The Reykjavik Grapevine Features / Archive

17.5.2013

All The Way

Reynir Þór Eggertsson has a PhD in Icelandic and Danish literary history, he teaches Icelandic and Danish at the high school Menntaskólinn í Kópavogi—and he has a strong passion for Eurovision.

16.5.2013

Eurovision Parties, Icelandic Style

The Eurovision Song Contest is a big deal in Iceland.

16.5.2013

UMMM…

Five recent Eurovision moments that made us chuckle.

16.5.2013

Scoping Out Our Competition

So, who exactly is Iceland’s main competition in Malmö?

16.5.2013

Iceland In The Eurovision Song Contest: A Beginner's Guide

Iceland has taken part in the Eurovision Song Contest since 1986. Editor-in-chief of So So Gay Magazine Lee Williscroft-Ferris takes us through the ups and downs of the country’s Eurovision journey.

14.5.2013

Eurovision Turns Icelanders Into Monsters

Eyþór Ingi Gunnlaugsson is off to Malmö to represent Iceland in the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

13.5.2013

No Lifeguard At The Gene Pool?

Iceland’s gene pool sure has been under heavy scrutiny this last month. Thanks to a joke taken a little bit too literally by the international media, a whole bunch of people are probably now under the impression that Icelanders are so related that they need an app to prevent incest.

10.5.2013

It's Not Just An Anti-Incest App

What do any two random Icelanders have in common, genetically?

23.4.2013

Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson Founds The Arctic Circle

President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson announced the formation of a new institution designed to facilitate global discussion about the arctic at a National Press Club luncheon in downtown Washington D.C. last Monday afternoon.

17.4.2013

How The Academy Underwent A Sex Change

It’s a beautiful night in February and the multi-coloured freak-of-a-concert hall that is Harpa blinks its fancy lights enthusiastically.

15.4.2013

An End To The Neverending Nightmare?

“The nation has been unburdened of a nightmare,” Ólafur Jóhannesson, then Minister of Justice, proudly stated in parliament on February 3, 1977, at the end of a three-year investigation into the disappearance of two men.

12.4.2013

The €uchari$t?

Your shirt is starched and ironed crisp, just like that five thousand króna bill in your pocket, ready for your nephew’s upcoming confirmation party.

10.4.2013

So What's This Dying River I Keep Hearing About?

A river in the east of Iceland called Lagarfljót has had its ecosystem collapse.

9.4.2013

News In Brief

March sure came in like a lion and went out like a lamb, eh? In fact, it’s almost difficult to remember just how much the weather was making the news just a few short weeks ago considering how absolutely gorgeous it’s been of late.

8.4.2013

Grapevine Election Guide 2013

An unprecedented number of political parties plan on running in the upcoming parliamentary elections. But who should we trust to lead Icelanders into prosperity and create a fair, just society for all? In an attempt to figure it out, we went and made a massive election guide for y’all to pore over.

8.4.2013

Píratapartýið ("The Pirate Party") Interviewed

The Pirate Party is the political movement of the Internet. We are where the Internet and society comes together. We bring about new methods of solving problems, methods designed to solve problems in a fast paced and changing world. Our primary concerns are freedom of speech, civil rights, direct democracy and open access to data.

8.4.2013

Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (“The Independence Party”) Interviewed

The Independence Party (IP) believes in the freedom of the individual and equal opportunity for all in the pursuit of liberty and progress in society.

8.4.2013

Samfylkingin (“The Social Democratic Alliance”) Interviewed

The Social Democratic Alliance (SDA) advocates for economic stability and sustainable growth with equal opportunities for all in an open welfare society.

8.4.2013

Framsóknarflokkurinn ("The Progressive Party") Interviewed

The Progressive Party was founded in 1916 as a centrist party. It has an unbiased approach towards the urgent issues of the day.

8.4.2013

Lýðræðisvaktin (“The Iceland Democratic Party”) Interviewed

We, the people of Iceland, want to create a just society where everyone has a seat at the same table.

8.4.2013

Vinstrihreyfingin–Grænt Framboð ("The Left-Green Movement") Interviewed

Our movement is to the left and green—we emphasize equality and social justice, the environment, pacifism and women’s liberation. So the scale from left to right is not sufficient.

