Date: March 11th, 2023
Location: Hvolsvöllur, Iceland
This morning, I woke up around 8 again. Oh, yeah. Did I mention we were in those bunk beds again? Luckily for me, I was quick enough to get a bottom bunch. It made waking up and preparing for the day significantly easier. But enough about that. We have our presentations for our capstone projects today so I had to get ready for that. But first, it was time for breakfast! So I got dressed, got my bag packed with all the stuff I would need for my project, and headed downstairs. There were already people from my program milling about and eating, so I joined them and ate so I could get started on putting the finishing touches on my project while taking care of some other work.
After everyone came downstairs to eat and finish breakfast, my group broke off to make sure we had everything we needed for our project. We went over slides and made sure all of our formattings was good and that we had all the information we needed for our project. We then rehearsed what we were going to say to ensure we could give an effective presentation. By that time, it was starting to become lunch, our entire program stopped what we were doing to get some Broccoli soup and freshly baked bread. Then once we were finished with lunch, we all went upstairs to change into some more professional (and less outdoorsy) looking clothes so we could present our project.
Admittedly, I was a little nervous. We had spent so much of this trip away from our computers and outside that we truly didn't have a lot of time to work on our project. But I knew that in the end, we did the best we could and our end results gave a really sound project that truly tried to tackle big problems with real solutions. So I had faith in us 100%!
For anyone who wanted to watch my group present, here's a link to the stream from that day. We were the second group to present (around 30 minutes in)! But now, it's time to give a little breakdown of my group and our project: Fresh4Less.
The goal of our project was to create a grocery that tackled three big ideas at the same time: food insecurity, food waste, and biofuel. There are many people in the US who are considered food insecure (meaning that they usually don't know where their next meal will be because food is inaccessible and unaffordable) and there are tons of food deserts in low-income neighborhoods. At the same time, the US wastes a lot of perfectly good food every single day. So my group designed the grocery store, Fresh4Less.
Essentially, the idea was to provide food deserts with subsidized and pay-what-you-can groceries (within a certain price range) to help lower hunger and make sure fewer people have to choose between paying the bills and eating every single day. Additionally, we wanted to tackle food waste by placing our grocery store in a location where food date regulation labels are lax (so our store won't be forced to throw our perfectly good food way before it goes bad) and where we could potentially get some donations from local farms that have excess produce. Thus, we ended up having Memphis, TN set to be our launch location since Tennessee has pretty lax food date regulation rules, easy access to local farms, and because Memphis has the highest percentage of people living in a food desert compared to any other large metro area in the US.
Naturally, we knew that our grocery store still had to find a way to pay its own bills while helping other people. So we decided to make sure that our grocery store put forth a huge effort toward composting any and all food that isn't safe for human consumption. We would then sell our compost to biofuel (fuel made from biomass, or in this case food and liquids) companies so we can help curve waste, make some extra money, and keep the lights on in our store. That's the main idea for our project but there's still a lot more to it so I highly recommend that you check it out when you get the chance!
Once my group finished presenting, we went and sat down so we could watch the last two groups present. I think our presentation went really well and I'm super proud of all that we were able to accomplish. I also think the other groups were great. You could really really hear how much care and effort went into each project and just how informed everyone was about their individual focuses. But most of all, it was nice seeing the fruits of everyone's labor. As proud as I am of my project, I was pretty happy to have it crossed off my list considering how much homework I have left for me once I landed back in the US. Still, this was fun while it lasted.
As the last group wrapped up their presentation, we all started to pack away our technology and head upstairs to change our clothes into something a little less business casual. Our program guides told us that since we had spent the entire day so far inside, typing away at our computers, we were going to take a walk in the forest to give us a break from all the indoor air. So, we got back on our layers and dressed for nice and easy hike and then headed out to the bus. We left Midgard and drove for about 10 or so minutes to make it to a place called Tumastaðir. Apparently, it's known as the biggest forest in southern Iceland. Though you really wouldn't be able to tell since it was nothing but trees without leaves for miles and miles. I'm sure it looks really beautiful in the summer. But in the winter, it is definitely on the thinner side.
Once we got to the forest, we took a couple of minutes to walk through the forest to get to a clearing. Once we were at the clearing, we saw that some of the people who are associated with the GREEN Program and our hostel were already there, standing over a fire pit. We didn't get much of a warning other than one of the hostel workers telling showing us this stick that he had in his hands and then telling us that we should find one just like it. It only took a couple of minutes to come back with what he liked to call "the perfect stick." But once we all gathered around the fire pit again, he wrapped some dough around each of the sticks we found and told us to go and cook it over the fire pit.
