March through June - The rest of the school year

Let's see what's on the menu for the rest of the school year:

back to the school routine
catching up with the chores
fighting for the final grades
graduation ceremony in May
matura and entrance exams for seven of the ten team members

Meanwhile, of course, we want people to know about Iceland and the Water and Fire adventure. The team writes articles for Zalai Hírlap, the county paper, sends thank you letters to the sponsors, has presentations for the teaching staff and students of Kölcsey, as well as other schools. An exhibition shows posters with photos in different themes. On May 18 and 19, two interviews go on air in Pet?fi Rádió, one of the three main Hungarian radio stations.

What else? The teachers will have to write their project closing reports to the Icelandic National Socrates Office, and the Hungarian Tempus Public Foundation, the two fund providers without whom this eTwinning partnership - however rich - would probably have remained on the level of electronic communication.

Fehoka

ps: pictures later...

March 4^th, Saturday - a long day's journey home

Getting up at 5, and soon the bus drops us at Keflavik Airport. The last words of good-bye to Hjördis and Tjörvi, and off we fly; from the plane we see the spectacular south of Iceland we first drove along two weeks ago, and the huge ice tongues of the Vatnajökull are all now familiar; those four, too that we saw and admired from the windows of FAS, Höfn.

We have several hours in sunny-snowy Copenhagen, so we decide to take a tour to the city. It's late in the evening when we land in Schwechat, Vienna. A few hours later, families and friends meet us in front of Zalaegerszeg Pláza. Happy, sleepy, relieved, full of memories and with full memory cards, everyone feels a great tour has come to an end, yet, this must not be the end of the story.

...to be continued...

Fehoka

ps: pictures later...

March 3, Friday - in the capital of Iceland

We visited Reykjavik Energy, which is not only the headquarters of the geothermal energy in the SE of Iceland, but also a building of architectural interest. After a guided tour in the ultramodern building, we take a tour in the National Museum. Then we go to the eTwinning office, and the Pearl, one of the most popular buildings of Reykjavík.

We all look forward to a visit to President Olafur Grimsson, but because he has fallen ill, we can only walk around in his palace, the Bessastadr. It's like a museum, full of presidential presents from all over the world. We leave behind some Hungarian medicine for the President: Egri bikavér, the famous red wine, which will surely do good to him.

We spend the last evening with Tjörvi's family, who treat us with some very good food.

Fehoka

ps: pictures later IF I can upload them...

March 2, Thursday - Good-bye, Höfn! Hello waterfalls, geyser fields, plate margins and Aldingi!

It's time to say good bye... Warm hugs and tears in the school hall, chilly-sparkling-windy morning outside. The farewell was a bit easier in Budapestend of Höfn sign.
Not really the happiest moment of the 14-month history of the Water and Fire adventure. Everyone feels they must come back one day.
last October, because we knew we would meet soon. But now?... You can hear words of plans and promises of future visits, but it?ll take a while to find out when and where. The Icelandic people follow our bus in their car until the

Dust storms, frozen waterfalls along Route no. 1, then a face-freezing exercise at Gullfoss, the
Golden Waterfall, where we are bombarded by millions of ice crystals which form as the water tumbles and breaks on the rocks.

Geysir is our next stop, which is the most famous - now extinct - geyser in the world. Around it dozens of active geysers, fumaroles and other post-volcanic formations remind us of the closeness of the inferno?

Another place to remember: Aldingi, the Icelandic Ópusztaszer, and the spot where we can almost see the North American and the Eurasian Plates separate from each other, speeding up the few millimeters per year speed of their spreading.

We are invited for a tasty dinner in the home of Hjördis? brother, and then we go to the hostel where we will spend the last two nights.

Fehoka

ps: same story again... no pictures... maybe later... and sorry about the wrong spelling of Aldingi.. it's still better to have a simple "d" there than a "?" mark...

March 1, Wednesday - the land of salted fish and jökullhlaup

The Team met in front of the fish processing factory at 9am. This was an experience not only for the eye but also for the nose... We were shown around and had the chance to see where and how the catch - several tons a day - is processed. We learned that some of the main export destinations of the salted fish are great fishing nations themselves - e.g. Portugal -, but the quality of the fish is better here in Iceland. There are no salt mines in Iceland, therefore tons of salt must be imported for the salting of the fish. The Hungarians thought it's great to live by the ocean, and focus on the harvest but not really on the sowing, weeding, pruning, insect killing or the irrigation of the land. On the other hand, though, we think tractors are easier to drive on the plough land than fishing boats on the rough seas...

Later in the morning I visited a geology lesson at FAS. Hjördis had a PowerPoint presentation about volcanic rocks, and the students could see and examine real rock samples while they were listening or taking notes in their work sheets.

Our last program in Höfn was to visit the Glacial Exhibition, where there was a huge chunk of ice brought form one of the many glaciers in the region. We also saw a film about the famous subglacial volcanic eruption below the Vatnajökull.

The rest of the day was mostly shopping for food for the last two days, packing our luggage and, having the last evening conversation with our host families...

Fehoka

(Something was wrong with blogger so I couldn't upload all of the pictures here only this one... I'll try it later...)