In Iceland!!

It was time to leave again on 29th of May. I spent only a few days at home, celebrated my dad's 50th birthday, unpacked and packed my suitcase and then I was again in the Helsinki-Vantaa airport. Iceland.. wow, I never thought I'd end up here, not to mention to do my Master's Thesis here. It's not exactly a forestry country, isn't it? :)

The first few minutes in a bus on the way to Reykjavik showed what we had thought: no signs of trees. Only something like desert.. We flew to Egilsstadir, eastren Iceland from Reykjavik. Basically we flew to the other side of the country. It was quite interesting. First of all, the plane was small and shaking a lot. Then, we only saw snow outside! Oh man... It's May!

We met Thor, the director of the state forest in Egilsstadir in the airport. He is really nice. Although the question: "Pratar ni svenska?" (=Do you speak Swedish?) got us a bit surprised. ;) He took us to Hallormstadur, 30 km from Egilsstadir where the research station is. Here we are staying in a house where usually the summer workers live. It seems really good place. :)

Our task here is to measure Russian and Siberian Larch that the Icelanders have been planting here since 1938. Obviously the forests aren't like what we've been used to at home but it doesn't matter. The landscape is rocky but still, beautiful in its own way. There's a big lake on the otherside and snowy mountains in the other. Not bad. :) Let's see how our work here gets going on...

The blog will be (probably...) written by me and then Annukka, my friend who's here as well. We'll do it in English and Finnish and if requested, also in Swedish ;) We're practising it here a lot..