Shabbat Continued

In the morning Jacob went hunting for ptarmigan with Gisli and Danielle. In Gisli's family it is a tradition to eat ptarigam for Christmas and if he gets enough he also make a ptarmigan pate. It was very cold, colder then it has been in a long time. They drove over to the next fjord, Altasfjordur, and began their hike. They basically hikes from 10:30 until 3 in sometimes waist high snow and for most of the morning it was snowing up there. They had two guns, so Gisli had one and Jacob the other and for the majority of the time they were separated. they had to flush the ptarmigan out of the brush and hunt them in the air. Jacob tells of his first shot when he crept up on a bird, aimed and took his shot, only to discover it HAD been a pile of snow:) The ptarmigans are black and white birds, but in this season they are primarily white with some black in the tail feathers. Later, he scared some out of the brush and took another shot. After a bit of walking he discovered he had succeeded and there it was at his feet.

they came back EXHAUSTED!!!!

Zelia and I had a great day listening to music and playing, plus getting Vicky on Skype. Then at around 2 o'clock, Gerdur knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to have some lunch. So we bundled Zelia up and put her in her stroller since it was time to nap and we headed out to the bakery to get some bread. They were setting up the market in the center of town and people were beginning to gather for the tree lighting at 4. At the bakery we got some Stollen Bread, which is a traditional German Christmas bread. Although, Peter Weis, the director of the University Center, who is from Germany says it's not really the right thing:) It is an egg bread with raisins and other dried fruit in it (like the kind that goes in the Panamanian wedding cake) and then it has powdered sugar on it. We also got a delicious raisin bread and enjoyed it with butter and homemade peanut butter (Tomas, her son, is great in the kitchen). Jacob and Gisli returned and we headed into town for the tree lighting. The hot chocolate booth was open (picture with the Santa on the booth) and they were also serving hot pancakes with raisins, yummmm. The square was full of people and it was nice to be in a crowd:) There was a count down from 5 and the tree was lit! It also seems that the music school did quite well selling things in the market, they had everything from baked goods, to dried fish, rotten shark, Icelandic sweaters and jams....

Speaking of sweaters....Jacob got one the other day at Karitas and it is great looking and he says incredibly warm. We also learned in the shop that if you find the wool scratchy then you can soak it in hair conditioner!

Anyway, after the lighting we were invited to go into Gerdur and Gisli's hot tub which is outside in their yard. So we headed home, showered, got bathing suits and brought the wine. It was SO nice.

It is cold today as well about minus 5 and Jacob is working on a presentation. I plan on getting some knitting done to try and finish his second sock already. Tonight we are going to the UN Students' house for dinner.