8.4.2013

Húmanistaflokkurinn (“The Humanist Party”) Interviewed

The party’s agenda is to prioritise the human being before money and to create an economy that is in the service of people and their needs rather than the other way around.

8.4.2013

Hægri Grænir, Flokkur Fólksins (“The Right Green People’s Party”) Interviewed

XG is a conservative, green, people’s party. We are libertarians that like to see smaller government, lower taxes, free trade and peaceful international relations.

8.4.2013

Flokkur Heimilanna (“The Household’s Party”)

The Household’s Party, X-I, will tackle the most pressing economic issue at hand: the mutated consumer- and home loans that the general public in Iceland was left with as a result of the financial crash of 2008. This still has not been addressed five years after the collapse of the banking system and the country’s currency.

8.4.2013

Dögun (“Dawn”) Interviewed

Dögun fights for justice, fairness and democracy, as mandated in our core policy statement.

8.4.2013

Björt Framtíð ("Bright Future") Interviewed

Björt framtíð wants to change politics and introduce a more constructive, solution-aimed and consensus-driven way of doing politics under a liberal and a green umbrella.

5.4.2013

Alþýðufylkingin (“The People’s Front of Iceland”) Interviewed

An unprecedented number of political parties plan on running in the upcoming parliamentary elections. But who should we trust to lead Icelanders into prosperity and create a fair, just society for all? In an attempt to figure it out, we went and made a massive election guide for y’all to pore over. This is one of fourteen interviews with the parties in the running.

3.4.2013

The Artists Are Present

To the untrained eye, Reykjavík appears to be a city with no lack of space devoted to art. For emerging artists, however, it can feel like a bastion for the privileged. One group of recent graduates from Iceland’s Academy of the Arts transformed their frustrations about the inaccessibility of the art world into their own haven—a multifold space including a gallery, an art bazaar and studio space which they called Kunstschlager.

2.4.2013

Peaks Are Not For Conquering

Ari Trausti Guðmundsson is a prolific writer whose collection of short stories ‘Vegalínur’ (“Road Lines”) received the Halldór Laxness Literature Prize in 2002.

18.3.2013

Cutesy-Buttons At The Idea Factory

Walking through Elliðaárdalur towards the dreary brown factory that houses Toppstöðin, I somewhat expect to step into a vast industrial space full of dead machines and time-clocks.

15.3.2013

RFF N°4

Something happened a few years back with fashion in Iceland.

13.3.2013

Connecting Expats

New arrivals scouting for job offers, teachers offering Icelandic lessons… and one lady asking where she can find a live chicken to eat! These are just some of the notices posted by members of a Facebook group specially created to help foreigners making their home in Iceland.

11.3.2013

Men of Letters

Diversity, collaboration, innovation and risk are a few of the qualities that the Iceland Design Centre has aimed to highlight during DesignMarch, a four-day festival taking place since 2009.

8.3.2013

So What's This Porn Ban I Keep Hearing About?

Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson said last month that he is considering proposing legislation that would, among other things, give the Icelandic state the power to block pornography from being accessed from computers in Iceland through nationwide content-filtering.

1.3.2013

Jack of All Trades?

Minister of Industries and Innovation Steingrímur J. Sigfússon has had an eventful last four years. During this time, he went from being an opposition party MP to a ruling coalition minister charged with trying to breathe life back into Iceland’s post-crash economy.

25.2.2013

On The Frontier

Even by generous estimates, there are less than 100 Jews in Iceland. The community’s infrastructure is sparse, their celebrations un-elaborate. Their leader, although he disputes the title, is Mike Levin, a Chicago-born Jew transplanted here after meeting his Icelandic wife through a music instructor in Vienna.

21.2.2013

SÓNAR PICTURES AND WORDS: SATURDAY NIGHT EDITION

The second part of our massive Sónar Reykjavík coverage is finally on-line for you to read, look at and think about. This time around, we have four people walking around Harpa in various states of inebriation, noting down what they saw and heard and experienced that Saturday night, along with two photographers whose lenses you get to peer through.

21.2.2013

On The Outside

Kaffistofan, downtown Reykjavík's soup kitchen, has the off-white walls, bland decor and fluorescent lighting of a hospital cafeteria. Located on Borgatún behind a worn and graffitied wooden fence facing Harpa and the oceanfront, Kaffistofan serves hot meals and snacks between 10:00 and 17:00.

