tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-96081182012-03-07T14:14:31.786ZBlöggt er gests augaðJBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.comBlogger4561100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-59373121166019108522010-03-12T11:24:00.004Z2010-03-12T11:28:21.558Z

Yesterday I published an article in Morgunblaðið. Here is roughly the same article in English.In the discussions about the collapse of the Icelandic banking system that have taken place since October 2008, very little has been said about the size of the collapse of the three banks, in either absolute or relative terms.This is unfortunate, as without a sense of perspective for these large bank

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-42967967484528604512010-02-18T15:48:00.002Z2010-02-18T15:54:44.804Z

My second article of two appeared a few days back in Fréttablaðið. Here it is in English.Part II: Stanford International BankAs I discussed in the first part of this two-part series, a Ponzi scheme is any fraud or scam that must continually bring in new investors in order to pay returns to existing investors: the arrival of new money is the only way to keep the scheme afloat.In this article I

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-56908064053237768292010-01-18T11:15:00.004Z2010-01-18T11:24:04.062Z

I wrote an article for the newspaper Fréttablaðið that appeared over the weekend. Here is the English version of the article.Ponzi and pyramid schemesA Ponzi scheme refers to any fraud or scam that must continually bring in new investors in order to pay returns to existing investors: the arrival of new money is the only way to keep the scheme “afloat”. Such schemes often masquerade as legitimate

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-35976310810006661912009-06-17T09:38:00.002Z2009-06-17T10:17:56.959Z

Robert Wade recently published a piece in Challenge magazine detailing his take on what brought Iceland down. I found it to be a decent read. I like his discussion of economic history, his argument that political corruption was effectively institutionalized by the duopoly of governing parties that ran the country starting in the 1970s, and his retelling of the tale of the Central Bank governor's

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-31001477714240780542009-04-28T10:38:00.004Z2009-04-29T20:21:57.461Z

Last month I wrote about the young sport of paragliding and its avid per-capita following here in the Land. Today I am pleased to bring you my first-ever helmet-cam video, shot yesterday. It was a glorious evening with a gentle sea breeze and birds thermaling out over the nearby plain. After I landed and was packing up my glider, I had the recurring thought that even just 3 minutes in the air

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-39651294225824226602009-04-25T17:18:00.003Z2009-04-25T17:36:16.413Z

Top 10 ways Icelandic elections are different than American elections.10. Elections happen on a Saturday, not a Tuesday. (So people can, you know, show up.)9. Three poll workers for every 8 streets, not every 80.8. Photo ID required.7. No gun-toting cops at the polling place door.6. Ballots basically just a heavy piece of paper folded in half. No envelopes.5. Vote by marking an X in a box with a

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-64953227783320710252009-04-24T09:05:00.007Z2009-04-24T17:52:09.801Z

Tomorrow is the election day for Alþingi, Icelandic Parliament. And it will be my first time voting here in the Land.I find the election system here sort of odd. There are only 6 districts (kjördæmi) serving the whole country (and Reykjavík city gets two of these by virtue of its dominating population). In each of these large election districts, voters choose their favorite political party (not

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-81023686676278144572009-04-12T15:31:00.002Z2009-04-12T15:59:11.254Z

One thing that Iceland does well this time of year is create giant Easter eggs out of milk chocolate. They come in a series of numbered sizes, the biggest being well over a foot tall. Inside the chocolate shell is an assortment of bags of candy: gummy bears, licorice balls, things in little plastic bags. On the back of the egg is a little resealable trap door by which the inner candy sanctum can

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-27324258261997098092009-04-04T15:04:00.005Z2009-04-04T16:02:06.156Z

There has been a lot of talk around Iceland on what would constitute a "fair" value for the króna on foreign exchange markets. Many here are convinced that the ISK, currently trading at around 120 to the dollar, is far too weak. They understandably yearn for the days of 60 ISK to the dollar (and the fully loaded Icelandair 757s back from the Mall of America that followed), and since last fall,

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-75209984655838737272009-04-02T10:30:00.000Z2009-04-02T10:30:02.361Z

Longtime IR reader Fellas sends in this interview with Marc Faber (PDF), international investment guru. We both liked Dr. Faber's quote regarding the Land:I'm sorry to say I think the whole world is an Iceland. I think we have countries like Britain and Ireland and Switzerland that have problems similar to Iceland, though they're not as bad as Iceland.So, foreign reporters, be careful when you

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-11414106448159055872009-04-01T10:08:00.003Z2009-04-01T10:35:43.371Z

The northern Icelandic town of Blönduós, or "Blended Delta", is one of the most fascinating places in all of the Land. Just like its counterpart in the southern U.S., this delta is the cradle of Icelandic blues.My buddies and I stopped there on the way north to Akureyri last weekend. Though it was only 9 o'clock on a Friday morning when our salt-spattered SUV pulled into the lot of the local N1

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-26593833333437409852009-03-31T11:36:00.003Z2009-03-31T13:07:10.887Z

Karlo Jännäri, former bank regulator of Finland, was invited last fall to Iceland to draft a report on the Icelandic financial sector and the causes of the banking collapse of October 2008. That report was published yesterday. The report gives some excellent (and very readable) history on the development of the Icelandic crisis, and the steps taken to mitigate problem areas like ICESAVE before

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-3872661012722707892009-03-26T12:50:00.006Z2009-03-26T13:14:01.587Z

Ask an Icelander on the street (or in my office) what the inflation number is so far in 2009, and they'll quote you something in the range of 15-20%. That's because the most-often quoted inflation number is for the trailing 12 months. The current number quoted by Hagstofan (or "Statistics Iceland" as they call themselves somewhat demeaningly in English) is 15.2% for the 12 months through March

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-49625118966887153872009-03-23T20:56:00.005Z2009-03-23T21:51:44.449Z

...recently wrote a fairly "incendiary" piece on Iceland for Vanity Fair magazine, in which he said, among other poorly researched misstatements, that Icelanders were routinely blowing up Range Rovers on the downtown streets. Apparently they were doing this to their own cars to collect insurance money, a scenario that doesn't really make all that much sense after a few moments of reflection.

