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Tag Archives: Icelandic government

A naked tourist on the Prime Minister’s lawn. Posted by on Jan 31, 2013

One of our current classes is now focusing on what makes written text difficult to read. The most obvious causes are very topic specific vocabulary (that can make the text hard even for the locals), proverbs and idioms that are impossible to understand unless you already know what they mean etc. Then there’s the word…

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Sequins, confetti, our mayor in a pink dress… Posted by on Aug 12, 2012

Yesterday was the annual Gay Pride Parade in Reykjavík and as you would guess it rained cats and dogs. As if that wasn’t bad enough it was windy as well, meaning that the rain was the typical horizontal Reykjavík rain against which you can’t really do much. Most people don’t usually even try to use…

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Dogs Posted by on Jun 12, 2012

Reykjavík-ians (Reykvíkingar – often towns and small areas have a special name for their inhabitants, although I think it only shows up in Icelandic about as much as in English) have a strange thing with dogs. It’s said that in the past, dogs were completely banned from the capital and you couldn’t even own one…

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May Day Posted by 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…

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Post office Posted by on Apr 23, 2012

One thing you’ll probably be doing whether you’re a tourist or immigrant is going to the post office. The downtown (area code “101” – Icelandic area codes are just three digits) post office is one of the places I’ve found where they’re always friendly and we always have a completely Icelandic conversation. They don’t call…

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University of Iceland Posted by on Dec 3, 2011

I’ve been going to the University of Iceland for three semesters now, so here’s some stuff I’ve learned. Most people are fairly lax about rules in Iceland, whether it’s your employer, the government, or your teachers. For example, if you have a homework assignment due on Tuesday, you could turn it in next week and…

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Hospitals and clinics Posted by on Nov 1, 2011

If you need medicine or a doctor, I’ve been advised to go to a private doctor instead of someone at a community clinic. I went to a clinic the other day anyway (the cost was 1.000kr for the visit versus 6.000 to 8.000kr) and unfortunately had bad results. The doctor didn’t know as much English…

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