Travel award reports
Seyðisfjörður, and a concert at the end of the day. It was fascinating to learn about Icelandic art and music and discuss these topics with the students. I will always remember my experience in Iceland with a big smile. I am so grateful for the opportunity to go abroad to learn more about something I am fascinated by and make good friends with my fellow expedition members and local Icelanders. This trip has given me a lot of confidence and taught me more about working in a group, conducting my own research, and adapting to new situations and cultures. I am sure to return to Iceland in the future, older, wiser, and ready for a new adventure.
members about Finnish midsummer traditions and learning about midsummer traditions in other countries. Our group also befriended the local Icelandic archaeology students who were doing an excavation of an old house in Seyðisfjörður. We got to visit the excavation site and got to see the skeleton of an ancient horse and touch volcanic ash from the 1800s and 1400s. Together with the archaeology students we had some fun nights of homemade dinner and games, pizza and pints at the local bar, and watching the football Euro semi-finals. They also joined us to see the LungA art festival, which included art exhibitions and workshops all around
Everything I had hoped for and more by Avery Holmes I have always aspired to be a field biologist, and this summer I got the opportunity to put my ambitions into practice as part of the University of Glasgow Iceland Expedition. We stayed at Skálanes Nature and Heritage Centre in East Iceland for six weeks, and our days were filled with research work, which for me included hiking in the hills searching for arctic fox dens, creating maps to help future students find them, testing non-invasive hair trap methods, and identifying diet and gastrointestinal parasites through the examination of faeces. Additionally, as one of the coleaders, I co-managed the logistics of the Expedition, supporting the other team members and projects, and maintaining
the Expedition’s relationships with Skálanes and other research groups at the centre. I leapt at the opportunity to go to Iceland, as the country has always appealed to me, not only for its beauty, but also its unique ecology and harsh environment. I have always appreciated cold places with inclement weather, and as a zoologist in training, I appreciate the adaptations animals must make to survive there. East Iceland is generally understudied, and the opportunity to help fill some of the knowledge gaps and contribute to biological research in the region was a real treat. I had been on a road trip to Iceland in 2019, but living somewhere is a
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