Ready, steady, recite! Posted by hulda on Sep 5, 2012
Did you know that the world tungl (= moon)* has been said to be the hardest word of Icelandic to rhyme? According to a story by Jón Árnason there’s only ever been one man capable of finding a rhyme for it, a famous skáld (= poet) called Kolbeinn Jöklaskáld (= Kolbeinn glacier poet). One time…
Sheep, shrubbery and Strandarkirkja. Posted by hulda on Sep 2, 2012
Now for the second part of our recent travels to the south! Hliðarvatn lakeside (pun intended) is not only fully of berries but of people picking them as well, yet they were almost impossible to see. The small hills and the thick undergrowth completely hid an adult, crouching person, and small children could run around…
Brimstone Mountain earthquake. Posted by hulda on Aug 31, 2012
Originally I was going to write more about the roadtrip next but Iceland itself decided otherwise. It habitually throws surprises at the people living here and one such happened yesterday: a larger than usual earthquake very near the Capital City area. As most earthquakes here stay below the level of 3 they’re hardly noticeable at…
The epic berrypicking roadtrip. Posted by hulda on Aug 29, 2012
Today’s blog post is once again about traveling within Iceland, and due to the amount of material I’m going to divide the entry in two for easier following. You see, what was supposed to be only a short trip to pick blueberries turned into something that included Iceland’s natural wonders and a church that has…
Forsetningarliðir + þolfall, prepositions + accusative Posted by hulda on Aug 25, 2012
Fréttin barst um allt landið. (= The news spread around the country.) It’s often difficult to tell exactly which case should be used in which context. At times Icelandic students face having to learn huge chunks of case-related grammar by heart, or gamble between two or more choices depending on the situation. Therefore it’s lucky…
These roads were not always here. Posted by hulda on Aug 23, 2012
When looking at the map of Iceland there’s one unusual thing that easily catches the eye: there don’t seem to be many, if any, roads in the middle of the country. Most of them go around Iceland along the main road called Þjóðvegur 1 or Hringvegurinn (= Ring Road), and the few that venture inlands…
Menningarnótt: music, art and beer. Posted by hulda on Aug 19, 2012
Hulda reporting again from one of the many summer festivals in Iceland, the Menningarnótt (= Culture night). Despite the name it’s actually a whole day celebration starting out at 8 a.m. and continuing through the day and well into the night. Besides that I’m happy to announce that this is exactly the hundredth post published…