Archive for 'Icelandic culture'
The grass house that wouldn’t be blown in. Posted by hulda on Jun 30, 2013
Imagine that you have just arrived to an island somewhere in the middle of an ocean and have decided upon a place you’ll build your new home. Far as the eye can see there’s almost nothing suitable to building with except for – turf. Torfbær, the turf house, dating back from the early times of…
Happy birthday, Iceland! Posted by hulda on Jun 18, 2013
Yesterday on the 17th Iceland celebrated its independence in the usual way: lots of noise, live music everywhere, street art, candy, flags in every form and shape and material, children running around and climbing on absolutely anything and everything they can hold on to, fierce chess matches in the rain, parades, circus shows, the selection…
Iceland: the most successful loser of Eurovision? Posted by hulda on May 19, 2013
If there is one thing that the Icelanders always excel at without a single flaw it’s partying. Yesterday’s Eurovision song contest was therefore no exception, the partying started well in advance when Iceland’s representative made it into the finals and is still going on as I write this. Well, the aftermath is mostly bitter comments…
You say hello, I say excuse me I’m a woman. Posted by hulda on May 8, 2013
Greetings and goodbyes – the simplest form of any language? Not always and definitely not in Icelandic! To begin with Icelandic has roughly speaking three different levels of formality in greetings. These overlap generously and often the level you should be using may be difficult to figure out, so let’s look at them and the…
Parliamentary Elections in Iceland – who won? Posted by hulda on Apr 30, 2013
Icelanders fighting both on- and offline, faces of the politicians staring at you from all directions, our mayor Jón Gnarr dressed up as a Jedi knight – the Parliamentary Elections of Iceland just happened. By now you all know the end result as well: the right wing won, the same party that caused the economy…
The wisdom of the vikings – Hávamál Posted by hulda on Apr 16, 2013
What was life like in the Medieval times? How did people view the world they lived in, how did they value it and what were their moral codes? When it comes to Iceland we know much more than for most of the now known world because so many Icelandic texts have survived all through the…
Gleðilega páska! Happy Easter! Posted by hulda on Mar 31, 2013
It’s not a bad deal at all to be in Iceland during the Easter, especially if judged by the chocolate eggs! Ranging from huge to gigantic to ridiculous in size and done in many flavours (my boyfriend’s egg is dark chocolate, mine’s milk chocolate with bits of licorice in it), they have been dominating most grocery stores…