20.2.2013

Our Sónar Reykjavík Friday Words + Images Are In!

The inaugural edition of Sónar Reykjavík went down last weekend at Reykjavík’s fancypants concert hall (and conference centre!), Harpa. Judging by folks’ Facebooks and Twitters and internets, the event was quite the success...

19.2.2013

Getting The Show Back On The Road

Iceland’s de facto bankruptcy—its currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance—resulted from a stunning collective madness.

14.2.2013

Speed-Dating At Café Lingua

Born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, Saadet Ozdemir Hilmarsson moved to Iceland in 2008 when she married her Icelandic husband. Before moving, she had studied tourism and hotel management in Istanbul, and was also certified as a kindergarten teacher.

13.2.2013

Across 110th Street

One can’t be blamed for confusing the new bar on Naustin with one of its former tenants.

12.2.2013

So What's This Asylum Tourism I Keep Hearing About?

After spending a gazillion dollars convincing foreigners that Iceland in winter is not an uninhabitable rock floating in the colder bits of the North Atlantic, the tourism industry has found itself overwhelmed by an influx of winter visitors.

8.2.2013

Is Iceland Still On Sale?

While Icelanders bemoaned the effects of the financial crisis in 2008, dollar- and euro-carrying tourists rejoiced that the notoriously expensive island had suddenly become more affordable.

6.2.2013

News In Brief

January started off on a sensational note with international media reporting that Iceland was the thing to fear in 2013. Two different shows on America’s Public Broadcasting Service depicted Iceland as a ticking time bomb ready to explode this year.

31.1.2013

Rolling Around Reykjavík

Kristbjörg Sigtryggadóttir recalls the time when she lost consciousness at her very first bout in Montgomery, Alabama.

28.1.2013

The International Students Rocking Up In RVK

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Erasmus programme, which promotes student exchanges all over the world. The Reykjavík branch of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) formed five years ago by the International Students’ Association at the University of Iceland to help foreign scholars to study over here.

24.1.2013

Trailblazers Of The Tech Industry

When people talk about Iceland’s resources, it’s typically regarding fish, geothermal power and the landscapes that attract hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.

22.1.2013

Year In Sports

2012 was a great year for Icelandic sports. It might even have been the best one yet, although such a comparison is difficult for many reasons.

18.1.2013

Year In News

Tension was in the air at the start of the year, as President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson insinuated in his New Year's Address that he would not be running for another term that spring.

17.1.2013

Year In Weather

One of the greatest paradoxes of Icelandic discourse is the generalised aversion to any form of small talk, but an all-encompassing passion for the subject of weather.

16.1.2013

So What's This New Year's Eve Sketch Comedy Show I Keep Hearing About?

There is a long answer to that question, but the short answer is that every New Year's Eve, the Icelandic state broadcaster RÚV puts on a half-hour to forty-five minute long sketch comedy programme that pokes fun at Icelandic politicians and celebrities.

14.1.2013

Tourist Of The Year

Every new year, publications reflect on the past, bundling up the last twelve months into various year-end lists. Some, like Time Magazine, which put Barack Obama on its cover this year, also choose a “Person of the Year,” who they believe stood out from the rest.

11.1.2013

The Grapevine’s First Ever Music Awards, Ever

We at The Reykjavík Grapevine really like music despite what you might have surmised from reading our magazine.

11.1.2013

Seeing The Light

You’ve bathed in the murky waters of the Blue Lagoon, you’ve circled the Golden Circle and now you’d like to see the sky come alive with dancing green and red lights.

9.1.2013

Why Is Learning Icelandic So Damn Tough?

Icelanders themselves have what Elín describes as particularly “little patience” to listen as foreigners transmute the foibles and fortes of their native tongues into Icelandic.

7.1.2013

Crowdfunding Credibility

The year is 1945. After suffering defeat at the hands of the Allied powers, a secret fleet of Nazi Germans flee to the dark side of the moon, with plans to construct a giant fortress and an armada of spaceships, more powerful than anything they used in battle on Earth.

