was freezing, so we could control the temperature, and we made it a nice warm shower without the hour long queue. We then changed in the toilets and Alice and I went on the swings while the others went back. After about half an hour, Saffy and Jess came back up to the showers from their mud fight with the Icelandics, covered in mud from head to toe. Alice and I went back to our tents to join the others and I helped Ellie and Amy make a cornflake and popcorn chocolate crispy cake – mmm yum! Saffy and Jess finally got back 2 hours later!! Then Alison showed us how to make origami swans in preparation for International Day.
In the evening we had patrol challenges. For us this involved opening various envelopes containing instructions, one of which Isabel accidentally tore in half; using sophomore (backwards) with the two flags we had made to send the code of a padlock we had to open; and making a swing bridge, even though we had no idea what it was and had to copy the Canadians. We came penultimate, but we beat Bob’s group, which we were proud of. It was funny in the older group as everyone was cheering the Scottish rangers as they were the last group to finish, and the microphone was being passed along a group of young girls with high pitched voices cheering on Scotland, when suddenly there was a deep voice yelling “GO CANADA” over the microphone and we saw a 10 year old boy. It was quite hilarious. We had had the Canadian leaders round to inspect us in the morning and they had been quite amused with the parody “We All Lived in a Yellow Submarine” that we had sung for them.
On Friday we went to the Blue Lagoon, which was amazing. This water was so nice and warm after using cold water pumped from the lake for most things and we all put on silicon face masks and we looked like we had plastic white masks on for 10 minutes. On the coach journey back, I was the only passenger awake at one point apart from one of the Hertfordshire Guides, which confused me as I did not know why everyone was tired.
By the evening, however, we were all wide awake and raring to go. We were going to the arena where one of the most famous bands in Iceland were performing. They sang a wide range of songs, from modern pop to Queen and ABBA and much more. Everyone was dancing and singing along, and some of the Icelandics knew some of the English songs better than we did! After they finished, to much shouting which we guessed meant “encore”, the two biggest DJs from Iceland came and put on some more music, so we only went back to our tents for hot chocolate at 11.45, while the music continued playing. It was a great evening.
Saturday was International Day. In the morning we found out the challenge was to try and get 100 points from various activities. However we only managed to get 36 points, but this was quite good in 1 hour, when we could have had another 4 in the afternoon. However we decided just to enjoy the International Day activities. We went around in our tent groups on hourly shifts, one hour at our camp showing people how to make origami swans (as the sign of Bucks) and giving them Union Flag water tattoos and ribbons, the next hour wandering around drinking ‘koko mjilk’ and eating ‘cotton candy’ and ice creams, before returning to our camp for an hour, and so on. One boy from the camp across the path stayed for ages, talking about Doctor Who and having about 5 cups of tea, but we didn’;t mind for the first hour. At last Bob and the others came (they had promised to come when they were off duty) and we spent ages chatting to all of them and then they all signed our neckers and we all signed each other’s. We also signed Saffy and Jess’s t-shirts that they had bought and Sæ’s hat.