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-63471643116143485742009-03-20T20:00:00.002Z2009-03-20T20:20:49.254Z

Wow. I have just stumbled into greatness. Part of our evening meal plan tonight was fiskibollur (literally, fish-balls), the homemade-tasting kind that seem to only be available at weekend Kolaportið. These are made of tiny fish molecules blended with some kind of meal, usually white flour, and then deep-fried before they are frozen. I split the bollur into halves and then pan-fried them in their

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-4279976026439767342009-03-19T10:27:00.003Z2009-03-19T10:40:11.230Z

There's a guy I see almost every day at the school where I work. He's a student, but unlike the other Icelandic students around him, he's always attired in 90s-era American college gear: baggy plaid shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap. And the cap is always a blue cotton "B" hat with the "hanging sox" logo stitched on the back.Now, it's not often in Iceland that one sees the good ole "B" hat, the

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-19677367821296981282009-03-01T20:23:00.004Z2009-03-01T20:35:50.122Z

Today is the 20th anniversary of a special day in Icelandic history. Twenty years ago today, on the first of March, 1989, just months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Iceland legalized the sale of beer. Before that, in keeping with its schizophrenic policies on alcohol, the country did not allow any regular beer to be sold. The reasoning seems to have been that, if beer was legal, people would

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-91503694809364783572009-03-01T12:21:00.005Z2009-03-03T14:10:19.802Z

Now, for something completely different: Yesterday marked the beginning of the paragliding season for me. This is a sport that, although is pretty much undisputably the best way to spend time outside of the bedroom, has only become really popular in Alpine Europe and some other pockets around the world.* That is probably because it is a new sport, having been developed in the 1980s and with

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-72635351303882516952009-02-27T15:37:00.003Z2009-02-27T15:51:54.256Z

Former Fed chairman Paul Volcker recently gave a speech in Toronto where he talked about what kind of banking system the U.S. should be aiming for post-crisis. I think a lot of what he said is directly relevant to Iceland as well, so I'll excerpt that part of the speech here and then follow with some comments.I think we have a problem which is not an ordinary business cycle problem. It is much

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-42497718437621036732009-02-20T14:34:00.004Z2009-02-20T14:40:52.921Z

One place that I bet has already seen a pick-up in biz in these difficult times is Geisladiskabúð Valda (Valdi's CD Store) at Laugavegur 64 in downtown Reykjavík. This is a place that has long been one of my favorite stops on a chilly weekend stroll down the 101 Strip. For one thing, it's probably the only reliable source for classic rock CDs in the vast expanses of the Land. Steely Dan Greatest

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-14323176343254671152009-02-13T09:52:00.005Z2009-02-13T13:07:12.512Z

Back at the end of last year, I wrote my first serious piece on "the Troubles" in Iceland. I had been saying since 2005 that there seemed to be too many new neighborhoods under construction around Reykjavík, and then there was some back-and-forth in the comments on whether or not that was so. Yesterday in Fréttablaðið (link PDF) , an economist at Landsbanki, Ari Skúlason, revealed the results of

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-85662437143042264672009-02-12T10:30:00.000Z2009-02-12T10:30:00.931Z

One of the most-Googled phrases by which new readers land on the IR is "iceland racism" and it lands readers here. (Interestingly, I didn't use the word "racism" in the original post, but one of the commenters threw it out there.) This Google search has been popular for a long time, and it always surprises me how many out in the world are searching for that phrase or variants on it: around 5% of

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-88172139946841800242009-02-11T12:21:00.001Z2009-02-11T12:22:50.681Z

I went to Skálafell, one of the local barebones Reykjavík ski areas, for a few runs this past weekend. As the slow two-man lift crested the last rise at around 10:15 a.m., the sun was just breaking over the southern mountains and through the clouds, casting an orange sideways glow on a vast plateau of snow below. Ringing the plateau on all sides were the blacks and whites of snow-covered charcoal

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-84834953883251388472009-02-09T22:55:00.007Z2009-02-09T23:24:56.427Z

Two respected Icelandic economists, one based here at the University of Iceland (Gylfi Zoega), and one based at the London School of Economics (Jón Daníelsson), have just published an excellent post-mortem of the Icelandic bubble and systemic collapse. (The full paper, "Collapse of a Country", is available here, einnig á íslensku.) The paper begins with an excellent, readable history of how the

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-2684272660666027082009-02-08T22:03:00.003Z2009-02-09T09:25:03.247Z