So there we were, baking bread on the random sticks we found on the ground a mere couple of minutes ago. I will say, I'm not the biggest fan of picking up random sticks and roasting something on them. Whether it's marshmallows or hotdogs or bread, it's just not my thing. But it's infinitely more reassuring to do something like this in Iceland when there are hardly any critters or bugs crawling around. Like, the worst thing you could run into while out in the woods here is probably another person- that's how few animals and animal species there are here. Even now, I'm still freaked out by the lack of squirrels and bunnies that I would see back at home or on campus.
Anyways, we walked around the clearing for a little bit after everyone was finished cooking their bread. Truthfully, I had to keep going back and cooking my bread a little more each time I took it out of the fire because I was constantly teetering on this line of burnt and completely raw. Also, it didn't help that I was the unfortunate match of inexperienced and impatient as well. But in end, I was able to cook my bread and enjoy it, more than I thought I would enjoy half-burnt campfire bread. Though once I was done and put my stick away, I spent the remaining time talking to people there and exploring the edges of the clearing. There was a really cute windchime made out of wood a couple of steps into the forest. Unfortunately, today seemed like the only day with no wind blowing whatsoever so I was able to hear it play at all. Maybe that was a bit of karma for constantly complaining about the wind this whole trip. Who knows! But if you were me, you'd probably have something to say about the wind too.
Eventually, it was time to go and head back to Midgard for dinner. We all packed into the bus and spent the ride listening to some Icelandic songs. I can't lie, a lot of the songs are growing on me. Maybe I'll end up posting some of my favorites on my blog! But it didn't take us long to make it back to Midgard. Once we got there, we all went to our rooms and took off all our cold-weather layers so we could head downstairs for dinner. Everyone in our program decided to push together all the tables and chairs to make sure we could spend as much time together as we could on our last day together.
For dinner, we were served veggie burgers (which were surprisingly better than I thought they would be- who knew Icelanders had veggie burgers down on lock!) and for dessert, we had ice cream. Again, you could tell everything had this slightly different taste to it. Less so like it was a different recipe, but more so like Iceland just uses so many different ingredients. This makes sense considering how a lot of the stuff we use in our foods in America are banned/more heavily regulated in Europe. But that's a story for another day.
After dinner and dessert finished, our program had one last assignment for us. They wanted to take out a sheet of paper, write our name at the top, and pass it around the table for everyone to write a message. This idea was incredibly cute, but it also made me kind of sad. A lot of the people in the program were also Penn State students, so I had a good chance of seeing them around campus. Especially since a lot of us were from the same college (the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences) but even there, there were a couple of Seniors, so I knew that even though we got pretty close on the trip, we might never see each other again. There were also four other people a part of our group who didn't go to Penn State. There were the two people from England and I loved getting to talk to them and hearing about the differences between our countries. It was also pretty funny hearing them attempt to do American accents, and just hearing their jokes and laughing with them. There was also this girl from California and a girl from North Carolina who I got really close to them too. It felt like all of us just really bonded in our time together so I know I'm going to miss everyone on this trip a lot as the days go by. So, I made sure I wrote a really nice message for everyone on their paper. The plan was for everyone to only read our paper with all the messages addressed to us when we were on the plane ride home. I wanted to make sure that everyone knew that I wouldn't even forget this experience or them!
On a more lighthearted note, our Program guides brought out a big TV and some microphones once we were all finished writing our notes. And while they were setting everything up, everyone hit up the bar (naturally, I had to get another Pepsi while debating if I should buy some more ice cream because it was really, really good) and joined our guides in the lobby to sing karaoke! We all sang for a couple of hours, hitting some pretty iconic songs that are must-haves for every good karaoke session like Wonderwall by Oasis, Love Story by Taylor Swift, and like three ABBA songs. My favorite had to be when one of our guides, a girl named Embla sang Barbie Girl. It was so funny hearing her get really into the song because of her very noticeably Norwegian accent but she really killed it out there. But the second-best song of the night was shouting the lyrics to Mr. Brightside by the Killers with the whole group at the very end. It was the perfect way to end the night.
Aside from the quick little game of cards we played afterward and watching for some more Northern Lights. But after that, we wasted no time getting ready for bed and getting our stuff packed up for tomorrow. After all, our flights back home were in less than 24 hours. It was almost time for us to head home.
Anddd, that's where I leave you guys for this journal entry. My next one will be my last one for this trip, I hope you'll stick around to read that one too. But for now, thanks for reading up until this point! Until next time!
- DD
Picture Sources (in order of appearance):
Fresh4Less Cover Image - My photo!
Group Photo! - My photo!
Comments