Nearly October!?

I really, really can’t believe it is the end of September already.  While the first weeks Kristin were here did often seem to drag on a bit, now that she’s been in school, the time is flying by.

Kristin commenced school right after Labor Day and is doing fine.  She has typical exchange student problems of not really catching everything in class that’s being said, and often feels worried about her homework assignments, not being entirely sure what to do.  Fortunately, her teachers are very helpful and when I email them, they happily email us back with a more detailed explanation, which we find helpful.  We spend a couple of hours at night on homework—my task is to be the resident spelling bee.  I’ve spelled everything from “environment” to “collect”.  Kristin’s least favorite letters are E and I, as she finds it hard to remember which is which.

Sometimes she ties in the things we do to her homework and that cracks me up.  I have an obsession with the TV show Hoarders, so last night when she had to write a monologue for her drama class, she decided to write one about a hoarder.  She used the show as research for what a hoarder would talk about.  Pretty smart girl!

A couple of weeks ago, Kristin joined the cross country team.  Occasionally she comes home vowing to quit, but she always changes her mind the next day as she says, “I like my teammates!”  It is very physically demanding and she comes home sore and exhausted, and then has lots of homework today.  Often she feels that she doesn’t have much time to relax.  It has been good for her in terms of meeting people, however, and she had a genius way of getting to know people better by loudly announcing at practice, “I hate the activity bus!” so someone offered her a ride home.  I thought that was pretty ingenious, actually, so way to go Kristin!

She has been to a football game or two.  We were talking yesterday about it and she said she doesn’t understand the rules.  I, who have been watching the Patriots for 10 years now, also do not understand the rules, but gamely attempted to explain them to her.  My explanation in part was, “You get an extra point if you kick it through the Y shaped thingy at the end”…  Believe it or not, she knew what I was talking about.

this weekend, Kristin had her first AFS orientation.  I think she enjoyed it and immediately came home and added all her new pals on her Facebook.  We also got in a couple games of laser tag on Friday and a trip to Cold Stone, her favorite!

I guess the big excitement is that we asked Kristin to do some Icelandic cooking for us.  She settled on two dishes—Skyr and rice pudding.  Now, of course, you can get Skyr in the grocery store but I was informed that it’s not very good, even in Iceland, and needs to be dressed up to be edible.  She got the recipe from home and we had our friends Andy, Melissa, and Emily over as they are enthusiasts of international cooking.  The Skyr was done in an instant, she was an expert on that.  The rice pudding was more of a challenge and finally Kristin announced, “this is boring, I’m sick of cooking it!” and served it as is, which was nice and creamy, but the rice was rock solid.  We all found it hilarious.  We also got out the rest of the Icelandic chocolate and the Icelandic fish.  Kristin also made us apple sandwiches, so we had a real feast!

Everything was a big hit!

This week we will take our first roadtrip.  My dad is turning 60 and we are heading up to New York to celebrate.  It will be the longest trip Kristin’s ever taken in the car—10 hours at least—and we are preparing her by packing snacks, drinks, and a DVD player.  It’ll be nice to show her rural America and the people I grew up with.  I hope she enjoys herself!!  I’m looking forward to having a break and getting away for a couple days. 

Kristin is also “hosting” a Pampered Chef show in October, with a Cold Stone ice cream theme.  If she’s still here, we are going to go to a book signing with Diane Keaton, are in discussions with a  friend about a trip to Philadelphia to see Sara Bareilles, and are debating other fun and games as the year progresses.  We just have to find out what she wants to do!  Sooooo….

When we get back, it’ll be decision time.  We’ve asked Kristin what she thinks about staying here for the rest of the year and her answer is, “I don’t know”.  I think it’s possible in some ways she would be much happier with a family with older kids and pets, but she has settled in nicely here as well.  There have been times I’ve been convinced she’s going to give me trouble, and I’m glad to say I’ve been wrong—things have gone quite smoothly.  So we have offered her the chance to stay.  Whether or not she takes it, that’s up to her!  We won’t be upset either way.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print!!!  See you all from the other side of our NY trip!

Everything Else

Well, I’ve written all the fun and games, and some of the not so much fun, that took up our 3 weeks welcoming Kristin.  Today marks 4 weeks since she arrived and Monday marks one month since we brought her home.  So what are some of the things we’ve learned about each other?

1.  Iceland and Icelanders are used to dealing with natural disaster.  Americans panic at the thought of a severe thunderstorm.  Unfortunately, with the way the media blows the threat of impending storms way out of proportion, it causes natural families in Iceland to panic at the thought of their beloved daughter being swept out to sea on the waves of a vicious killer hurricane, after the entire Eastern seaboard is broken off in a killer earthquake.  In contrast, a 12 hour loss of electricity doesn’t seem so bad.  There are currently cluster earthquakes happening in Iceland centered around a major volcano.  While it is worrying, Icelanders seem to be adopting a “wait and see” attitude.

