Von Johanna Wieser

I got the opportunity to spend my summer internship in Iceland. I worked at the Tjarnarbíó theatre in Reykjavik for 6 weeks, perfectly situated at the pond “Tjörinn”.
I usually worked from 10 am to 4 pm except for shows, then I also worked in the evening from 6 pm to 11 or 12 pm. But that was only once a week and didn’t actually bother me because I could watch the show for free and talk with my friendly co-workers.
My duties included keeping the whole theatre clean and presentable, as well as categorizing the books in their library. I also helped with taking down spotlights, that’s not that easy there are cables everywhere and how to separate a spotlight from its fixtures is not that simple as well.
Before regular I sold tickets with a ticket sales program on the computer or checked the tickets at the entrance and counted the people.
In my first week not including quarantine I worked at the Reykjavík Fringe Festival. That’s an international festival for all kinds of performances like stand ups, burlesque shows or circus shows. My favourite act was definitely “egoland”, a one-man-performance switching between a blue room and a white room. Means the switching of scenes from like flashbacks and scenes where he talked to the audience. It was amazing and at the ending I was thrown out by security because I disturbed his ego-trip. Of course, this was all discussed and planned before.
During the festival I helped the stage-manager, set up and took down the set, marked the floor with tape where the props were. And when the artists had rehearsals, I assisted them or helped them. An intense week, working all day but really great.

After work I took a walk down the sea, enjoyed one of the best hotdogs in the world, watching the seabirds and just enjoying the quiet surroundings. They are famous for their hotdogs I always had to wait in line to get one but it was worth it they are delicious.
I also got the chance so see a bit of Iceland and the Golden Circle. That includes the waterfall “Gullfoss”, the geyser “Strokkur”, the national park Þingvellir (Thingvellir), that was an important meeting point for the wikiing’s and you can dive there between the Eurasian and American plate and some other places.
Iceland was great and I really enjoyed working there. The Icelanders are so friendly and calm; they are always late but they have such a calm personality and are never in a rush. It was so refreshing. The marketing director of the theatre told me that the reason for their serenity is because of their ancestors. They never knew if they would catch fish and had to be very spontaneous, with all the natural disasters.
The most important thing that I took with me is that everything can be solved you just have to ask. You can’t do anything wrong and if you are not quite sure, asking is the most important thing. People understand when you explain that you are slow because you are selling tickets for the first time. Take my advice and nothing can go wrong if you get the chance to work abroad.