4.1.2013

Sounds From The Kitchen

It’s been said that a person’s home is their castle, but that may not be entirely true.

2.1.2013

Christmas In A Can

As the story goes, it was the first Friday in November. The year was 1981 and Danes were about to see their first batch of Christmas beer. The beer was supposed to be delivered to bars on Thursday, but there’d been some delays at the factory.

25.12.2012

No Licking Your Knife!

“No licking your knife, or using the fork to retrieve the meat from your teeth. I’ve seen everything, I’m sure you can imagine,” says Margrét Sigfúsdóttir, principal of the home economics school Hússtjórnarskólinn í Reykjavík for the last 14 years.

23.12.2012

Meet Iceland’s Father Christmas: Brian Pilkington

After 36 years of living in Iceland, Brian Pilkington laments that he is beginning to turn into the lively bearded characters he illustrates. He points to his moustache, an unruly patch of greying salt-and-pepper hair, and says jokingly that he just needs to grow out his beard.

20.12.2012

A Different Kind Of Prophecy

You’ve probably already heard by now about the world-changing event that is supposed to happen on the 21st of this month. While skeptics dismiss the Mayan Prophecy outright as mere superstition, there are diehard believers preparing for the End of Days. An Icelandic artist who goes by “getZen” has an entirely different vision for the date in question. Rather than waiting for something to happen, she intends to make something happen.

18.12.2012

Stretching Out Your Lunch Break

Feeling suitably limber after my first lunchtime yoga class at Harpa, I get up off the mat and wander over to thank instructor Ingibjörg for the class.

14.12.2012

Winter Fun for Everyone

Clear sunny skies, crisp maritime air and crunchy snow underfoot—when winter finally takes off in Iceland, it’s truly a treat.

10.12.2012

So What's This Facebook Ban on Icelandic Feminists I Keep Hearing About?

Not all Icelandic feminists. Just one feminist: Hildur Lilliendahl Viggósdóttir, who was recently honoured by Stígamót, the leading Icelandic organisation against sexual abuse and violence, as well as UN Women, a United Nations agency, for her activism against male on female violence.

5.12.2012

Justice Delayed, Justice Denied

Why would people who have escaped their homelands to seek asylum in Iceland want to leave again? Didn't they come to live the good life? To enjoy Western freedom and the Nordic welfare system? In the last six months, a number of refugees have been arrested after illegally trying to leave the country by secretly boarding ships at Reykjavík's harbour and, in one case, an airplane at the Keflavík International Airport.

28.11.2012

Still The Prince!

I find myself sitting at one end of a large boardroom table with a sheet of questions and a stack of three Prince Polo bars in front of me. Sitting at the opposite end of the table are two burly Icelandic men: the kind you would sooner come across guarding the door of a club on Laugavegur than in a conference room.

23.11.2012

Party Like A Pirate

On Saturday, the pirates will party. The fledgling Icelandic Pirate Party will hold a founding meeting tomorrow at the Grassroots Centre on Brautarholt. The party will join a network of political parties that seek to promote democracy through freedom of information, direct representation and data liberation.

22.11.2012

Architectural Acne

Architecture is the skin of society. There is a tendency to forget it. And yes, there are body parts that you can say are more important, like the heart, the brain, the genitals… but still, you’re not worth much without skin. Plus, the skin is the biggest organ, and most of us like to have good skin.

19.11.2012

Hoops Exchange

D’Andre Williams has been in Iceland for a little over three weeks when we meet after a Thursday night practice at the Íþróttafélag Reykjavíkur (ÍR) basketball court at Seljaskóli.

16.11.2012

Where The Streets Have New Names…

Early morning in Reykjavík, I wade through the fog along a deserted street in the Tún neighbourhood, en route to work. The overnight chill has coated the road in a thin layer of invisible ice. Today is different though; something is afoot.

13.11.2012

Eva Joly: Iceland Should Be Proud Of Investigations

Norwegian-French magistrate Eva Joly delivered a compelling speech at Harpa on October 19, covering everything from Iceland’s financial investigations post-crash to reaffirming her opinion that Iceland should join the EU.

8.11.2012

Awkwardly Awesome!

