Update...

Last weekend we went on a 4WD trip to the second largest glacier in Iceland – Langjökull (meaning ´long glacier´). It was a spectacular day! Birna´s brother Árni took us up in his 4WD, which has 38 inch wheels (although he feels a little inferior with his ´small´ wheels and wants to get 44 inch wheels. I guess size really does matter!) We drove up to the top of the glacier (more than 1300m) and then drove along the top of it... it´s massive and so awesome – we didn´t even get half way across it and yet we drove for hours (although it was slow going as the snow/ice was difficult to get through). It was 4WD´ing at its best! On the way up, we had to progressively let down the tyres to as low as 2 PSI (in order to increase the surface area of the tyres - to increase the grip on the snow/ice) and then pump up the tyres again for the trip down (of course Árni did all the hard work – Birna and I just watched from inside the car). When the tyres have such low air pressure, there is a danger that the tyre can roll right off the rim – that didn´t happen to us but did happen to another 4WD up on the glacier. We did get stuck a few times and had to get pulled out – but that was all part of the fun!

I have got another job which starts 1st June and finishes 3rd August. (My other job at the ´after school program´ was only a temporary job and finishes this week as the kids start their summer school holidays). My new job involves instructing/supervising teenagers to perform various outdoor assignments. The city employs all teenagers in Reykjavik who want to work during the summer school holiday period. There are about 2000-3000 adolescents who will be working... I will supervise up to 30 of them and my group will be 14 year olds who are employed to tidy up and complete light maintenance work on school grounds and sporting areas. So I will be outdoors all summer – and I´m hoping that the weather will be ok! Although so far so good... There appears to be a heat wave here at the moment... the last two days it has been 16°C! It is lovely!

With my new job, which is full time, I have had to change my icelandic course to fit my new schedule. I will now be going to class on Monday and Wednesday nights for 3 hours each... and the course finishes 25th June. I´m really enjoying the course and I´m learning a lot. Birna thinks I´ve learnt more icelandic than one of her friends who was living here for years.

I recently attended a two day conference here in relation to sexual abuse - focusing on research, treatment and prevention. The conference was in english and included four renowned international speakers who had a wealth of knowledge in the area. It was a fantastic conference and I´m really glad that I had the opportunity to attend. I also got to learn more about Iceland´s child protection system and made some good contacts in that area too.

I have also learnt some things about the legal age of consent and other things here. The legal age to have sex was 14 years (can you believe how young that is!!) but has recently been changed to 15 years. The legal age one can drink alcohol and get married is 18 years, however you can´t legally buy alcohol until you´re 20 years. So apparently you are old enough and mature enough to get married at 18 years, but you can´t buy the champaigne to celebrate your own wedding!!??!!