American readers, stop reading right here. You won't understand this. Stick to the things you do best (and nobody else really cares about), like what you call "football", 8-1/2 x 11" paper, and the Farenheit temperature scale.Icelanders. At long last I wade into the Eurovision morass. Being American, I had never even heard of this contest/gay lifestyle before somewhere like 2003. But now that I

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-8331842821754534952009-02-07T16:31:00.003Z2009-02-07T16:44:49.841Z

I just got back from Smáralind, Iceland's largest and ugliest shopping mall. ("Is there anything they don't have?") Turned out what they don't have is a replacement ignition key for a 1997 Toyota RAV4. Also, they were very low on Icelandic microbrews. (I picked up the last 6-pack of Jökull, my new fave. This one is brewed in Stykkishólmur and based on a Cherman recipe.*)The mall walkways were

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-19653736051557808832009-02-02T23:47:00.007Z2009-02-03T00:18:41.982Z

I was listening to the BBC's "World Have Your Say" program tonight. It was broadcast live from a kitchen table in Reykjavík, where (in a funny, clueless, all-too-common twist on the general lack of surnames in Iceland) the host was interviewing what he called "the Jónsson family" about their dismal experiences post-economic collapse. I have been mulling a grand unified theory about what went down

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-23313791612691964842009-01-29T20:19:00.002Z2009-01-29T20:25:12.070Z

Last September, not for the first time in my life, I walked out of a job. But for the first time in my life, I didn't have follow-on employment. And not only that, for the first time ever I did not have to worry about health insurance.At around the same time, cruising my favorite American political blogs, I stumbled on several videos of Sarah Palin ranting away at her campaign stops. It made for

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-14811871003230854202009-01-28T09:08:00.002Z2009-01-28T09:12:46.637Z

I have gotten a few panicked emails from American friends these last days which give me the impression that somehow the US media is once again disasterizing the wrong situation (while probably ignoring, or at least whitewashing, the real disaster unfolding daily in the Middle East).What seems to be going on, through the lens of these fear-filled missives, is that American news outlets are

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-26306965108521199152009-01-25T21:37:00.005Z2009-01-26T13:27:21.380Z

January 25, 2009President Barack Obama1600 Pennsylvania Ave NWWashington DC 20500United StatesDear President Obama:First, allow me to congratulate you on your election and on a beautiful inauguration. This is an historic time and I am hopeful for the future. For the first time in my adult life, the United States has chosen a leader who can help the country recognize and confront the serious

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-67489319321633140482009-01-16T14:11:00.002Z2009-01-16T14:15:51.685Z

Here is a little Friday fun for y'all... I just walked into a public restroom and heard something I had never heard before in my life. There were two stalls in there, in addition to the usual complement of urinals, and in one of the shitters was a guy having a long conversation on his cell phone, apparently while simultaneously taking care of business. I wasn't there when the conversation began

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-31036304796747994552009-01-08T22:13:00.004Z2009-01-08T22:24:46.695Z

This morning at 9:30 I was getting into my car in the Kópavogur wilds and I saw something amazing: a thin little blue streak of light in an otherwise black and rainy sky. It was quite a bit shocking. It didn't seem to belong. It was as if the blackness of space had been rent aside, revealing a bright world beyond, as though someone had pulled back black velvet stage curtains to reveal a painted

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-33137059907499434342009-01-05T10:00:00.002Z2009-01-05T10:00:01.603Z

Two American economists have a new paper out that looks at the aftermath of 21 financial crises around the world, a paper that I alluded to in my last post. (Thanks to John Mauldin and his excellent newsletter for keeping me updated on matters macroeconomic.) Their analysis has a direct bearing on the situation in Iceland today, and in fact Iceland today also stars in the paper as one of the

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-49319339461747873962009-01-04T01:21:00.003Z2009-01-04T02:09:19.423Z

One thing I find myself struggling to explain to American friends is the effect of the collapse of the Icelandic króna on our buying power and sense of wealth. When I try to explain how it is to be here I hear responses like, "it's bad everywhere." And truly it is, in the sense of collapsing stock markets, falling house prices, and rising unemployment. Iceland has those, too: the stock market has

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-9532613616460428882009-01-01T19:43:00.006Z2009-01-01T19:59:17.860Z

I just got back from a half-hour solo walk in the pitch blackness of late afternoon on the first of January. We are out in the country and I walked along some dirt roads here, trying not to use the flashlight. There was a little light reflected off the rain clouds from a town some ten kilometers away, and that was about enough to see the path along the road. Around me, trees and rocks loomed, and

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-22226837093861973752008-12-27T19:48:00.003Z2008-12-27T20:19:16.606Z

Since the resurrection of the IR in November, I have so far been tiptoeing around the 800-lb. gorilla that's sitting in the room here: the collapse of Iceland's economy and currency. There are so many angles to cover that I am not quite sure where to begin. The Wall Street Journal came out with a pretty good summary today. The saga will be familiar to my Icelandic readers, but probably

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-23566070453094134632008-12-25T15:12:00.002Z2008-12-25T16:54:41.213Z

One of the great new Christmas traditions for me here in the Land has been the midnight mass. After the big dinner on the 24th comes the opening of presents, then after that heading on down to a bright church full of candles and music has always felt just right for this dark and peaceful time of year. Hallgrímskirkja, the towering feature of the Reykjavík skyline (yet now looking a bit like the

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-38623433558132398242008-12-24T15:51:00.003Z2008-12-25T17:01:01.228Z

The table is set, the Bibler-family Thanksgiving classics are cued up to go in the oven, the tree is lit and decorated and surrounded by a modest number of kreppugjafir, the cream is whipping (the wind and rain are whipping even more), the darkness is falling, and it's almost time to get dressed in our Christmas finery. Dinner starts in a couple hours, then gifts, and then midnight mass downtown.

