Blog

According to a report in yesterday's Morgunblaðið, Icelandair has repeatedly had to leave bags behind in the US recently because Icelanders shop so much that the planes [... we're talking 757 jets] are stuffed full.*I think it's time to add a fourteenth Yule Lad and...

The fourth and final time I made a concerted effort to reconcile with Academia I was living in Germany. By that time I’d moved from Canada to the UK and done a certificate in TEFL [Teaching English as a Foreign Language] and had subsequently worked in the UK and Spain...

So I’ve been meaning to elaborate on number nine on my ten truths post – the one most people thought was the lie. In fact the truth is that, yes indeed, I dropped out of university four times and no, I did not get my degree. To put it simply, Academia scared the...

One of the unshakable traditions of the advent here is the Christmas buffet. I don't know of anyone who doesn't partake of at least one such; in fact most companies invite their employees - and usually their spouses - to at least one Christmas buffet during advent.The...

Is this not the most hilarious bar stool ever??THE WEATHER IS...Regular reporting will resume tomorrow. A bit wiped out from some serious carousing. We went here again, only this time we managed to take a snapshot of that monster of a polar bear [he's the one with the...

Took The Unit in for an oil change this morning and instead of biding my time in a foul-smelling garage waiting room, I decided to take a walk along the seashore next to it. As it happens the sun was just coming up [it was around 11am] and as luck would have it I...

Today, December 1, marks 87 years since Iceland became a sovereign state. [Whoo-hoo!] At that time, Iceland was the poorest country in Europe. Today it is one of the richest. In the past decade alone, Iceland’s contribution to aid in the developing countries has...

'What's that smell in here??'Thus spake my perpetually-disgruntled 14-year old daughter on her arrival home from school yesterday.That smell was actually the smell of her mother's baking.To be fair, it's not surprising that the child does not recognize the smell of...

Iceland has a new 24-hour news channel, like a CNN or Sky type thing. It's called, prosaically enough, The New News Channel*.So why would a nation with a population of fewer than 300,000 need a 24-hour news channel? Precisely. Yet, there it is, broadcasting around the...

First Sunday in advent today.Here in Iceland, advent marks the start of the Christmas season and in practice means that you can officially begin putting up your decorations. Some people cannot wait for this day, particularly those who hate the winter darkness and live...

Sometimes EPI and I have the best time vegging on the couch and acting all appalled at some of the TV fodder we're served up, particularly some of the idiotic reality TV shows coming out of the US.* Like tonight, when we landed on yet another thrilling episode of...

I read an interesting quote this evening. One of those 'Aha!' quotes that just hits you in the solar plexus for being absolutely true. It was in an interview with a foreign national living here in Iceland, and he was asked what it was that he liked most about it. His...