Reykjavic

It may seem strange that a trip to Northern Ireland to search for my family history would take a side trip to Iceland, but it’s really not all that odd. From about 800-1000 AD, Vikings raided the coastal villages of Ireland. By the time Brian Boru defeated the Vikings in 999 and became High King of Ireland in 1002, many Vikings had taken a liking to the place, married some pretty Irish girls, and set up housekeeping. Where do you think all that red hair came from?

In fact, as I continue to research the path of my Y chromosome through history, it appears that it may have found its way to Ireland from Scandinavia. Interestingly, Iceland’s native language, Icelandic, is so close to the language of the Vikings that the people here can read ancient Viking literature. So, as I follow my Y chromosome DNA back through history, Iceland may be in its path.

Iceland is one of the geologically youngest places on earth--rising out of the Atlantic only 8 million years ago. As we flew in, Helen remarked it was like landing on Mars. Everywhere we looked there is evidence of a landscape that is constantly changing.

Today, after arriving at 6:30a.m. local time (2:30 a.m. for out internal clocks) we got about 4 hours sleep and then walked around Reykjavik—the capital city.

There are only about 300,000 people living on Iceland, and 2/3 of them live in and around Reykjavik. This time of year, the sun “sets” at midnight and “rises” again at 2:30 a.m. Thankfully, the hotel has blackout curtains. Even more thankfully, everyone here speaks some English.

This is the 200^th anniversary of the Republic of Iceland achieving some autonomy, although it was not a completely independent republic until 1944. We went to an exhibit about Jón Sigurðsson, leader of the Icelandic independence movement—the Icelandic equivalent of George Washington, Simon Bolivar, or General San Martin. I found it really cool that the exhibit was at Reykjavik Junior College which served as a meeting place for Iceland's "Founding Father." A young woman in period costume explained that June 17^th is the day they celebrate their independence—Sigurðsson’s birthday. She also explained that Icelanders begin to learn English at age 10; however, her 9-year-old brother is quite skilled in English already because English is the language of the Internet. I had not considered that before, but it makes sense. As there are only 300,000 Icelandic speakers, I doubt the lad will find much Internet content in his native tongue.

It’s kind of cold here, about 48F, but there are no annoying flying bugs. It's quite a change from what we left behind in Frederick yesterday. The Icelandic Kronur is about 114 to the dollar, so it is pretty easy to figure out what things cost. We have not been here long enough to compare many prices to US prices, but it seems a bit more expensive. Gasoline is about $8.00 a gallon and ground beef is about $6.70 a pound. Our hotel is $125 a night and that includes a nice breakfast with a lot of weird food I will be brave enough to try tomorrow.