Archive for August, 2012
Brimstone Mountain earthquake. Posted by hulda on Aug 31, 2012
Originally I was going to write more about the roadtrip next but Iceland itself decided otherwise. It habitually throws surprises at the people living here and one such happened yesterday: a larger than usual earthquake very near the Capital City area. As most earthquakes here stay below the level of 3 they’re hardly noticeable at…
The epic berrypicking roadtrip. Posted by hulda on Aug 29, 2012
Today’s blog post is once again about traveling within Iceland, and due to the amount of material I’m going to divide the entry in two for easier following. You see, what was supposed to be only a short trip to pick blueberries turned into something that included Iceland’s natural wonders and a church that has…
Forsetningarliðir + þolfall, prepositions + accusative Posted by hulda on Aug 25, 2012
Fréttin barst um allt landið. (= The news spread around the country.) It’s often difficult to tell exactly which case should be used in which context. At times Icelandic students face having to learn huge chunks of case-related grammar by heart, or gamble between two or more choices depending on the situation. Therefore it’s lucky…
These roads were not always here. Posted by hulda on Aug 23, 2012
When looking at the map of Iceland there’s one unusual thing that easily catches the eye: there don’t seem to be many, if any, roads in the middle of the country. Most of them go around Iceland along the main road called Þjóðvegur 1 or Hringvegurinn (= Ring Road), and the few that venture inlands…
Menningarnótt: music, art and beer. Posted by hulda on Aug 19, 2012
Hulda reporting again from one of the many summer festivals in Iceland, the Menningarnótt (= Culture night). Despite the name it’s actually a whole day celebration starting out at 8 a.m. and continuing through the day and well into the night. Besides that I’m happy to announce that this is exactly the hundredth post published…
Homosexuality in the viking era. Posted by hulda on Aug 16, 2012
Last weekend’s Gay Pride reminded me of another topic that I’ve been thinking of writing about for a while now: homosexuality in viking era Iceland. Despite of what some of the legends of the Norse gods such as Ása-Þór, Loki and Ódinn suggest, attitudes seemed to have been somewhat against it in everyday life and…
Sequins, confetti, our mayor in a pink dress… Posted by hulda on Aug 12, 2012
Yesterday was the annual Gay Pride Parade in Reykjavík and as you would guess it rained cats and dogs. As if that wasn’t bad enough it was windy as well, meaning that the rain was the typical horizontal Reykjavík rain against which you can’t really do much. Most people don’t usually even try to use…