A not so authentic seagull “ca-caw, ca-caw” steals my attention as I wait outside a whale watching tour office at the Reykjavík Harbour. I initially write it off as a species of rare Icelandic bird I am yet to come into contact with, but it gets louder and louder until I turn and discover said rare bird is Craig Downing: Festival Director of Couch Fest Films

5.11.2012

Andri Snær Magnason: The First Capitalist-Realist Poet?

For a wily writer who has always known his market, Andri Snær Magnason is late again.

31.10.2012

Shine A Light

A media organisation called Associated Whistle-blowing Press has just launched a site called Ljost.is (ljóst is Icelandic for “clear” or “illuminated”). Its objectives are similar to those of WikiLeaks, but Ljóst aims to go a step further, playing a greater role in the analysis of documents and denouncing wrongdoing.

31.10.2012

Shine A Light

A media organisation called Associated Whistle-blowing Press has just launched a site called Ljost.is (ljóst is Icelandic for “clear” or “illuminated”). Its objectives are similar to those of WikiLeaks, but Ljóst aims to go a step further, playing a greater role in the analysis of documents and denouncing wrongdoing.

29.10.2012

Does Icelandic Music Need More Support?

When the crowds gather in Reykjavík for this year’s Iceland Airwaves, Alþingi may not be the first item on their sight-seeing ‘to do’ list.

28.10.2012

Oley, Oley, Oley, Oley!

On Thursday night, Iceland secured its place in the UEFA Women’s Championship finals next summer with a 3-2 victory over Ukraine. A record number of people to attend a women's football game in Iceland, or 6,647, showed up to to support the team.

25.10.2012

Anyone Can Be The One

Though she’s never been to Iceland, artist Tracey Moberly can relate to the residents of Reykjavík. In 1999, Tracey co-opened the Foundry in an old two-story bank building in Shoreditch, London.

19.10.2012

Iceland’s Article 36

Long before the Miss World crown was a mere glint in her eye, Linda Pétursdóttir was unafraid of speaking up. When she was ten years old, her family moved to Vopnafjörður on Iceland’s east coast where she remembers she immediately had to fight for her beloved pet dog’s very existence.

15.10.2012

Farewell Jóhanna

Iceland’s incumbent Prime Minister and longest serving active Member of Parliament Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir announced her retirement from politics at the end of September.

8.10.2012

Where Has The Love Gone?

Music pounds from a handmade, wooden DJ booth, friends congregate on a set of vibrantly painted picnic tables and local artists fry up Icelandic pylsa on a small, stone grill.

8.10.2012

Not So Fast

Laugavegsreitir’s Project Manager Hannes Frímann Sigurðsson paints a slightly different picture.

2.10.2012

Iceland: From A “Kreppa” Basket Case To A Miracle Example

In the autumn of 2008, international media and famous economists descended on Iceland to watch the first European country plunge into crisis and become a financial basket case.

27.9.2012

Keeping Downtown Wild

Two-dozen little girls in Icelandic sweaters are singing songs inside a small glass building just outside the Nordic House.

26.9.2012

What Will Lifting Capital Controls Mean For Iceland’s Recovery?

If Icelanders wants to buy currency, say US dollars, they can only purchase $2,800 USD, and they must prove to their bank that they are travelling to another country. Icelanders have been operating under this reality for the last four years, when capital controls were put in place to protect the value of Iceland’s currency.

25.9.2012

The Nazi Clause Strikes Again

Can an individual degrade a whole nation or nation state?

24.9.2012

The Revolution Growing On Iceland’s Farms

Sunday morning, 11:00. Þorvaldseyri farm. Autumn has arrived, but this morning is sunny and unseasonably mild. The waves of a golden field of rapeseed flowers undulate in the gentle breeze almost as far as the eye can see.

21.9.2012

The Impossible Feat

Director Baltasar Kormákur is to Icelandic film what Sigur Rós is to Icelandic music.

17.9.2012

Erró At 80: Still Not Wearing A Tie

An entire cast of grotesque, comic figures watches us as we cross the room: exaggerated nudes in mock classical pose; portraits of misshapen Picasso-esque faces; towering, iconic statesmen depicted as cartoon baddies.

12.9.2012

Nowhere Else To Turn

The half-dozen empty prams lined up by the front door at Kvennaathvarf, Iceland’s only shelter for abused women, paint a bleak picture.

