Archive for June, 2012
When the free dictionary is wrong Posted by sequoia on Jun 19, 2012
This is about when you can’t find the meaning of a word because the free dictionary doesn’t have it or is wrong. This will happen more and more as you read in Icelandic. Part of it is because English is a much more specific language, like how we have many words with very similar meanings…
Happy Birthday, Iceland! Posted by hulda on Jun 17, 2012
“Hæ, hó, jibbí, jei og jibbí, jei – Það er kominn 17. júní!” In other words, happy Independence Day Iceland and Icelanders! Today’s a big fest downtown that began in the morning and will go on until at least seven p.m. We have been lucky with the weather today, it’s been sunny and warm with…
Days of the Week Posted by sequoia on Jun 16, 2012
Here are the days of the week. Names of the months and how to write dates will come in a later post. sunnudagur – Sunday (sun-day) mánudagur – Monday (moon-day) þriðjudagur – Tuesday (third-day) miðvikudagur – Wednesday (mid-week day) fimmtudagur (sometimes spelled as “fimtu”, especially in older texts) – Thursday (fifth-day) föstudagur – Friday (fasting-day)…
Iceland from the air. Posted by hulda on Jun 14, 2012
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been on a bit of a vacation and while it was most fun and relaxing it also feels good to be back. I have to admit that when I first moved to Iceland it was out of necessity rather than any real wish of living here. I had…
Dogs Posted by sequoia on Jun 12, 2012
Reykjavík-ians (Reykvíkingar – often towns and small areas have a special name for their inhabitants, although I think it only shows up in Icelandic about as much as in English) have a strange thing with dogs. It’s said that in the past, dogs were completely banned from the capital and you couldn’t even own one…
Want to climb a mountain pt 2. Posted by hulda on Jun 11, 2012
When I mentioned in the first part of this post that the water in the little streams that run down the mountain is very clean I was not kidding. I filled my drinking bottle at the fourth stage where the path goes over a river (careful you don’t slip in while crossing it, the water’s…
Apartment Hunting Posted by sequoia on Jun 9, 2012
Finding an apartment near the capital that’s both within a budget and not completely broken-down or in a bad area is pretty hard. The second hard thing is knowing what your budget will be after necessities, if you have little idea of prices in Reykjavík. First we’ll estimate the monthly expenses that you’ll have to…