Kiiwih, is Birna a student or does she live in the area? Your posts have been so helpful.
Thank you. :blushing:
This is going to be long and may be a bit confusing, sorry for that.
I don't know if she was in school or not, there has been no mention of that. The school system here is a bit different than it is in the USA or Scandinavia.
We go to preschool (kindergarten) and then the year we turn 6 we go to
grunnskóli which is compulsary for all. We graduate from 10th grade the year we turn 16 and then we can choose to get upper secondary education known as
framhaldsskóli (a combination of vocational courses and academic courses) or
menntaskóli (solely academic courses). This is normally a four year school, from 16-20 but it can be finished in a shorter amount of time or a longer amount of time (also if I remember correctly the legislative has voted to shorten it to three years which will be implemented in the next couple of years).
Ages 20 and up is higher education,
háskóli, which directly translates to high school but is university.
So it is probable that Birna has finished her schooling since she turned 20 last year and decided to work instead of applying straight for university. It's kinda like a right of passage to delay university for a year or two, work and then go round the world with friends. Kinda like a gap year is in the UK. Maybe she was doing that or maybe she just hadn't figured out what she wanted to do in life. I didn't know until I was 22.
I do know for a fact that she worked in F&F, which is a clothing department in Hagkaup, a chain of stores in Iceland which sells everything from food, clothes, make-up, electronic devices and toys.
Birna lives with her dad in Breiðholt, which is an area of Reykjavík aprox. 9 km from the downtown area.