The Cuisine

I thought David did a nice job showing us the variety of foods one could expect around Scandinavia. I recently saw an episode of frozen planet and human planet where shark and whale meets were cut and wrapped in skin/blubber and then buried.  They would then dig it back up in the winter when food was not as plentiful.  It was a way to preserve the food for months at a time and to ensure the family would never be without food....cool how these customs and techniques develop and are still around in present day.

A classic Jewish meal nowadays are bagels and lox. Lox were introduced to the Jewish people while in Scandinavia and then exported to the US during mass immigration.  I think that this is a unique 'traditional' food we share and a great cultural connection we share!

Otherwise, Scandinavian food is clearly under-rated.  All across the world you can see Italian, Japanese, French and Latin foods, but Scandinavian foods are not that prominent.  I look forward to indulging in some good classic and modern Scandinavian foods.

In other words, from everything we've learned...! cant wait to travel to the north!

Presentations - Round 2!

Once again we covered the whole spectrum across the presentations that we saw in class over the past two weeks. From beer to Christianity, from sports to immigration, from national parks to nautical culture, we heard it all! Again, I feel that these are really helping us to understand scandinavian civilization in the present and in the past, and these five countries are world leaders in many aspects. It is pretty cool to see the grand impact and the tremendous initiative that these countries have, considering how small they are. It is also kind of unique how they all have distinct characteristics, yet many similarities as well. It is sad to see this class coming to a close, but I know that I will walk away with a much better understand and appreciation for Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland.

Iceland Week

I learned a lot during icelandic week. I like the fact that during the week, we first started with the film Reykjavik 101, and got a touch of Icelandic culture, along with a humorous odd film. Then when Mrs. Gunnarsdottir came to present, she covered a lot about the country's detail. From my second paper, I noticed that Iceland prohibited alcohol almost thru the entire 20th century. I found it interesting, that iceland has one of the highest depression rates considering the liveliness and partying of the small country. I would sometime in the future like to visit the middle of the country, where no people live, and all nature, ice, and volcanoes reside.

-Dylan

Icelandic Week

I learned a lot from the week on Iceland, because I had known very little about Icelandic culture to begin with, particularly modern Icelandic culture, which I knew nothing about. I thought it was really interesing learning about the delayed road contruction, and belief in magical creatures, particularly when it was mentioned that several people had died during its construction and how this coincidentally aligned with these supernatural beliefs. The film we watched was also very interesting, and added to my understanding of Icelandic culture, atleast through the portrayal of general beliefs and perspectives.

Icelandic Week

I thought learning about Iceland was very interesting, particularly how the culture has managed to survive despite many challenges. In particular, the small population size and geographic limitations of the island. I was really surprised that buildings can only be several stories tall, and must be heavily protected against the elements, and that the entire interior of the island is uninhabited. 101 Reykjavic was an interesting movie. I thought many of the themes were unique and the characters were pretty funny. Despite only seeing a bit of the movie, Augusta seemed to think some of the characters were somewhat representative of Icelandic people; particularly how open everyone is with each other.

Iceland

For the majority of my life I knew Iceland as the habitable island next to Greenland.  I always found the irony of Iceland and Greenland to be a 'fun fact'.  That fact being that even though Greenland sounds warmer...its not.
Through this class and week, my eyes have been opened.  I knew that Iceland would be beautiful but had no idea that the center was uninhabited and all the cities surrounded the island on the coast.  The fact that one small island has beaches, mountains, plains, snow/ice, volcanoes and caves baffles me!  How cool!

The film 101 Reykjavik provided the perfect look at life in Iceland.  There are many similarities and lots of differences to here, but what we share is unique.  I liked how open there society is to everything...sex, drugs, sexual orientation, class differences.  It, like Scandinavian, is a model of how the world can co-exist with many different types of people.   The film was also just generally hilarious!

Our guest speaker really reinforced the themes the movie laid out.  She did a great job connecting the winter lifestyle to the crazy partying, late nights, open sexual landscape, and drug use....while I would never want to go in the winter, Iceland is now a top summer destination for me.  The rafting, kayaking and general adventuring is too good to pass up!  

Iceland Week

Out of all the Nordic countries, I would say that Iceland is by far the weirdest. I had no idea that it was so much different from the rest of Europe. The craziest thing about their culture istheir religous beliefs and how they've taken different parts of other religions to sort of form their own. I thought the coolest part of it is their belief in elves and especially the story of how the elves stopped the construction of the highway around the country. I thought it was funny that Agusta seemed kind of embarassed by her fellow Icelanders beliefs.