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-78631418274198706432008-12-23T15:22:00.004Z2008-12-23T16:17:36.704Z

Today is Þorláksmessa, the day we celebrate Þorlákur Þórhallsson, an Icelandic bishop from Skálholt. He died on this date in 1193 A.D., and to remember him Icelanders made a law in 1199 A.D. reserving the mass on this date in his memory.Actually, I bet most Icelanders don't know anything about Þorlákur. But everyone refers to the 23rd of December as Þorláksmessa. It's the day people leave work a

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-56697069709455054802008-12-23T15:04:00.005Z2008-12-23T15:19:28.725Z

After what seemed like weeks of continually accumulating snow, by yesterday morning the Reykjavík area was blanketed in the stuff. It was white and glorious everywhere, streetlights and Christmas lights reflecting light back off the ground and keeping things cheerful in the 20-hour December nights of Iceland.But no more. Yesterday we got hit by a wind and rainstorm that eradicated all of the snow

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-79170214378486185612008-12-20T17:36:00.003Z2008-12-20T18:06:46.776Z

Icelanders, imagine if you moved to a foreign city, let's just say San Francisco for the sake of argument. And after you had been living there a couple years you heard of a new bar called "Reykjavík". Excited and curious, you make it your first stop the next time you're out on a Friday night. Upon arrival you expect to see some RVK artifacts on the walls: maybe a 1968 KR Football Club team

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-81716328083947029432008-12-17T13:33:00.002Z2008-12-17T13:45:41.986Z

Long-time Iceland Report reader Ian Watson does more than just read the Iceland Report. In his spare time, he writes an excellent website targeted at Icelanders traveling abroad. In his words, "Six months ago, Icelanders still thought it uncool to consider price when purchasing everything from airfares to guidebooks to travel clothing." But with financial reality now once again a reality, it

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-89923560080909110302008-12-17T08:39:00.004Z2008-12-17T09:03:37.597Z

One of the most annoying and misguided phrases of the Icelandic super-bubble had to be the labeling of Reykjavík's Borgartún area "Wall Street". This name was obviously invented by someone who had never been to the actual Wall Street, or at the very least doesn't understand the fundamental relationship of Manhattan to its environs or the superiority of the (212) to anything that needs to be

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-17566579182848559742008-12-14T13:14:00.004Z2008-12-14T13:26:02.517Z

In a beautifully written article, visiting British journalist AA Gill captured the essence of why I love Iceland. Bravo!

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-23803981642533227702008-12-11T11:23:00.004Z2008-12-11T11:36:28.559Z

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Göran Persson, the Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006, and before that the Swedish finance minister. In these positions, he played a key role in steering Sweden back from its banking crisis of 1992.He came to Iceland to share his experiences, speaking at Háskóli Íslands, the University of Iceland. Even in non-native English, I found

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-23733929881632730402008-12-09T21:25:00.006Z2008-12-09T21:54:42.220Z

I had a meeting today in Smáratorg 3, also known as Turninn (the Tower). This place has got to be the biggest physical manifestation of all that was in excess during the Icelandic banking/borrowing/lending/real estate/fjallajeppi bubble. "The Tower" is 20 storeys of wannabe I.M. Pei mirror-glass thrown up in the suburb of Kópavogur. It casts a long shadow over the equally hideous Smáralind mall

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-50608171995183421732008-12-08T17:18:00.001Z2008-12-08T17:20:53.643Z

...or school-warden's-path, is one of the most promient streets in downtown Reykjavík. It angles off of the Bankastræti/Laugavegur junction and heads straight up an incline to Hallgrímskirkja and the Statue of Pre-Columbus Ass-Kicker Leifur Eiriksson, standing on his concrete prow.This past summer, the street was closed to car traffic and the place was dug up to a degree that would suggest this

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-47802184711832848332008-12-08T11:18:00.002Z2008-12-08T11:20:41.838Z

Even after four years here, I am still discovering things, some of them only minutes from where I live. Out at the end of the Reykjavík neighborhood of Grafarvogur, right in the looming shadow of Esja, is a little dirt causeway that leads out to a magnificent mass of land called Geldingarnes. It's a big island in the Reykjavík harbor, along with Viðey, but unlike Viðey one can drive right onto it

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-20534806457638431572008-11-29T14:29:00.003Z2008-11-29T14:42:15.125Z

Last night was my first downtown in a little while. In my new incarnation as a tame, dinner-party-hosting suburbanite, I just don't get down there that much. It's just too much hassle.But last night I headed on down with a buddy of mine and we had beers at Brons before a few other dudes showed up. So began a rollicking Friday. Only the thing was, there was hardly any rollicking to be had.The only

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-81828821144291043942007-08-22T18:39:00.000Z2007-08-22T18:46:18.818Z

A good friend of mine, a guy always full of jokes, witticisms, commentary, and wacky ideas, was undergoing cancer treatment last year before Christmas. About that time he suggested jokingly that I organize a one-man "cancer walk" for him, then send him half the proceeds I collected and keep the other half for myself. I decided to take the idea seriously and so I sent him a map of the route I

