Four movies per day = advanced states of atrophy.

My second work camp was volunteering for the Reykjavik international Film Festival (RIFF), which started the day after I returned from my first camp.  I quickly threw my filthy cement-crusted clothes and work boots in a pile and replaced them with heels and dresses (and what I could try and pass off as nice clothes).  I must say the two work camps could not have been more different.  For RIFF we had over 20 volunteers (still no Americans!) and were housed in downtown Reykjavik.  I started off the first day by volunteering for RIFF's opening gala where we helped set up for the event, and I attempted to pour champagne for famous people (without spilling it all over them), all while keeping an eye out for Bjork (who was a no-show…go figure).

In this work camp, I finally had a chance to experience the night life first hand, which usually involves going out around midnight and staying out until six in the morning.  Needless to say I saw lots of organic graffiti (aka vomit)and shirtless men.  It’s interesting to note that at 2am on Saturday you see more people out in the city than you do at any other time during the week.   

The food was also especially different for this work camp.  We spent most of the time eating gouda cheese, cucumbers, skyr, nutella, and digestive cookies (probably the worst name you could give a cookie), and sometimes bread from a large bin with old pastries mixed in.  

My job at the festival was mainly as a driver, which was basically a disaster waiting to happen.  I had to pick up directors/judges/etc. at the airport and drive them around Reykjavik to different shows and parties.  In reality, I ended up driving a huge 9-person van the wrong way down one-way streets, doing illegal u-turns and getting stuck with horns blaring, shutting a car door on a director, and looking back to see one woman holding onto the "o-shit" handles for her life.  I would inevitably get lost and try to convince them that they would just be fashionably late, then I would have to call someone and tell them that I am on Skólavörðustígur street?!  How do you pronounce that?!  I would also help out in the theatres, which consisted of me watching a movie and then sweeping up the popcorn afterwards.  I discovered that my limit for movies in one day is four, after that reality starts to feel like a blur.  I really enjoyed the festival as it gave me the opportunity to see lots of great films, that I would have mostly never heard of otherwise, and a chance to meet the people who made the films and to personally ask them questions.  Also I enjoyed meeting so many great volunteers that I had the opportunity to work with,  and whose couches I may be also crashing on sometime in the future.

(Side note: I never thought about doing a work camp in a foreign country as opposed to general travel. Typically when I travel to a place I try to cram in as many sights as humanly possible, but I think there is something to be said for signing up for a volunteer program and really getting to know a group of people.  It gives you an opportunity to see a country in a different way, as opposed to the ultra-tourist method.)

Officially, the winner of the film fest was “The Four Times”(Le Quattro Volte (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zxYGvRBpg8).  Honestly, I really tried to watch this movie, and perhaps someone should have warned me beforehand, but it was it was an entirely silent film and for some reason I just couldn’t do it.  Here is the official description:   

"An old shepherd lives his last days in a quiet medieval village perched high on the hills of Calabria, at the southernmost tip of Italy. He herds goats under skies that most villagers have deserted long ago. He is sick, and believes to find his medicine in the dust he collects on the church floor, which he drinks in his water every day. A new goat kid is born. We follow its first few tentative steps, its first games, until it gains strength and goes to pasture. Nearby, a majestic fir tree stirs in the mountain breeze and slowly changes through the seasons. Le quattro volte is a poetic vision of the revolving cycles of life and nature and the unbroken traditions of a timeless place. The story of one soul that moves through four successive lives."  

 It actually sounds like a really great movie, so maybe someday I will work up the courage to try and tackle this beast again.  Here are some of my recommendations from RIFF:

Little rock (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoHUcdeMDCE)

Nuumioq (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGuu9iOa8NU)

Womb (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Oujip3nJQ) ... be warned this one is VERY strange and I am only recommending it because I don’t want to be the only one who was disturbed by it (I’m taking you down with me!).

Also: Toxic Playground and Venice

To finish off the work camp, Derek and I rented a couple cars with some of my co-volunteers and did the golden circle tour, which is a three-stop day trip outside of the city.  The first stop was at Þingvellir, a national park where the tectonic plates are separating -- on one side you are on the European continent and on the other you are on the North American one.  The other interesting aspect of this site is that the Icelandic parliament or AlÞingi was established here in 930, and would host annual meetings to discuss laws for the country all the way until 1789.  The second stop was at Geysir, which was basically a bunch of tourists standing around a hole in the earth with cameras positioned up while waiting, and waiting, for the sulfurous pit to blow in the cold.  The English word "geyser" actually derives from the Icelandic name for this particular geyser.  The final stop on the tour was Gullfoss, which was a very large and beautiful two-part waterfall.