11.9.2012

Stray Teeth

John Steinberg greets me at the Varmahlíð bus stop with a firm handshake. “Welcome to Varm-uh-hlid, welcome to Skagafjorder,” he says, noting the vast open fjord valley.

10.9.2012

What A Load Of Old Rubbish!

While some consider Reykjavík to be one of the greenest cities in the world, generating electricity and heating houses with geothermal energy, it appears that locals have forgotten how to use the dustbin.

7.9.2012

Waiting For Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer was late as usual. Apart from playing chess rather well and not liking Jews very much, it was probably the trait he was best known for.

5.9.2012

Do Icelanders Need More Ayn Rand In Their Lives?

As Iceland struggles to emerge from an economic depression brought on in part by lax government regulation, Professor Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurason says Icelanders need more Ayn Rand in their lives.

4.9.2012

What! The Police Are On FB, Twitter And Instagram, Too?

It’s 11:30 PM on a Sunday night and the police have just replied to a question posted on their wall one hour earlier.

31.8.2012

Love In The Time Of War

Aside from the bombing of the oil tanker El Grillo, whose hulk can still be found lying at the bottom of Seyðisfjörður, Iceland largely escaped the ravages of World War II. Even when a foreign army launched a large-scale invasion on May 10, 1940, there was limited material destruction.

30.8.2012

So What's This Sunny Weather I Keep Hearing About?

All summer long, the weather has been absurdly good, almost ominously so. According to the Icelandic Meteorological Office, Reykjavík has had 836.6 hours of sunshine in May, June and July, which is a record amount of sunshine for this three-month period, the brightest quarter of the year. This is not the weather Icelanders are used to.

29.8.2012

With Foreign Unemployment Ballooning, Some Smell Discrimination

When Shanice Rogers moved from Jamaica to Iceland in 2001, she got hooked on studying law. She’s now 29 years old with a fresh bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Iceland. But after a string of employment rejections in ministry offices and law firms—44 “Nos” to be exact—she thinks the country’s legal system may be failing her.

27.8.2012

Northern Lights

RVK Homegrown, a group seeking to decriminalise and eventually legalise marijuana in Iceland, first made headlines last April with a “smoke-out” held in front of parliament. Since then, the organisation has swelled to over 1,200 members. Örvar Geir Geirsson, one of the founders of the group, recently engaged in an awareness campaign—openly smoking marijuana in front of several government offices, including police headquarters, the Ministry of Welfare and Reykjavík District Court.

24.8.2012

Pussy For Everyone!

Jerking their limbs, wearing offensive clothing and conspiring to play a guitar. These are just a few of the charges brought against three members of punk band, Pussy Riot. The three women, who have danced their way into a two-year prison sentence in Russia, have along the way caught the imagination of activists around the world.

23.8.2012

Enemies Of Iceland

For as long as anyone can remember, any major or minor celebrity who set foot in Iceland has been given the honorary sobriquet “Íslandsvinur (“Friend of Iceland”), to be used whenever that celebrity is mentioned in the Icelandic press.

Choose media

22.8.2012

Dharma In The North-Atlantic

In his shades and North Face jacket, you probably wouldn't recognise Jakusho Kwong-Roshi as a highly influential spiritual leader. But that's sort of the point—Roshi teaches a layperson's version of Zen Buddhism, which draws little distinction between the spiritual and the everyday. When he was first ordained as a priest, he planned to always wear his ceremonial robes. But when that sartorial choice garnered more attention than he wanted (not to mention a few wardrobe malfunctions), he switched to the garb of everyday life.

21.8.2012

A Local's Guide For Tourists On How To Befriend The Locals

So you’ve seen it all. You’re on your third Golden Circle and you probably know more about Icelandic geography than any local high school student. You’ve spent all your money on watching whales and the rest of your gold was eaten by the bars. You have a few days left. What to do...?

20.8.2012

Iceland's Troubadour Takes His Love Song Around The Globe

Hörður Torfason is not a man known for sitting back and taking a break. In his youth he became an accidental standard-bearer for gay rights in Iceland; to a different generation today he is instantly recognised as the man who stood before the crowds outside the Alþingi in the dark days of 2008 and told them to go home, gather their pots and their pans, and come back to make themselves heard.