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-50360887945372488972007-07-20T00:37:00.000Z2007-07-20T00:48:07.872Z

It's 12:30 a.m. and a week ago at this time it was still post-sunset and light outside and there were some girls eating pizza below my balcony at the rotary, big white cardboard Dominos boxes spread out on some rocks. But tonight it's pretty dim at the same time, and after months of nothing but light here it's a little shocking and a relief all at the same time. It won't be until next month that

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-69713443708732245372007-05-23T09:23:00.000Z2007-05-23T09:25:20.362Z

Many mornings on my way to work, walking down the final cobblestoned hill to Ingólfstorg (the path that freezes over into a kind of ice-slide in the winter), I hear a brass player working his way up and down the scales, major and minor. It's usually very quiet in that area of town, and the smooth brassy tone carries its way on the wind, working a half-block radius among the corrugated-steel

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-40902564154757657022007-05-21T10:19:00.001Z2007-05-21T10:19:59.378Z

This morning both Esja and Akrafjall were powdered with snow. And now outside it is alternating between sunshine, flurries, and serious "wintry mix" type stuff, the kind of thing guaranteed to cause miles of backup on Route 128. But here people are just going about their business. After such a beautiful, sunny few days this weekend, a little May snowshower can't really get us down. The downtown

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-41842881445576317322007-05-18T11:51:00.000Z2007-05-18T11:52:47.374Z

The flipside of the "little Fridays" phenomenon is that of little Mondays. Yesterday was the last in this year's crop of obscure midweek Icelandic spring holidays (Uppstingingardagur, or Ascension Day: Áfram Kristur!) so Wednesday was a little Friday par excellence, with its full complement of nighttime mania downtown. And today feels like a little Monday, the beginning of a tiny one-day work

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1124626340413939142007-05-16T06:45:00.000Z2007-05-16T08:07:04.478Z

This one has been sitting in my "future post ideas" box forever, back from the early days of the Iceland Report. And I guess its time has come. So the gist is, what if America's and Iceland's positions in the world were reversed? What would be some of the implications of that?Tourists from Iceland expecting Americans to speak fluent Icelandic, Americans having been raised on a steady diet of

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-81372460850685722282007-05-15T09:54:00.000Z2007-05-16T06:27:52.757Z

Last night was the opening game for KR, my local soccer team in the Icelandic premier league (Landsbankadeildin). The opponent was red-shirted Keflavík, those airport-service mofoes from Reykjanes. They may know about changing a tire on a 757, but they don't know too much about kicking a soccer ball.By comparison, my local team is the most hated (and historically the most skilled) in Icelandic

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-83418219499986661272007-05-09T10:03:00.000Z2007-05-09T10:04:10.913Z

My sister-in-law sent me a book as a birthday gift from Amazon. When it arrived the mailman wanted me to pay VAT on it. I told him I didn't know what it was and I hadn't ordered anything. I told him it was probably a gift. Sure enough, it was marked "gift" on the customs form. He told me I must have ordered it. So I opened it in front of him and took out the invoice. It was marked clearly with a

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-89935070955783599702007-05-08T08:14:00.000Z2007-05-08T08:21:53.865Z

Icelanders can't wait in line. It sounds like a vicious stereotype, I know. And really most of them probably can quite well. To my knowledge, deCODE hasn't found any gene in the mixed Nordic-Celtic pool that explicitly makes orderly line-standing impossible. But there is still something subtly Mendelian going on: if there's a sleazy way around a line, many an Icelander will try to finesse his way

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-68917443432067132092007-05-07T13:37:00.000Z2007-05-07T13:55:42.757Z

So, my last work and residence permit ran out on April 30th. I applied for the latest one-year extension two months ago, but the opaque and impenetrable one-two punch of Útlendingastofnun-Vinnumálastofnun still hasn't issued an extension or indeed any acknowledgement of receipt of the application. And there's not much I can do besides hassle my HR department to in turn hassle the weary workers at

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-48312935753944040552007-05-06T19:21:00.000Z2007-05-06T19:23:50.215Z

I am still not entirely sure what it is about the Land, but once it got under my skin (something that took all of a half hour on a sunny spring afternoon five years ago), I couldn't keep myself from going back. I went to Iceland as a tourist three times in 2002, and by the end of yet another trip in 2003 I had a tentative job offer. I moved "over the stones" at the beginning of autumn 2004.I

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-55027717351524869282007-04-30T10:03:00.000Z2007-04-30T14:01:48.432Z

The Icelandic spring calendar is a smattering of holidays. You have the five-day Easter smackdown, yes, but then a whole sprinkling of one-offs besides: Sumardagurinn fyrsti (the first day of summer, a Thursday in mid-April), Verkalýðsdagurinn (Labor Day), Uppstingingardagur (Ascension Day), Annar í hvítasunnu (the Monday after Whitsun), and Lýðveldisdagurinn (better known as 17. júní, the Day of

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-17298952870765824112007-04-25T08:09:00.000Z2007-04-25T08:14:29.315Z

For a whole pack of reasons relating to my new joerb, my swimming routine has moved from after work to before work. And it's a whole new world out there. On my first 6:30 a.m. trip out to the pool at Laugardalur, just past the predawn "roll 'em out boys" unveiling of the yellow Strætó buses from their big, sad bus yard, I pulled into the parking lot to find a whole new crowd of old men, too. They

