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Archive for April, 2015

Elliðarárdalur, Reykjavík’s Central Park Posted by on Apr 30, 2015

A secret oasis of Reykjavík, Elliðarárdalur, can be found only a short bus drive away from downtown. Well, when I say secret it actually means something more like “this is a place the locals certainly know of but visitors barely ever visit and that’s a shame”. It’s a popular place for walking, jogging, biking, horse…

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Happy First of Summer! Posted by on Apr 23, 2015

Summer is finally here! I mean it did snow a few times today and the night before was freezing, but that’s just good luck according to old beliefs, it’s said that if winter and summer freeze together the summer will be good. Sumardagurinn fyrsti, The First of Summer, divides the year into its warmer half just like…

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Cod Wars. Posted by on Apr 16, 2015

Did you hear about that time when Iceland, a country with no military, beat the British Royal Navy three times in a row with 7 small coast guard vessels? If you ever visit Iceland you probably will hear of it – the Cod Wars, as they’re called, are a source of national pride. Like the name…

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Vatnsenda-Rósa: a legendary poet. Posted by on Apr 9, 2015

The most famous love poem of Iceland is written by a woman. Though little is actually known of her the amount of legends that circle around Rósa Guðmundsdóttir, also known as Skáld-Rósa (= Rósa the poet) or Vatnsenda-Rósa (= Rósa of Vatnsendi), would suggest she was a striking and noteworthy person in her time just the same…

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Fyrir, or four uses for ‘for’. Posted by on Apr 2, 2015

I’ve recently received two comments regarding the use of the preposition fyrir and since the topic needs quite a bit of elaborating I decided to write a whole blog entry for it. Fyrir is one of those sneaky words that look deceptively easy to use. It’s like the English “for”, right? Yes – and no – and then…

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