Archive for 'Icelandic culture'
Icelandic Food Part Two Posted by sequoia on May 22, 2012
The first part dealing with this is here, but again we’ll have a post about Icelandic food. Some of these things aren’t specifically Icelandic and they’re not all traditional food either, but I doubt they’re very widespread at least. Unless stated otherwise, these were all found at Bónus, a normal grocery store. Skate, a more…
Kilroy may have been here. Posted by hulda on May 20, 2012
Once you travel outside of Reykjavík you will sooner or later come across certain stone-built landmarks, cairns, also known in Icelandic as varða/vörður. Their use is varied to say the least. Traditionally they marked borders, routes, shorelines, notable places and areas where an important travelling woman had died. Nowadays they also mark the presence of…
When the volcanoes wake up. Posted by hulda on May 16, 2012
As the weather gets warmer yet another very Icelandic feature begins to take place when eldfjöll, the volcanoes, begin to show more signs of life when the layer of ice on top of them grows lighter in weight or disappears altogether depending on whether the volcano is beneath a glacier or not. At the moment the…
Víkingahátíð, the viking festival. Posted by hulda on May 14, 2012
“Sögumenn, götulistamenn, handverksmenn sem bæði höggva í steina og tré eða berja glóandi járn, bardagamenn og bogmenn, svo eitthvað sé nefnt.” June is nearing and with it the annual festival held at the Viking* Village in Hafnarfjörður: Víkingahátíð, the viking festival. I went there last year and I wholeheartedly recommend paying it a visit in…
Pronunciation of vowels. Posted by hulda on May 10, 2012
Or: how to avoid saying “penis” or something equally embarrassing by accident. While it’s ok to have an accent it’s still crucial to learn to pronounce as correctly as possible and the reason for this is that words easily change their meaning in Icelandic. Before we go on I feel like apologizing for the chosen topic…
The myth of Sæmundur fróði. Posted by hulda on May 7, 2012
In the middle of the clearing, right outside of the old main building of the University of Iceland stands a peculiar statue of a man raising a book against what appears to be a fish of sorts. The fish is actually not a fish but a seal – and the seal is not in fact…
May Day Posted by sequoia on May 1, 2012
Note: We changed some things in our blog system, so sorry if you saw something strange over the past couple weeks (my posts were a little messed up and I think some of them didn’t show up for a while). Today is May Day (also known as Labour Day – “Verkalýðsdagur / Working-classes’ Day”), always…