Archive for 'Icelandic history'
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…
The wonderful accident called Blue Lagoon. Posted by hulda on May 27, 2013
Sitting in the middle of an empty desert of lava and moss somewhere between Keflavík and Reykjavík is one of the most interesting sights to see in Iceland. You take a turn off the main road and then another one, and all of a sudden you see a thick column of white smoke rising up…
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…
Loki’s children. Posted by hulda on Feb 20, 2013
“You can choose any text you like, except for poems or song lyrics.” The first translation course that the University of Iceland offers is typically on the first semester of the third year. It takes two years of studying Icelandic before we have gathered enough vocabulary and knowledge on Iceland and its culture to be…
Jólasveinar, the Icelandic Yule lads. Posted by hulda on Dec 12, 2012
What if there was no Santa Claus but thirteen trolls instead? What if your main task for the Christmas season was not to be good so that you’d get presents but to be good so that you might live through it? What if talk of the Christmas trolls was once officially banned due to their…
Snæfellsness, Iceland in miniature. Posted by hulda on Nov 30, 2012
If you look over Faxaflói (= Horse mane bay) on a clear day you can see the white peak of Snæfellsjökull (= Snow mountain glacier) on Snæfellsnes (= Snow mountain cape) over a hundred kilometres away. It’s the tallest mountain of the peninsula, rising over 1400 m from the sea, and considered the most beautiful glacier…
How to order coffee in Icelandic Posted by hulda on Nov 24, 2012
Icelanders are among the leading nations in the world when it comes to coffee consumption per capita. This means that no matter how small they are, every single town has at least three cafes, and that in Reykjavík there are so many of them that it’s hard to choose among them. Some serve a wide…