16.8.2012

You Can't Always Go Downtown

Sun peers through the large windows at Hressó on Andri Valgeirsson, shining on his transition lenses and heavy 5 o'clock shadow. He sometimes comes to Hressó when he's in 101 Reykjavík, but most of the time you won't see his dark navy Pumas around the downtown area.

15.8.2012

Truth Costs

A legal maelstrom that made its way all the way to the European Court of Human Rights erupted after journalists Björk Eiðsdóttir and Erla Hlynsdóttir were charged with defamation, for writing articles about the strip clubs Goldfinger and Strawberries in 2007 and 2009, respectively. They in turn sued the Icelandic State and, in a rare turn of events, won their cases. The Grapevine met up with the two to talk about what it’s like to be a journalist in Iceland.

14.8.2012

Four Medals in 104 Years

Since the Olympic Games were revived in 1896, Icelandic sportsmen have faced a lack of funds, lack of nationhood and general lack of population. Even so, we have managed four glorious medals: a silver in triple jump at the Melbourne Games in 1956, a bronze in judo at the Los Angeles Games in 1984, bronze in pole vault at the Sydney Games in 2000 and a silver in handball at the 2008 Beijing Games. And, depending on how seriously you take nationality politics, a gold at the 1920 Antwerp Games, in the guise of an ice hockey team from Canada.

14.8.2012

News In Brief: August Edition

Bad news if you plan to live in a retirement home in Iceland: the nursing home Hrafnista was denied an alcohol licence, which means that the facility cannot sell even beer or wine to folks that are well over the drinking age limit. However, the legal decision seems to be based more on technicalities than any moral outrage.

13.8.2012

Not This Year: Iceland's Olympians

When Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson was doorstepped by international reporters in London last week, he must have struggled to hide a wide smile of relief. For the first time in years, they didn’t want to ask about the crash or the banks; for once, the word “Iceland” was printed without “collapse” or “bankrupt” next to it.

9.8.2012

As Crowds (And Sponsors) Multiply, Pride Politics Take A Backseat

Even before they reach Iceland’s shore, foreign visitors will feel the gay pride fervour that will sweep Reykjavík August 7 to 12. Flight attendants on Iceland Express, the country’s popular budget airline and one of the main sponsors for Reykjavík Gay Pride, will don rainbow scarves and neckties in the weeks leading up to the festival—a fashion statement that hints at just how big the annual event has become.

8.8.2012

NATURAL TRANSITION

On June 27, the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a landmark occasion for human rights took place in Iceland as a bill protecting the rights of transgender people came into effect. Already commanding a reputation of being a leader in social equality, the country joined a growing community of nations that are enacting laws to improve the quality of life for transfolk, including the UK, Spain, and most famously Argentina, whose law passed last May has been heralded as the most progessive to date.

8.8.2012

Working On Digital Boundary Lines

By now most, if not all, Icelanders know the work of Egill Sæbjörnsson (and quite a few people abroad). Since breaking into the Icelandic art scene in the late nineties he has worked on harmonising his two passions, art and music, into one.

8.8.2012

Cramming Glitter And Glam Into Harpa

A drag queen named Jennifer Hudson Obama, clutching a red dildo like a microphone, captured the hearts of judges last year to win the Icelandic Drag Competition. This year, the fifteenth time that sequins and eye shadow will glimmer on stage, it’s anyone’s competition to win when the drag queens and kings file into Harpa’s Eldborg Hall on August 8.

3.8.2012

School For The Rest Of Us: The Radical Summer University

“The Radical Summer University” (Róttæki sumarháskólinn) is being held again. Only in its second year, the school has received a positive response from students of all ages looking to learn more about subjects seldom covered in Icelandic universities.

1.8.2012

What Are They Doing To Ingólfstorg, Nasa and Kvosin?

One of the oldest quarters of the Icelandic capital, nowadays Ingólfstorg is the haunt of summer vacationers and boys on skateboards. Soon, however, it will be the bulldozers moving into the square at the heart of downtown Reykjavík’s Kvosin district.

31.7.2012

News In Brief: Late July Edition

The downtown nightclub Nasa came back into the news, with the future of the building that housed it undergoing more twists and turns in a struggle between city officials and a grassroots movement to save the site.

