November 2005

Slanging out

November 17, 2005

Props to all who rose to the challenge and attempted yesterday’s translation. Very commendable and infinitely entertaining for… me. And now without further ado, we give you the correct answers: Bömmer – bummer. As in: Ég er á ógeðslega miklum bömmer mar.Meika sens – make sense. Þetta er ekki að meika sens fyrir mér, sko. [...]

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Dagur íslenskrar tungu

November 16, 2005

Today, November 16, is dedicated to the Icelandic language, with various events staged throughout the nation. People are commended for their contribution to maintaining the language, awards are given out, etc. etc. With a population of just under 300,000, and an estimated 1 million people worldwide who speak Icelandic [a figure that may be grossly [...]

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Search and thou shalt find. Maybe.

November 15, 2005

Someone came through via Google today on the search words: is iceland really ice? A perfectly valid question, of course. Perfectly valid. Although with technology and the global village and all that, you’d think that maybe, just maybe, the Entire World would know by now that ICELAND IS NOT REALLY ICE. Greenland is the place [...]

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An alcoholic defined

November 14, 2005

One of the guests at the dinner party last weekend was a man from Zambia, who is married to an Icelandic woman and has lived here for about ten years. So of course he was asked the standard question that he’s likely been asked a gazillion times: How do you like Iceland? To which he [...]

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Party animals

November 13, 2005

Am somewhat bedraggled today because had rather an excellent time last night at the party, although not quite as excellent as EPI, who went full-out and took no prisoners. It had all the ingredients of a successful Icelandic bash: Copious amounts of wine, excellent food [reindeer carpaccio with raspberry vinaigrette; grilled monkfish; chocolate soufflé], coffee [...]

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Hedz up! we have famous people…

November 11, 2005

Quentin Tarantino’s in Niceland, and here’s the story: He’s got this friend named Eli Roth who made a horror film called Cabin Fever. Eli’s a bit of an Icelandophile, lived here for a year when he was 19, in Selfoss. There he was lucky enough to catch some awful infectious skin disease which later became [...]

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Honour and other killings

November 10, 2005

In the comments box to yesterday’s post, the phrase ‘honour killing’ popped up a couple of times. Prophetically enough, yesterday was in fact the very first time an immigrant was sentenced to prison for an honour killing here in Iceland. The case concerned two Vietnamese men. Last spring, one of them stabbed the other to [...]

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Immigrant issues

November 9, 2005

The current situation in France and, alas, elsewhere in Europe, has prompted a lot of discussion here in Iceland in recent days. You see, as the Fréttablaðið editorial so succinctly put it this morning, Iceland still has the ‘luxury’ of being able to learn from others’ mistakes when it comes to immigration. This country is [...]

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Gas station florist wisdom

November 8, 2005

I stopped at a gas station convenience store today to pick up a bouquet of flowers, as you do. Gas Station Cashier Guy [indicating bar code on cellophane flower wrapping]: You know if you remove that tag, everyone will think you bought those at [insert name of Iceland's main fresh flower retailer]. YT: Yeah, but [...]

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Malfunction

November 7, 2005

It’s happening with ridiculous frequency: “There has been a breakdown in the Farice sub-sea cable off the coast of Scotland. Repairs will be underway for the next few hours. In the meantime all online traffic is being directed through the Cantat3 cable. Users should expect disruptions to service…” etc.etc. The Farice cable is one of [...]

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