My jocular hockey-playing friends from last weekend took me to the Great Fish Festival in Dalvik this weekend. Dalvik lies 30 minutes north of Akureyri in the same fjord – a stunning waterside drive.
I’ve gotten close with Hinrick, a 20 year old guy from an island called Grimsey. Hinrick invited me to Fish Fest 2010 and introduced me to his mother in law, who happens to be the friendly mayor of Dalvik. She allowed me to camp on her lawn with Hinrik and eat her fish stew, which I found delicious and creamy.
The festival began as most do in Iceland, with redneck activities in a field full of camper vans and tents. We drank beers and told stories as the crowd swelled. By 10:00 I found myself sitting with fifteen friendly Vikings, and I could see hundreds of similar groups spread across the hillside. At 11:00 fireworks signaled the end of fish feasting and the start of aggressive partying. What ensued scandalized me. I report the following as a bewildered observer.
Icelanders party harder than anyone I’ve ever known. More alcoholic than Kiwis, harder than New Yorkers, and more committed to the festivities even than the Dutch. Nothing compares. One man was stabbed deeply in the back last night, and after fighting off his assailant the man went back to a bar for more dancing and Nordic screaming.
An unknown number of obese blondes invaded Hinrik’s camper van and proceeded with an orgy only inches from poor Hinrik’s unconscious head. Hinrik’s girlfriend, also present, shouted. Her protests yielded only a slightly quieter orgy, but not its cessation.
When I awoke in my tent the following morning I made my way across the street to brush my teeth and wash my face at a gas station. Behind the station I discovered what I believed to be the corpse of a dwarf. I hurried back to my friends for help. They came, and upon seeing the body lying next to a dumpster remarked, “Ye found a focking dead midget mon!” and howled with laughter for about forty five seconds.
I asked, “How do you know he is dead?” and they replied, “Well he ain’t moving much and ye don’t just choose to sleep on a dumpster do ya?” I said, “But why are you laughing? This is terrible!”
I thought, “these people are real bastards to laugh at a dead person. Why aren’t they calling the police?” I said, “shouldn’t we get the cops?” and they calmly told me, “nay nay, he will sort himself out.”
How the hell does a dead midget “sort himself out,” I wondered. I then discovered the Icelandic colloquialism of saying that someone “dies” or “is dead” when they pass out from booze. Quite a funny misunderstanding in retrospect. I checked to make sure that the small man was breathing, and he was.
After this I went to a local fish leather store at Hinrick’s behest. I found colorful arrays of scaly leather, but was generally unsure of what to think of the store. Why would I need colorful strips of fish skin? Apparently the shop supplies clothing designers, and the outlet serves as some form of advertising. Somewhere a clothing designer is making clothes from purple fish leather….
I ate breakfast with the mayor of Dalvik, Hinrick, and his girlfriend, and then drove my slurring hockey buddies back to Akureyri. They put me behind the wheel because the police breathalyzed every car on the way out of town. “I’ve got no chance mon, no chance at all. Can you drive a manual?” I said, “It’s 2:30PM, how can you still be drunk from last night?” and Orri replied, “because last night didn’t end until 10:00 this morning when Ole had a barbeque thrown at his head.” I said, “wow, is that why his face is bleeding?” and Orri replied, “Nay, he dodged the barbeque, but then they threw a bag of beer bottles and he couldn’t move fast enough!” Ole "died" shortly after this incident...
I drove, they slept.
This week I begin working on the International Deep Drilling Project. The goal is to tap supercritical fluids at pressures hundreds of times greater than the atmosphere’s and temperatures over 400C. I have finished a crash course in thermodynamics, geochemistry, power plant engineering, and local geology. I will soon begin working with geophysical data to assess the geothermal potential of an area and validate a previous study with new techniques. This project exposes me to the absolute frontier of geothermal drilling technology and many leaders in the industry.
I also interviewed the Chief Financial Officer of an Icelandic utility, and was pleased when he offered to email me copies of his financial models. I should be able to generate the graphs from my previous post (August 5th) with much more accuracy now.
I other news, I will run the Reykjavik marathon on August 21st when my family comes to visit me. I’m shooting for a time under three hours, which would be a personal best by almost 20 minutes. I completed a 17.5 mile run on Friday, and my times seem to be good enough to accomplish my goal.
Also, a power plant developer from the United States will be coming to Iceland in the next few weeks, and has offered to let me work with his team of engineers on a cutting edge new geothermal power plant northeast of Akureyri. It is the first of its kind, and looks to be the future of the industry for low temperature applications (which are ubiquitous in the American southwest). More to come…
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