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Tag Archives: viking era

The grass house that wouldn’t be blown in. Posted by on Jun 30, 2013

Imagine that you have just arrived to an island somewhere in the middle of an ocean and have decided upon a place you’ll build your new home. Far as the eye can see there’s almost nothing suitable to building with except for – turf. Torfbær, the turf house, dating back from the early times of…

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Icelandic blog’s competition! Posted by on May 31, 2013

As the busy month of May is almost over now I was hoping you might have the time for a small competition! Here’s what you may win: – Xenophobe’s guide to the Icelanders, a book that looks at Icelanders through the eyes of a foreigner. Quite a bestseller among Icelanders themselves too! Here’s a review…

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The wisdom of the vikings – Hávamál Posted by 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…

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Gleðilega páska! Happy Easter! Posted by on Mar 31, 2013

It’s not a bad deal at all to be in Iceland during the Easter, especially if judged by the chocolate eggs! Ranging from huge to gigantic to ridiculous in size and done in many flavours (my boyfriend’s egg is dark chocolate, mine’s milk chocolate with bits of licorice in it), they have been dominating most grocery stores…

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Loki’s children. Posted by 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…

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Getting understood in Iceland, part 2. Posted by on Jan 16, 2013

“It didn’t sound anything like Icelandic.” “What didn’t?” “Well, for example Thorin’s name isn’t really pronounced like that.” Roughly a week ago we went to see Hobbit, or There and Back Again and the discussion above happened right after the movie was over. We agreed that the movie itself was awesome, but the Icelandic viewers…

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Jólasveinar, the Icelandic Yule lads. Posted by 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…

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