Hiding in plain sight 2: more than a church. Posted by hulda on May 12, 2014
Continuing my little series of things that may interest a traveler yet are free and within your reach even in the capital city: the area between Hallgrímskirkja and Tjörnin, the ornamental pond downtown. But why see this area in particular? The statue park of Einar Jónsson Continuing your sightseeing route, the museum that hosts art…
Summer’s here, run! Posted by hulda on Apr 30, 2014
My, we’ve had a wild time in the news section since last week! Summer began as stated in the Old Nordic calendar and the weather took a hint: we’ve had amazingly warm, sunny days for a whole week now and pretty much everyone and everything has caught a severe case of spring fever. In other words everything’s…
Apples in the oak tree. Posted by hulda on Apr 24, 2014
Happy Sumardagurinn fyrsti, First of Summer, everyone! Easter is almost over now, the lamb’s eaten, Easter beer gone, the chocolate eggs opened and now the only thing left to do is to try to understand the proverbs that the eggs gave you. One of you, dear readers, asked me about a particularly difficult proverb which prompted me…
Staving off a disaster; magical tattoos. Posted by hulda on Apr 16, 2014
I’ve noticed a growing trend of people having Icelandic magical staves tattooed on them lately. Some of the choices, alas, range from weird to unintentionally funny and inappropriate. On its own having such a stave tattooed is not a bad thing at all. Icelanders themselves often get them as tattoos and it’s not considered insulting…
With with, with or with? Posted by hulda on Apr 11, 2014
“Mig langar að tala við þig, hjá þér, og þá langar mig að tala með þér upp á sviði.” Put this sentence in an online translator and you get “I want to talk to with you and allow me to speak with you on stage” as a translation. Icelandic prepositions are endlessly confusing and here…
Not just a number. Posted by hulda on Mar 31, 2014
Explaining one’s age or the length of time that’s not measured with a clock (weeks, months, years etc.) in Icelandic is a mildly complex sport. My best advice for a student would be to just learn the example sentences by heart and use them until they come automatically; it takes some time but it’s far…
Hekla volcano – temperature on the rise. Posted by hulda on Mar 25, 2014
As spring approaches we begin to look at the volcanoes a bit more closely, especially the two that are overdue their eruption schedule: Katla and Hekla. In Iceland it’s actually very typical that eruptions begin in the spring or early summer because that’s when the snow and ice melt off the mountains and even subglacial…