Financial Crisis...

Today, just a cartoon:

"Wasn't there a country here?" - "Indeed... Iceland"

Weather outside: Partly sunny, 0°C

More hits...

My blog has never been getting that many hits!!!... Usually I'm "lucky" to get 2-3 hits per day but it seems that the crisis really put Iceland on the map for people around the world.

I haven't written anything about the crisis, kreppan in Icelandic, because I didn't really know what to say and I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings:... they had it coming!

A couple of journalists got in touch with me. They all want to know how is daily life here. All I can say it's Business As Usual. People will just adjust their habits as money gets tight but it's not the first time this little island in the north Atlantic is going through a rough patch.

"Yesterday" Icelanders were shopping in Minneapolis, London, Copenhagen. "Today" Iceland is asking for the financial help of other countries to avoid bankruptcy. So far, responses from other European nations have not been very positive. No country jumped in to help the tiny, peaceful and helpless Iceland. So the government decided to find new friends: Russians... And now we can see the Europeans waking up and starting to provide loans: British, Danish and Norwegian opened their wallet recently.

Representative of the government are still in Russia discussing the terms for a 4 billions euros loan. Rumors were that the Russians would like to open an army base in Iceland. If it is true, US dollars and Euros would be thrown at us but for the moment it looks like our next currency will look something like that:

Weather outside: Rain, 6°C

Winter is here...

-2°C (28.5°F) was showing on the display in the car this morning. The entire country woke up to negative temperatures and some of the roads in the North already have snow on them.

Yes it chilly but it also turns out to be one of my favorite time of the year. The landscape is still wearing its autumn colors and it is not raining as much. The air is crisp and vivifying. This is the best time to go out for a walk, take pictures and come back home to enjoy a hot drink.

Below is a picture taken last Saturday going up Botnssúlur. The picture shows Hvalfell (~850m/2789ft) on the left and Botnssúlur (~1080m/3543ft) on the right with already a thin layer of snow.

Weather outside: Sunny, 2°C

Strákarnir okkar...

Strákarnir okkar, "our boys" are back. Back with their silver medal from Beijing.



Islanders were there to greet them back and a party was thrown in their honour.

The Icelandic Handball Team:

• Alexander Petersson
• Arnór Atlason
• Ásgeir Örn Hallgrímsson
• Bjarni Fritzson
• Björgvin Páll Gústavsson
• Guðjón Valur Sigurðsson
• Hreiðar Guðmundsson
• Ingimundur Ingimundarson
• Logi Geirsson
• Ólafur Stefánsson
• Róbert Gunnarsson
• Sigfús Sigurðsson
• Snorri Steinn Guðjónsson
• Sturla Ásgeirsson
• Sverre Jakobsson

Another achievement was the completion of the Reykjavík marathon by Romana Eder, a 103 year old Austrian woman, , who completed the full marathon in just over 4 hours!

This took place last saturday, August 23rd. Over 10.000 people were registered for one of the runs: marathon, half-marathon, 10kms, 3kms fun-run, or the lazy-town run (for kids).



The marathon is taking place the same day than the Menningarnott, "culture night". One of the most celebrated event of the year. Free concerts, free museums, exhibitions and art everywhere and of course the fireworks show in the harbour.

Weather outside: Partly Sunny, 12°C

Iceland like a tourist...

I have a friend who lives in Germany visiting me therefore I decided to go for a ride in the south of the country and do a lot of the touristic sites. I have done them several times and usually off season. This was an opportunity to see the sites as most tourists would see them.


We started by going to Sólheimajökull, a tongue of the glacier Mýrdalsjökull, accessible from road N°1. I last visited this place in 2004 and I was amazed to see how further inland the ice is. You have to walk a few hundred meters extra before reaching the edge of the glacier. Global warming!!!


Next stop, the famous waterfall of Skógafoss. This was the first time I saw people camping in front of the waterfall. This is the beginning/end of a trail going/coming to/from Þórsmörk. I stopped there in May and there was only a car or two, but this time there were about 20 cars and a lot of people were either in front of the waterfall or walking up the stair leading to the top.


Third stop on our program: Seljalandsfoss. This waterfall is really "appreciated" by tourists due to the fact that you can walk behind it. It was amazing to see the 20-30 cars and 4 buses parked in front of the waterfall. Taking a "landscape" picture was a bit of a challenge as people where everywhere.

The two last sites on the program were Gullfoss and Geysir. As they are part of the Golden Circle these two sites are constantly "crowded" so no surprise here. This was my third visit of Geysir this year.

We finished our day by stopping at the caldera of Kerið, not much people here but it was already 7pm.

This touristic day was 12hrs long and included 450kms of good and bad roads, 6 touristic sites, 2 french hitchhikers, one BBQ in the sun.

Weather outside: Mostly Sunny, 12°C

Annar ísbjörn...

2 in less than 2 weeks... What am I speaking about? I'm speaking about polar bear. Once again the bear was spotted in the same region of Iceland: Skagafjörður.


The killing of the first bear on June 3rd made the headlines on the papers the following day and the question was asked about the necessity of killing the bear. On this question, the Icelanders who have answered are really divided.


A little over 55% were against the shooting of the animal whereas almost 45% were for it. This first killing must have trigger something because the second bear was supposed to be saved.

This was the plan (from www.icenews.is):

This time the polar bear will be saved if possible. Polar bear sightings are rare in Iceland, but over a period of two weeks Iceland has had two. According to local newspapers “it has been planned to sedate it and move it to Greenland or Denmark”. The Danish zoo worker, Carsten Gröndhal, has been sent to Iceland and is preparing the save with local help. Carsten is the head vet at the Copenhagen Zoo.

According to sources the idea is to “shoot” the bear within the next 24 hours and move him to his natural location or the Copenhagen Zoo. Habitats of the farm Hraun, near were the bear was spotted have been asked to stay in and people have been urged not to come close.

According to local newspapers the bear is living a live of luxury eating eggs and birds at a local bird area and looks relaxed.

The Icelandic billionaire Björgulfur Thor Björgulfsson has offered through his company, Novator, to pay for the saving the bear and transport to a save environment.

Unfortunately this was not a "A-Team" plan and Hannibal Smith would not have been able to say: "I love it when a plan comes together"... While trying to capture the wild animal, this one tried to escape and was shot down before he could reach the sea.

Weather outside: Sunny, 12°C

Ísbjörn...

A polar bear (ísbjörn) was sighted yesterday morning on Þverárfjall by Sauðárkrókur in the North of the country. This is extremely rare: the polar bear gets stranded on an iceberg that some currents would bring close to Iceland.



The police was asked to kill to wild animal as shows the picture (Páll Kristinsson). A polar bear is surely not in the best of moods after having spend several days on tiny block of ice in the middle of the ocean... So no risk were taken and the animal was shot down.

The question of the day, spurning dagsins, in Fréttablaðið is: "Was it necessary to shoot down the polar bear?"
We will have to wait until tomorrow to get the final answer of the survey but already 57.3% have answered NO.

If you wonder what was the question from the previous day? "Have you eaten whale meat?" 68% Yes and 32% No.

Weather outside: mostly sunny, 10°C