#elfschool

Part One: Finding Elfschool

Is it weird that one of the highlight of our honeymoon was spending an afternoon in what can only be described as German Santa's study, talking about elves,psychics, and the European Enlightenment?

Probably. But I don't really care.

The Elfschool is not a place that can be found without a lot effort. At least, it wasn't for us.

It began as a simple question: What's the deal with Iceland and elves. Apparently just over 50% of Icelanders claim to believe in elves, and upwards of 80% "take notice." At least, that's what Icelandic polls say.

Iceland has polls about this kind of this thing.

Belle had somehow heard this fact before. I had not, and I was fascinated. Here was a country where you could walk up to local on the street, asked if they believed in elves, and there was a 50% chance they would say yes. Assuming they were honest. As honest as they were in polls. Polls about elves...

I wanted to know more, HAD to know more. How does this happen.

And that's when I found it. A breadcrumb. Somewhere in Reykjavik there was a man who had devoted his life to studying elves, and the last 22 years to teaching the public about them.

He offers courses. He gives diplomas.

There was no way around it. Elfschool was going to happen. It didn't matter that none of the 10 or so articles I found about Elfschool didn't list ANY contact information. In fact, this just made us want to go more.

Apparently the first of rule of Elfschool is you don't say where Elfschool is. The second is you have to eat your god damned waffles (but we'll get to that later).

So we went to one of the tourist info places - they were good at answering questions. We took our number and waited. When our number was called, I walked up to the counter, and simply said "I'm looking for Elfschool."

"Elfschool?"

"Yes"

"..."

"It's a thing we found on the Internet while we were trying to learn about elves - apparently it's in Reykjavik."

"..."

And then, to our immense joy, another one of the info people pipped in "it's a thing.. look up [incoherent Icelandic]."

We had a phone number.

A low voice answered when we called. "Hullo?"

"Umm... is this the Elfschool."

"Ahhh yes."

*Thumbs up to belle and collective glee*

"We want to come, you run classes on Friday afternoons right"

"This week it's Saturday, what time do you want to come?"

...

We were in. We were going to Elf School. And from the sounds of it, we were the only people registered in this week's class so far.

He hung up early, before we could get a coherent address (which we failed to do at the info shop), and before we could a price (which we failed to do at the info shop). But damn it, we were going to elf school.

I almost feel bad doing this, because trying to find the school was an adventure in itself.. but here is the information you need (accurate as of Sept, 2012) to get in touch with Magnus and go to the Elfschool:

Headmaster - Magnús Skarphéðinsson

Email - [email protected]

Phone - (00-34)-588-6060

Address - Síðumúla 31, 108 Reykjavik

Here's a map with directions from downtown:

Here's what the building looks like (probably not what you expected):

Here's how you can tell you're in the right place (probably what you expected):

Oh yeah... we're in the right place