2.  Halloween is getting so crazy here in the US that Kristin is powerfully excited for October 31 to roll around.  In Iceland it is customary that the children dress up, go to local shops and sing a song, for which they are given treats.  By contrast, Kristin has been taking picture of Halloween miniature villages in craft stores, debated costume choices, pondered Halloween parties, seen candy displays in stores, and enjoyed looking at inflatables for the yard.  She literally giggles every time we see something and last night confided, “I can’t wait for Halloween!”  I hope she’s not disappointed that she’ll spend the day in school and trick or treating is no big deal.  Fortunately, AFS is having a Halloween party if nothing else.

3.  Christmas has come up already as a time that she feels she will be very depressed and homesick.  She explained that in Iceland they have 13 Santa Clauses, and they get small presents every day for 13 days prior to Christmas.  On Christmas Eve, they open their gifts and have a big dinner and get all dressed up.  I explained our Christmas traditions, and was informed they are “stupid”.  I chose not to be insulted by this, mainly because Kristin’s favorite word is “stupid” and she uses it to describe everything from the fact that there are no sidewalks in our neighborhood to the fact that the color of a building doesn’t suit her.  I told her that provided she’s still with us, I would be happy to incorporate some of the things she is used to doing for the holidays into our celebration, but internally immediately panicked as this indicates a long-term view of this hosting experience with which I am not yet entirely comfortable!  However, I do believe that since it is not only Kristin’s exchange, but ours as well, that if she’ll let us, we would incorporate some of her traditions into our celebrations as a fun and new way of doing things.

4.  Teenagers share certain similarities the world over.  Where Penny would spend an hour curling her hair, Kristin will spend an hour straightening hers.  I am assured by friends with teen daughters here in the US that their girls behave similarly. 

5.  The weather we’ve had has been a challenge for Kristin.  She said last night that was so excited to come to Virginia because she was sure it was going to be sunny and warm and she’d get an awesome tan.  Unfortunately, it’s done a whole lot of raining since she arrived.  She says everyone at school is so nice and brown, and she was very proud of the tan she did managed to get until she saw all of them.  I pointed out they had an extra few months of sun and she was working inside all summer bagging fish.  Her response?  “Stupid fish”.

6.  Kristin really is pretty obsessed with big houses and fast cars.  I think she was under the impression that we all live like they do in Malibu or Beverly Hills, with flashy cars and fancy houses and tons of cash to throw around.  Sadly for her, that is not the case.  And of course, our house has been in a state of rebellion since she arrived.  Still, when we were up in Vienna for the pool party, she saw all the big houses and stated, “I’d like to live here!”  Whenever we’re out, she looks at all the cars she finds amazing when we pass and says, “Cool car!”  Sadly for her, she’s stuck in middle-suburbia with a host mom who drives a station wagon.

7.  Kristin didn’t know what Columbine was.  We watched a fake documentary about 2 boys who plotted to blow up their school and kill a bunch of people, and at the end, the scene in which they carry it out was taken directly from the video of the Columbine library.  She was shocked that something like that actually happened, and I showed her pictures of the real people involved and told her about the fact that Mike and I were on vacation when Columbine happened and 3 years later got married on the anniversary of it happening.  I find it interesting that it never entered her consciousness, but I guess kids of a certain age and kids who aren’t American have no frame of reference….

I really have enjoyed the past 4 weeks very much.  I feel far more mellow than when Penny was here, I suppose in part because I view this as a largely transitory experience, although I do have thoughts of it lasting all year from time to time.  Kristin implied on Monday that she is afraid to move somewhere else where she doesn’t know the people due to the largely positive experience she’s had thus far, and I admit there was a little lump in my throat when we thought we’d found her a permanent family.  We’ll see what happens!

Info About Iceland

So, last year, I did a little comparison of Thailand and the US, side by side.  I thought it would be similarly interesting to do so about the US and Iceland.  Ok, so here we go:

Capital Cities:
US:  Washington DC
Iceland: Reykjavik

Population:
US:  310.2 million
Iceland:  308,910

(To put this into some perspective, there are just under 600,000 official residents of Washington DC, more than the entire population of Iceland!)

Monetary Units:
US:  Dollar
Iceland: Krona

The exchange rate today is $1 = 116.070 ISK.

Life Expectancy:
US:  76 (male), 81 (female)
Iceland: 79 (male), 83 (female)

Iceland has one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world.

Time Difference:
Iceland is 4 hours ahead of the US.

Geography:
US: The 4th largest country in the world
Iceland:  The 2nd largest island in Europe.  Iceland averages a volcanic eruption every 5 years.

Iceland is 39,768 square miles.  Our home state of Virginia is 42,774 Square miles.

Government:
US:  Democratic Federal Republic
Iceland:  Constitutional Republic

President:
US:  Barack Obama
Iceland: Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson

Presidents in both countries serve a 4 year term.

I’ve added a little sidebar yonder -----> with the flag and some of these facts.  I learned a lot with a quick Google search and hope you enjoyed!