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-19317972782414979172007-04-20T16:39:00.001Z2007-04-20T16:41:26.828Z

...if you're still there, that is.Well, here it is: the Peeps are demanding a continuation to the IR, but I find myself at a crossroads. Much of what I thought was fresh and new when I came to Iceland has now become just part of my daily life here. So the perspective of the outsider has shifted as I've become more and more an insider. Things that used to strike me as 100% Wacko-Jacko (like paying

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-79935014677831878332007-03-11T19:42:00.000Z2007-03-16T13:15:28.286Z

I came home today from a trip to the country to find a giant pump truck parked in the entrance to the apartment garage, pumping water with the high-pitched whine of an accident scene. Apparently while I was away the big storm-water pumping station down the road had a computer malfunction and, well, the storm runoff flooded our parking garage with around 2,000 tons of water. They were towing the

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-30378245552035818792007-02-25T20:37:00.000Z2007-02-25T20:41:16.761Z

My new job has completely changed my view on the neighborhood in which I live. Since I now walk through the ole 'hood every day on the way to and from work, I feel much more in touch with the place, its people, and its legions of school kids trekking stoically down the icy sidewalks in the pre-dawn hours.Here are some of the great things about Vesturbær, the West End of Reykjavík.Pétursbúð The

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-75173576057893953372007-02-10T20:00:00.000Z2007-02-11T19:10:58.373Z

I'm staying the Saturday overnight in a little cluster of summerhouses, owned by my employer. It's a little ways out of town, far enough so that no city lights interfere with the stars. Just now when I went to the car to get a pen, the size and brilliance of Orion in the southern sky was almost shocking. I can't imagine how a good hit of the norðurljós must look from out here. It's cold outside,

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-77981129122014681142007-02-02T08:13:00.000Z2007-02-11T23:14:02.610Z

Walking down the hill to work this morning a beat-down-looking character in a hoodie, drinking something from a Coke bottle and holding a lit cigarette, flagged me down. Even though it was nearly 8 a.m., it was still pitch-black. So, not the walk-to-work scenario you're probably picturing.I decided friendly but fast-walking was the best option, and he struggled to keep up with me, as he told me

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-30911615578623193802007-01-29T21:05:00.000Z2007-01-29T21:15:28.676Z

I met with NPR's Eric Weiner again on Friday after work, for a followup interview on happiness in the Land. He's not doing a radio bit on this, but he is coming out with a book on the happiest countries (and he wants you to buy it!). The second conversation I had with him was much better as he seemed to have settled in to the laid-back ways of Reykjavík after some more days here. The

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-4232197814339912612007-01-20T20:17:00.000Z2007-01-20T20:18:42.224Z

Gleðilegt nýtt ár! Happy 2007, and a belated one at that. Sometimes, as I learned this past month, the muses just stop singing for a little while. Indeed in the deep dark of an Icelandic winter, it can feel like I haven't really been fully awake for weeks. This year I feel like I've been dozing at least as far back to when my American readers were celebrating Thanksgiving. It's been a long, dark

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-43336009197406168762006-12-12T11:57:00.000Z2006-12-12T12:01:38.178Z

It's just a shade before noon and out my office window I see the first direct evidence that there is, indeed, still a sun. It's lighting up the clouds over the mountain range to the southwest and casting a wan light over the smattering of snow and brown grass below and the Lego-block rooftops of Garðabær beyond. Iceland in December is surely not for everyone, but the beauty is all still there if

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-40517782957558385912006-12-08T14:39:00.000Z2006-12-08T14:40:11.628Z

I got an invitation last Wednesday, the 29th, to a big-time Christmas feast put on by my future employer. I was very excited, as it would be a good chance to meet all the peeps at the new job. Plus it would be plates and plates of smoked puffin, and who doesn't like that? Not to mention the likely probability of free wine, which is a bit like a handout of gold bars here in the Land.So, the

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-68846630200188804552006-12-08T09:47:00.000Z2006-12-08T09:48:59.489Z

María wins the fish platter this year! Til hamingju, María!

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-42044903513191861802006-12-01T11:19:00.000Z2006-12-08T10:01:37.000Z

Today I'm taking my car to the KEF Carwash. It is, I believe, unique in the world: a multi-day car wash and wind treatment. You choose the time span: the longer the wash, the more you pay. While you wait for your car to get cleaned, you have the option of several places to travel.So while trusty old RZ is getting blasted by the wind and rain of southwest Iceland, I'll be living out my childhood

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-19786460053218896802006-12-01T00:06:00.000Z2006-12-01T00:09:11.075Z

Longtime readers know a little something about the colorful characters who frequent Laugardalslaug. Well, today I saw for the second time a fine new addition to the forthcoming Regulars of Laugardalslaug Trading Card pack: the groaning lady.The groaning lady looks rather normal, or maybe even slightly attractive in a timeless somewhere-between-39-and-65 kind of way. Her modus operandi is to sit

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-23012553741678015512006-11-30T09:49:00.000Z2006-11-30T10:27:41.354Z

