Journey North Mystery Class Spring 2005

Introducing Mystery Class #10--Djúpivogur, Iceland
( 64.650 N, 14.283 E)

Greetings from Grunnskóli Djúpavogs, in Djúpivogur, Iceland.
	Strike Up the Band--Let's Celebrate!

We are several students from who have been participating as one of the Secret Mystery Classes for the past few months. Now we want to introduce ourselves. We are 13 pupils from Grunnskóli Djúpavogs in Iceland. We are in the 7th and 8th grade and are 13 and 14 years old. There are 6 girls and 8 boys.In our school we have 65 pupils total from the age 6 – 16 years old.

Here is a group of us from 7th and 8th grade, and some 9th graders too (plus or music teacher), during our Music Festival in March.

Our school day starts at 8:05 and it is finished around 14:00. After school we attend sports and music classes (almost everyone of us). We have similar interests as other teenagers in the world. We like music, sports, hanging out with our friends, fashion, the opposite sex and so on. Some of us do not live in the village itself, but in the countryside nearby. Those who live in the country live 15 – 30 km away from the village so you can see it is very nearby.

Here are several of us during our reading competition for 7th grade students (along with two judges and our reading teacher too).

In our school we have 12 teachers. Our teacher is a woman, named Halldora Drofn Hafþorsdottir, but we always call her Dora. She teaches us icelandic and mathematics. We also learn english, danish, history, geography, biology, physics, religion, sewing, cooking, handcraft, drawing, music and dancing. We can buy a cheap meal for lunch and after school we can attend special “homework” classes, if we choose.

This is our school, Grunnskóli Djúpavogs.

Our Village of Djúpivogur

In our village there are around 500 hundred people and it is a typical fishing village in our country. People in our village mostly work in the fish industry, but also we have people working in service and tourism.

Our town of Djupivogur is somewhat of a typical fishing village.

We also have a countryside with farms, where the farmers mostly have sheep, cows, hens and horses.

Our village is located along the east coastline of our country, midway between Eskifjordur and Hoen.

Our region is very beautiful. We live by the sea, we have high mountains, beaches, valleys and everything in between.

An aerial view of Djupivogur , showing the surrounding countryside (can you see our school in the right side of the picture with the green roof?
(Click to enlarge)

In the winter we have cold wind and often snow, but in the summer the weather can be very nice. Since we live in the northern part of the earth we have very bright summer nights. Then we have light 24 hours a day. In the winter on the other hand, we have dark around 18 hours a day (in December).

Our village last Christmas, a time of year when we can have darkness 18 hours a day.

Our Country of Iceland
In our country there are around 290.000 people. In Reykjavik – the capital – there are around 105.000 people. Near Reykjavík, there are big towns and in the capital area there is half of the country's population. In contrast, in the eastern part, where we live, there are around 13.000 people-- so you can see our village is very small.

We enjoyed being a secret Mystery Class! If you want to see pictures from us and our village you can visit these webpages:

http://djupivogur.is/

http://djupivogur.is/grunnskoli/

Djupivogur, Iceland

With greetings from us all,

7th and 8th grades of Grunnskóli Djúpavogs, Iceland