Today was our last day at school. The Finnish and Icelandic students needed to say goodbye to their host families. We met at school at 9 and worked on our posters until lunch.

After lunch the students presented their posters and also a picture which they took during the stay in Norway and explain why this picture was chosen. All presentation went well and we can be sure that we all learned a lot during this week.

Sadly, it was time to say goodbye. Some of the Norwegian students needed to go home for the weekend, but some followed the guests to the shopping center and later to Hurtigruten. It is always sad to say goodbye, but we will all meet next spring in Finland, just after a while.

The Finns and Icelanders are now just about starting a long journey home. Hurtigruten will leave soon and we will be in Throndheim tomorrow morning. Both groups have a long trip ahead to their homes.

We will enjoy our last evening together on the Brygge Bistro on floor four eating pizzas.

Before lunch we went on our group work on the different themes of the week. We made a draft on the posters that we are going to finish and present on Friday.  After lunch we had an excursion to the nearby shore which was not so far away from the school, but only a ten minute’s walk.

We met the marine biologist Sebastian Strand who guided us together with Bergliot Storruste and Kamilla Pedersen from Trollfjell Geopark. We studied marine biodiversity by collecting living organisms from the shore.

Kamilla prepared some seafood snacks from the collected stuff (algae, kelps, snails, sea shells) with a trangia and those who dared could taste them.

Then we had a delicious seafood dinner at school, prepared by the students of the educational programme Restaurant and Food Processing. The evening was free and most of the students went bowling.

After a delightful first night with the host families, we met early at Brønnøysund videregående skole, got some breakfast and went over the assignments of the day.

We started with a visit to Norsk Havbrukssenter and got to know about fish farming and harvesting. It was very interesting to see the process and we got very good information we can use for our posters.

After that visit we went back to the school, got some lunch, and started our group work with the posters we have to do by Friday and present before we leave Brønnøysund that day in the afternoon.

After some group work, we got an early dinner (yes – we have eaten a lot in this trip!) and went by bus to the mountain Torghatten but it is known for its characteristic hole, or natural tunnel, through its center. We decided to take a picture of the whole group. The headmaster of the school walked up with us and took the photo.

After the walk up the mountain the students went back to their host families. This day was excellent, and we were very lucky with the weather.

We all woke up relaxed and happy in the morning after a normal long night for a change. The little huts offered us a new and great experience on the island of Vega.  After breakfast at Base Camp Vega we were told about the program of the day.  Our task was to collect and sort out trash from the beach. The organization In the Same Boat informed us on the security on the boat and on the rocky beach as well as gave instructions on the beach cleaning.

We were divided into three groups whose task was to collect trash from different places. The groups were taken by two boats to the island of Søla. The weather was windy and rainy in the morning, but it got better during the day.

Two groups went quite far from the harbor in a quite challenging, rocky terrain and the other groups stayed closer to it. The groups found a lot of trash; plastic, glas and metal. All the trashes were collected to plastic bags. Trashes were then weighed and collected to certain places, where they could be taken away by beach cleaning boats.

When it was time to return back to Base Camp Vega, the engine of the bigger boat didn’t work. We all had to be taken away by a smaller boat which took a much longer time. Luckily all the groups arrived in time for dinner.

After dinner we were taken by bus and ferry to Brönnöysund where the host families were waiting for their guests.

Even though we went very late to bed we had to wake up early. The stay in Hotel Thon was very nice and also the breakfast. We needed to be at school at 9:00. We met the principal and also the people who are taking care of us this week.

At 9:45 we left school to the harbor. We needed to take the ferry to the island Vega where we are going to stay today and tomorrow. It was a nice experience for most of us to see this common way to travel in this part of Norway.

When we arrived to Vega we went to Vega World Heritage Center. Some of the Norwegian students live on Vega and this week, where they have guests they have to go to school by boat. And that is a new experience for the guests. We got a brief overview of the combination of nature and the people living here during the centuries. They have been collecting eiderdown on most of the small islands here.
After the lunch break we got a presentation about marine ecosystem and the importance of taking care of the nature.

In the afternoon we went to Vega Base Camp where we are going to sleep. It is a very beautiful surrounding with a great view to the Søla island, where we are going tomorrow. We are going to sleep in a very small huts, they are basically just for the beds. Before dinner was a social activity and the students ran a lot. We got a traditional meal, a lamb stew with vegetables.

In the evening we gave our presentations about our countries and learned a lot about our countries.

Our Nordplus Junior-week will officially begin on Monday, but today both the Finnish and Icelandic students travelled from their home countries to Norway. The Finns left at 6 o’clock by bus from Vaala to Oulu airport. The Icelandic had travelled by bus to Keflavik already on Saturday and stayed the night at the hotel.

The whole day was full of delays and mishaps. The Finns’ flight from Helsinki to Oslo was late as well as the Icelandic’s flight from Keflavik to Oslo was over two hours late due to technical problem. After a 110-minute wait and about 6-7 power outages the Icelandair finally took of. They also needed to replace a battery in the plane. 