I'm not a big fan of board games (in youth, I used to refer to them as "bored games") so when on Saturday night in Akureyri (at about the time I was expecting an imminent trip to Kaffi Karólína) Villi produced a big black cardboard box, something inside me groaned. The name of the game was Verðbréfaspilið, or The Stock Market Game. Villi described it as the Icelandic Monopoly (this game

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-6576777171445205722006-11-28T08:34:00.000Z2006-11-28T08:38:34.095Z

A lot of readers (and other people, cause I know a few of them, too) have asked me about skiing in Iceland. And the truth was, I had no experience with it. That's mainly because I live in the south, and as everyone can tell you, all they know about in the south is pickups and Bud Light. Oh wait, that's the other South.Anyway, these days we just don't get that much snow here in Reykjavík. As

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-31963665849256502552006-11-27T10:16:00.000Z2006-11-27T10:53:20.150Z

I just flew in from Akureyri, and boy are my arms tired. But seriously, folks...I just got back into the Big Town from the Northern Town, and that 45-minute flight to work reminded me of the good old days on the BOS-LGA Delta Shuttle. Well, maybe in length of flight only. In many other respects, the AEY-RKV flight is a lot easier on the soul. In that spirit, here are the top 10 advantages of the

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-78726643960527784752006-11-15T16:26:00.000Z2006-11-16T11:56:59.446Z

It was 6 and definitely dark when we were done. Stebbi Skór drove three of us to his comfortable house out on the west side of the island. We drank beers and watched TV and my friend the bus driver stopped by and I offered him a (Polish) beer and that seemed to finally make the peace. At 8, we got dressed in warm clothes (I was in a lopapeysa, following instructions to the letter and the spirit)

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-34300476789772746692006-11-14T16:27:00.000Z2006-11-14T16:49:21.729Z

The Westman Islands (Vestmannaeyjar) are a place of immense pride, a little Land unto themselves. It is said (by proud islanders) that Iceland itself is the largest island in the Westman Islands class. And that the southernmost island in the Westmans is in fact Grand Canaria. There are around 4,000 people living on the Westman Islands, but the plural name is a little misleading because in fact

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-16079338305787492432006-11-13T21:00:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:52:27.319Z

It was dark and the wind was whistling out on the balcony on Saturday when I woke up and called our band director Lárus. "Yep, we're going," he confirmed, and so we met at his house and took a taxi out to the Esso station in Árbær where we met up with a bunch more stoic and sweater-clad Icelanders in a minibus. Coffees were passed around, as was Morgunblaðið, and my new friend Runólfur and I

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1163157482192012672006-11-10T11:17:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:45.417Z

So I am supposed to go to the Westman Islands tonight for the weekend, to play a concert there tomorrow. But looking out the window here I am already feeling seasick. It's a 3-hour ferry ride out to the islands and currently the Land is being blown sideways by the second gale in as many weeks. Wind right now is steady at 40-50 mph and gusting up into the 60s. It's supposed to get worse, too, all

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162808888547387552006-11-09T09:27:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:45.210Z

The band that put Icelandic music on the map, Sykurmolarnir (the Sugarcubes), have Tap-ishly "re-formed" after a 14-year hiatus to play a single reunion concert a week from tomorrow at Reykjavík's answer to the Hynes Convention Center, Laugardalshöll. The band was on the front cover of last Sunday's Morgunblaðið, sitting around a table at Sægrefinn, my recommended neighborhood fishmonger. They

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1163003604853114722006-11-08T16:31:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:45.321Z

You'd think in a country whose name conjures up images of an actual Land of Ice that you'd be able to get a cold soda. Not so. In fact, Icelanders seem to prefer their soda at nearly room temperature. When I pop into 10-11 (or competitor 11-11) for a guilty-pleasure weekend Pepsi Max, I find myself moving aside 3 or 4 rows of soda containers, reaching to the very back of the refrigerator case to

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162808630475401082006-11-07T08:30:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:45.038Z

I was sitting in Te og Kaffi on Laugavegur last Friday afternoon. It was sunny and cold and I was sipping a cappuccino and reading Morgunblaðið, glancing occasionally out the big glass front window at passersby, when suddenly I heard a tremendous hissing sound. If a hiss could be a roar, this would be it. The sound was millions of tiny white hailstones tearing out of the sky and sandblasting the

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162803063902660052006-11-06T08:46:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:44.832Z

Today's post is a tribute to my good friend over at Driving to Work:Departure time: 8:11Arrival time: 8:23Weather as I call it: Pitch-black and drizzly.Paper Guy: Probably not a good career choice given low traffic volume.Shell Gas Price: 113.7 kr/liter*Yelled at other drivers: Uttered a Robin-Woo-esque (but involuntary) "eh!" when forced to stop unexpectedly in middle of the University

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162717566202394532006-11-05T09:04:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:44.701Z

I just got back from an early Sunday morning drive around the neighborhood. We're in the midst of a classic Reykjavík windstorm, with sustained winds in the 40s and gusts in the neighborhood of 60-80 m.p.h. That's some wind. It's pushing giant walls of ocean water over the seawall below my house and there are patches of flooded roadway all along the sea road. Seaweed and pieces of the wall (read:

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162556557739285282006-11-03T12:17:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:44.590Z

The Icelandic word for luck is heppi and for lucky is heppinn. That latter word always sounded a lot like "happy" to me, so I did some research the other day. Indeed, the English word happy comes out of the older word hap, which means luck or fortune (think haphazard). So happy used to mean lucky in English, and still does in Icelandic.Which brings us to silly. Silly comes out of the Old English

