Day 5- The President

Great, another day of school. Not that bad actually. We usually have a few hours of Icelandic and then we get some cultural classes with a group of Minnesotans that hate me. Life couldn't be better, let me tell ya. I just remember that in the cultural class Heather and I were so bored!

So later that day we actually got to see the president of Iceland. Really nice guy. While we waited for him we looked around all his house at many of his gifts from others and to my surprise there was a statue given by the Utah Icelandic Association. When we finally met him we were in a semi circle and he wanted us to say who we were, what we thought of Iceland, and what our goals were. For most everyone, he just nodded his head and the next person spoke. When he got to me I told him that I was a farmer from Spanish Fork Utah, how my goals were not only to learn Icelandic, but to also become Icelandic by relearning my families culture. I told him I was a missionary in Sweden and to my surprise, the icelanders were generally more polite and open to visitors. After I told him that he then stopped me and began talking about how the first ever Icelanders to settle in North America were the Saints of the LDS church. He told everyhone how it took them over 300 days to make it all the way to Utah and that they played an improtant role in Icelandic immigration because they brought their culture with them. He said he was pleased that I could come there as a representative of the first Icelanders that immigrated to North America. He then talked about how he loved Spanish Fork and how honored he was to meet President Hinkley. He was the first ever foreign president to ever come to Utah and unfortunately I never got to meet him because I was in Helsingborg, Sweden at the time. You can see him there right next to me in the picture. Good thing I wore a suit. After that I was able to go see my reletives. They took me to the nicest resaurant in Iceland, Perlan. It spins around a whole 360 degrees in about two hours time.  At first they only spoke english to me but I kept speaking back in icelandic.  Luckily my uncle works at Landsbanki and is very profficient in English so whenever I didn't know how to say something he could help me out.  As a gift they gave me an English to Icelandic dictionary but it was the best one you can buy here so I was way excited about it. I'm sure I'll use it while I'm in the islands with nothing to do.  The food was so good too!  I was way surprised at how elegant everything was. I wish I got pictures of everything because I had four courses.