ICELAND - REYKJAVIK

A first step towards making the unfamiliar familiar is to compare it to what’s familiar with oneself. This really helped me to create an understanding of this topic. What I encountered is, that there are basically three main differences, which were unfamiliar to me in the first place, but then familiarized itself pretty quickly to me. Those three unfamiliar environments I have labeled as the City of Reykjavik, the university life and the people living in Iceland. Those three unfamiliarities I will now explain more in depth:

City of Reykjavik

During my exchange semester I lived and and went to the University in Reykjavik. It is the capital of Iceland and has app. 150,000 inhabitants. The city is quite unique and characterized by European as well as American influences. As I guess for everybody traveling to a new city for the first time, it is and feels quite unfamiliar. You have never walked the streets downtown before, the shops are new to you as well as the meals offered in the restaurants. Everything seems to be new and exciting – at least for me. Especially on the weekends, you really felt the vibrant culture of Reykjavik. Icelandic people, though introverted, are really outgoing. There is a lot happening downtown, people meet each other there for a coffee in the afternoon or beer in the evening. The atmosphere is quite relaxed and everybody enjoys being inside when its freezing outside. I really liked the atmosphere of the city and quickly felt at home.

University Life

Staying at the student dorms really gave me the opportunity to live close to other students, which was a great way to actually make friends and get to know people. Especially, if you are new to a country, interacting together, for example in the kitchen while cooking or eating, really helped to make the unfamiliar familiar. Living in the student dorms is also great for experiencing the campus life, as the university is only 5 minutes in walking distance. Furthermore, the dorms are very modern and well-maintained, so I can only recommend living there. This also contributes to getting familiar faster.

Furthermore, also the university is very open and liberal to a diverse group of people. It provides a great platform for anybody to embrace himself/herself. It is very internationally oriented and therefore has students from all over the world studying in multiple disciplines. This further contributes to different ideas being shared and discussed and reflects tremendous diversity and better solutions in group work. Although the extent of internationality was unfamiliar to me at first, I quicky learned the great advantages of having different mindsets and actually being able to discuss and argue on different points of view.

People

Everybody knows that Iceland is famous for their hot springs. I noticed that these are actually deeply intertwined with the Icelandic culture. Compared to the more hectic culture we have here in western/central Europe, the Icelandic culture is very much characterized by its peacefulness. They are much more relaxed and way less stressed in my opinion. They are really focusing a lot on their mental health. Although they are structured and organized, they are not really stressed about timelines or deadlines. It is more important to them, that the work carried out is being done good rather than fast and being stressed.

All in all, I really liked being unfamiliar with certain things, as this is what is exciting about exploring a new country and its culture. I can say that I really liked the city and university life there, although it was hard for me to get used to the more relaxed approach towards life and deadlines people have there.