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162500550095847932006-11-02T20:46:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:44.490Z

It's finally here, for real. It's still light for much of the workday but this is the week when most non-work activities begin to take place in the darkness. Today the 8 a.m. drive to work was pitch black and the sun's rise at 9:13 was into a cottony cover of drizzle clouds. By the time I left work at 4:30 the sky above the Smáralind mall was a Gibsonish dead-TV dark grey again. And then by 6 as

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162379382019790442006-11-01T11:07:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:44.391Z

Historically, the biggest reader comment/complaint/criticism has been about Iceland Report's lack of photos. "Show me the photos!" they say. ("Show me the photos on your own blog," I think to myself.) Well, the truth is, my own photographic muses just haven't been singing for a little while now. Maybe I've traded visual inspiration for written. Or maybe it was just another price to be paid for

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162314598974558702006-10-31T17:06:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:44.293Z

Yesterday I stopped in at Breytt og Bætt, the tailor shop hidden away on the previously unknown third floor (spennandi!) of the Smáralind shopping mall. The tailor there had been recommended to me as "Best in the Land". She's Polish but has been living here on the ice cube nine years and speaks comfortable and pleasant Icelandic. She also runs a booming business, judging by the foot traffic in

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162220996899379882006-10-30T15:08:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:44.201Z

So last Friday the company threw a celebrity costume gig downtown. I went as a celebrity who's been in the news a lot recently. (You can look at the pictures and decide for yourself how convincing I was.) I didn't win any prizes in the official costume competition, but for the People on Laugavegur, who I kept going outside to visit, I was a big hit. (After all, my celebrity needs the People just

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162203279561908062006-10-30T10:13:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:43.901Z

There's a lot about the nighttime Reykjavík sprawl that reminds me of Los Angeles. I am thinking especially of the view driving down the Höfðabakki hill from Breiðholt, with the whole night city spread out below. Iceland's capital has got a microcosm of all the LA geography: brightly lit expressways, forests of residential lights spread over gentle hills, a ring of mountains, and black ocean in

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1162216721321075232006-10-29T13:55:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:44.050Z

When I started getting serious about writing the IR, I imagined that the readership would be predominantly American. In fact, Iceland-based readers have for some time made up the plurality of readership, currently at around 37%. In light of all this local support, Iceland Report would like to recognize recent readers from the following esteemed Icelandic institutions. Thanks for reading IR!Alþing

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1161950409202873782006-10-27T11:59:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:43.789Z

I have a confession to make. Ever since back in '02 when I was but a lowly kennitölulaus tourist, I have celebrated the submarine sandwiches at Hlölla-Bátar without a second thought. I was like a card-carrying member of the Christian Coalition and Hlölli was my Republican Party. I simply latched on, no questions asked. Hlölli, with his special Hlölli sauce, made the finest sandwiches in the world

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1161949031818218582006-10-27T11:36:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:43.693Z

There's a new nightspot in town, and in a town of not too many nightspots but a lot of nightlife, a new place can sometimes take on an almost mythical status. This one is called Deco, and it's situated in the old Lyf & Heilsa pharmacy spot on Austurstræti. As such, it's positioned to form the third leg of an Ice-yuppie Bermuda Triangle with nightclub Rex just across the street and yup-bar

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1161868748390986312006-10-26T13:18:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:43.587Z

The section of Kópavogur where I work is home to some of the world's worst architecture. But in terms of sheer ugliness, one building stands head and shoulders above its neighbors. Next to the Kárahnjúkur dam it is perhaps the biggest eyesore in all of the Land. It's a rambling boxy building that looks something like a white shiny refrigerator, with giant orange and blue crosses painted on the

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1160729483339061542006-10-13T08:50:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:43.483Z

So there's a huge tent out on the lawn in front of the main building at the University of Iceland. In fact, I once read an article that claimed that this tent was in fact the largest tent in all of the Land. But I had no idea what it was for. It's appeared every year at this time since I've been here.Well, I just wasn't plugged-in enough to the 20-something university kid scene, apparently,

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1160644590290735192006-10-12T09:15:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:43.346Z

Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in the Land yesterday afternoon. He's here to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the US-USSR summit that took place between him and Ronald Reagan here in October 1986 at the cozy Höfði house near downtown Reykjavík.Back in those days, I was a kid starting seventh grade, and that summit was the first time I had really heard of Reykjavík. (I learned about Iceland and where

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1160227217691011572006-10-07T13:17:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:43.203Z

Last night I had the unfortunate luck to have to defuse the second "request for fight" downtown in my recent memory. The part they don't tell you in the hot-springs-clean-air-healthy-food travel brochures is that there is quite a seamy underside to the downtown weekend scene in Reykjavík and part of that is the occasional band-o'-punks looking for some action. A guy walking along by himself, even

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9608118.post-1159951604697449642006-10-04T08:45:00.000Z2006-11-14T08:34:43.045Z

This week the US Naval Air Station at Keflavík (the same facility where many of you have landed, as it is also shared with the international airport) took down the American and Icelandic flags for the last time in a joint Icelandic-American ceremony. The closing of this Cold War relic marks the end of decades of American military presence in Iceland. It also signifies the loss of hundreds of

JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12108948350959912207noreply@blogger.com8