We were supposed to meet in Oslo and fly together to Trondheim. We did actually, but three hours later and with the other flight. Luckily we got the new flight tickets for free. Because of the delays we missed both the preordered train and the bus from Trondheim to Brönnöysund. Luckily our friends in Brönnöysund organized us a charter bus. Now we are sitting on the bus and heading for Brönnöysund. It will take six hours to get there and we will be in Brönnöysund after two o’clock at night. It will be too late to be accommodated in the host families at that time of the night so we will stay the first night at the hotel.

This day has been very expensive for the project, but let’s hope the Nordplus Junior officials in Stockholm will understand the situation. Most of the  kids were meeting for the first time and it was fun and they are excited to see what the future holds. The students were tired, sweaty but lucky. They got acquainted right away and had fun together. We didn’t let some problems to spoil our first day together but especially Almar was very disappointed because we missed the train. .

Tomorrow morning we will meet our Norwegian friends at school in Brönnöysund. Looking forward to it!

Dear diary.

Today we (Icelanders) started our trip to Keflavík at 13:00 or at 1pm. Laufey and Hafdis dressed up like they were going on summer vacation and not to Norway, which is a cold country, we think, it probably is, ANYWAYS.

On the trip to Keflavík we spotted many sheepsand horses, like somebody come get their animals, it is almost winter. And we also spotted a car in a lake, somebody must be a bad driver, even I a 17 year old can drive better than tourists in Iceland.

Our bus changed drivers like 3 times, I guess they can’t handle our awesomeness. We stopped at KFC in Selfoss to finally get something to eat.

We’re also going the LONGER way to Keflavík, and it’s called the GRINDARVÍK WAY. Our final destination for the day is a hotel near the airport.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading.

XOXO Students from FAS and teachers. 

Tomorrow, a group of students from Iceland leaves for Norway, but they are participants in the project Geoheritage, culture and sustainable communities in rural areas in Finland, Iceland and Norway, which is sponsored by Nordplus Junior.

This is the third and last year of the project and we are working with selected global goals. Since the start of school, the group has been preparing for the trip and will present both the country and the nation as well as participate in project work related to global goal 14, which deals with life in water.

The group flies to Oslo on Sunday morning and where we meet our partner from Finland. From there, we have a long journey to Brønnøysund, but the group should be there by Sunday evening. The next week will then be used for various types of work. We look forward to visit our friends in Norway and spend next week together.

You can follow the group’s travels at https://geoheritage.fas.is/

The Finnish group
We had breakfast at the hotel at 4 o’clock in the morning. Some Finnish girls had difficulties to wake up so early so they hardly had any time for having breakfast. The shuttle bus picked us up at 5 o’clock and we were at the airport in good time. At the passport control we had to show our Covid certificates before getting the boarding cards. The security check was also exceptionally thorough this time.

At the airport in Keflavik we had plenty of time for shopping and just hanging around. The flight from Keflavik to Helsinki went fine and quickly, because everybody was sleeping on the plane. We changed the plane in Helsinki and flew to Oulu. This time the airline company hadn’t luckily lost our suitcases and we headed at the scheduled time by bus to Vaala. We arrived at Vaala at about 7 p.m. The landscape was totally different from that we had got used to in Iceland. There were high snow banks everywhere and the roads were icy and slippery, but home sweet home anyway!

The Norwegian group
We were originally going to the airport at 5.45 in the morning, but since our airplane was scheduled at 9.55, we got free taxi’s from the hostel at 8.00 and not the shuttle bus. So everybody had breakfast at 7. We had lunch on Kastrup airport (only two hours between flights) and arrived to Trondheim at 19.00 in the evening. There our private school bus was waiting, and we started the long bus drive home to Brønnøysund. The weather was heavy snow and nights, so the students were mostly sleeping on this trip. We were home at around 2 in the night.

This morning it was time to say goodbye to our Icelandic friends. After many, many  tears and warm hugs the Finns and Norwegians headed for Keflavik. Hjördís had planned the bus route so that we could see as many fantastic sights as possible on the way.

Iceland had shown us its all sites during the week as to the weather. We had experienced heavy rains and winds as well as snowfalls, but today the sunny weather was perfect for enjoying the amazing landscapes. We could recognize many places we had visited on the way to Höfn, e.g. Vík, Reynisfjara and Skógafoss. We had a coffee break at the gas station in Skaftafell and a lunch break in Hvolsvöllur.

After having delicious meat soup we drove and drove, admiring the volcanoes Eyjafjallajökull and Hekla, lavafields, Icelandic horses, the change of coastline from black sand to rocks, snowcovered mountains etc. We were even able to see a part of the lavafield from the eruption last year.

We drove past the geothermal area and visited hot springs in Seltún and Gunnuhver. In Seltún we saw steam rising out and we could feel the hot soil under our feet and smell sulphur. In Gunnuhver the hot steam was spraying out of the soil, but the hot spring was not really erupting like a geysir. We also saw the geothermal plant there that uses the energy taken from the hot springs.

Our last stop was the Bridge between Continents in other words the place where the Eurasian plate and the North American plate diverged. After checking in at the BB Hotel Keflavik Airport we had a take-away dinner from the nearby restaurant.