Landing in Reykjavik

It was smooth sailing into Reykjavik. After a short layover in JFK Airport, we boarded the 6 hour flight across the Atlantic. Since it's a 4 hour time addition from East Coast, we landed fairly late. As we were getting close the captain comes on the speaker and says the standard "we're descending into Iceland...local time is just before midnight". I had been keeping my window shade closed up to that point to help me sleep, but I raised it to see what was out there.

Since Iceland is at such a high latitude, its daylight hours fluctuate wildly over the course of a year. It's been an interesting transition for me these past few years coming from California (which doesn't change much over the seasons) to Boston (with four very distinct seasons), to the extremeness of Iceland.

How extreme exactly? Here's what was outside my window at midnight when I was landing!
That's right - the sun currently sets right around midnight. Even more odd, it rises about 4 hours later.

Driving to our house was also interesting. All the road signs and street names are in Icelandic. While the language shares a similar alphabet to English, it does have extra letters and is totally unintelligible to those who don't speak it. It sounds kind of like German to me, but I'm told there are little similarities.

Even though we got in around 2am, the roommates didn't get home until an hour after us because they were at a party which ran late. There are 3 of them, and they're all Hungarians. We seem to be getting along with each other really well. It helps a lot that they're really funny and their English is very good. We're also hosting 3 additional students from MIT who happen to be passing through, so our 5 bedroom house is currently pretty crowded. It doesn't matter much since we don't expect to sleep a lot considering the time difference and the funky daylight hours.

Wrapping up at MIT

Hello friends & family!

This post is a "prequel" to my adventures, and its sole purpose is to set the stage. For those who either don't know me or need a refresher, I graduated with my Master's Degree a little less than a week ago and am now embarking on two internships abroad over the next 9 months (3 months in Iceland and 6 in Spain).

It's currently 5pm on June 12th, 2008. In less than 24 hours, I'll be well over the Atlantic on my way to Reykjavik, which is the capital and main city of Iceland. I'll be working and living there until the end of August for a company called Mannvit, which amongst other engineering specialties has a lot of experience in Energy. My job will be to look into the environmental impacts of Geothermal energy and to assess its likely legislation and roadblock considerations should the company decide to expand such technologies into the US.

Today has been hectic. I spent a few hours at the Spanish consulate working on my visa (that adventure starts right after Iceland in September), but thankfully it worked out ok. I was pretty nervous since this was my one and only chance to get all the required materials submitted in the proper format.

Following that experience, furious packing coupled with shipping out packages to parents ensued (they are wonderful for being such a trusty storage locker). This also involved me walking for 15 minutes with a 30lb box on my head - a little trick I learned in Ghana. Multiple bags of clothes were then deposited to The Salvation Army, and with that my room is finally starting to look empty. According to my count, I have boarded the campus shuttle 7 times today.

As I write this, I can't help but feel that my 9 month stay at MIT has gone by remarkably fast. I find this an interesting contrast because most days were agonizingly slow. Probably because of my personality, I feel it's better to focus on the positive aspects of my experiences here, and as such I thought I'd post a few pictures of Cambridge and Boston which I particularly enjoy. Flipping through my pictures has also helped me to get closure, and to let reality sink in.

The first one is probably the favorite shot I've gotten from my apartment, and it overlooks downtown Boston at sunrise.
This one was taken walking along the Charles River and it also covers the Boston skyline on a Spring day. Although the weather was especially windy, there remained no shortage of brave souls attempting to sail.
And no summary of recollections around MIT would be complete without a shot of the picturesque dome in the center of campus. This is one I took in the dead of winter on my way to an early morning class.
That's it for Cambridge and Boston. I hope you're just as eager to read about my experiences as I am to have them. I promise to post as often as I have interesting stories to tell, and the next one should start with the good stuff!

We’re Home!

We’ve all made it back to Cambridge safely and are trying to readjust to life here in the States. The weather alone makes this challenging; yesterday’s temperature was -8 degrees Fahrenheit with the wind chill. One unexpected joy was taking a shower. Not having running water for the past week and no hot water for the entire month made the experience of a good hot shower seem truly amazing. It’s surprising how we take little things like that for granted.

I’ve actually gone back and sprinkled some additional pictures and video links in some past posts. For videos, look under the headings “Happy New Year”, “Goal!”, “Mole National Park”, “It’s a Tough Job”, “We’re Officially Tourists”, and “Where We’re Going”. The same videos are also easily accessible on my youtube account here. If this still isn’t enough to satisfy your African experience, a lot of my other pictures have been posted here.

I also wanted to take this chance to say thank you for sharing this incredible experience with me. We obviously had an amazing time, and I hope it has been just as fun to read as it’s been to write. I should also thank my adviser, Susan Murcott, for all her hard work and for handling the overwhelming logistics of coordinating so many students in Ghana. Also lots of thanks are in order to Carl, Kim, Mike, and the rest of the Peace Corps group whose help was absolutely invaluable. And certainly much credit is given to Dave B., as well as the two Peters and Shock from the Pure Home Water staff. I can’t even imagine how different this would all have been without your help.

And thanks for reading!

-Cash