30.7.2012

So What's This Pirate Party I Keep Hearing About?

Recently a group of people, including current Movement MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir, announced that they were preparing to found an Icelandic version of the Pirate Party, a political movement that originated in Sweden in the mid-noughties. This received a lot of media coverage, likely because the party would have representation in parliament immediately, albeit by an MP who has founded and abandoned three political parties in the last four years.

27.7.2012

Iceland’s Plundering Of Africa’s Fishing Grounds

Icelanders are especially proud of two historical milestones concerning their fishing industry. First was the victorious Cod Wars that Icelanders fought with neighbouring countries—mainly the UK—between 1948 and 1976 over the control and size of the island’s fishing grounds.

26.7.2012

Home Is Where The Heart Is

The sun is shining, music is playing, toddlers are playing on the seesaw, teenagers are picnicking and tourists are taking pictures of the colourful graffiti on the walls. Hjartagarðurinn (“The Heart Garden”) is one of the most appealing spots in 101 Reykjavík, especially on a sunny day. In one respect, then, the park's caretakers have succeeded in making it a free communal space, but there's still a lot that needs to be addressed and understood about this once abandoned lot.

25.7.2012

The Best Places To Skateboard In Reykjavík

I came to Iceland for the first time in 2006 specifically to skateboard. At the time, I literally knew nothing else about the country, only that I was on a mission to track down the spots I’d seen in so many magazines and old skate videos; this decision would soon inspire me to learn all I could about Reykjavík’s vibrant skate scene, to begin learning Icelandic, and to spend as much time in the country as my savings account would physically allow.

24.7.2012

The Royal Swimming Hall

The most popular public institutions in Iceland are probably the swimming pools. We have a lot of them in the greater Reykjavík area and if you venture to the countryside and reach a town of more than 50 inhabitants, chances are that it has a pool. But none of them quite feels like an established institution, or classic, as much as Sundhöllin (the “Hall of Swimming” in English). Not only is it Reykjavík’s oldest pool, but also it’s just really awesome.

23.7.2012

Foreigners On The Frontlines Of Whaling Battle

“Quick! We’re missing them!” 22-year-old Jongmi Lim says. A herd of six baby-faced volunteers hustle across the harbour toward the group of tourists leaving their whale watching boat. They manage to snag one family before the rest of the tourists shuffle away.

20.7.2012

So Whats This Feminist Utopia I Keep Hearing About?

Many generations ago the population was struck by a plague that afflicted males solely, wiping them out and leaving only women. To avoid extinction, women developed parthenogenesis techniques, culminating in the ability to merge two eggs to form a foetus, ensuring the continuing existence of humanity.

20.7.2012

Things They Like About Reykjavík

Grapevine chats with all sorts of locals about their favourite things in Reykjavík.

19.7.2012

BEST OF REYKJAVlK IS HERE AGAIN

Our BEST OF REYKJAVÍK LIST is here! Again we’ve spent countless hours compiling the thing [via your suggestions, e-mails, Facebook comments and bar-talk], and as always we are sure you are more than ready to contest and challenge every single entry.

19.7.2012

The Best of Reykjavík 2012: Institutions

Through compiling our second annual best of list back when, we reached the conclusion that some of these places are so firmly established as local favourites that naming them “best of” anything is sort of redundant.

18.7.2012

Icesave: A British Perspective

In 2008 diplomatic relations between Iceland and Britain fell to a low not seen since the Cod Wars of the 1970s. Iceland’s Landsbanki bank had offered British and Dutch depositors high interest rates under the brand name Icesave.

16.7.2012

News In Brief: Early July Edition

June ended on a somewhat predictable note as Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson was re-elected for his fifth term in office. If he serves it to completion, he will be head of state for twenty years. Ólafur said that he considered his re-election an “unambiguous message from the people” that they want to have a say in the largest issues facing the nation, in the form of national referendums.

11.7.2012

Lopapeysa For Everyone!

It’s hard not to miss the Icelandic sweater or ‘lopapeysa’ on your visit to the country. This wool is not only so resistant because it comes from arguably the best sheep in the world, but also because it is not spun, which makes it light but solid.

9.7.2012

Putting The Green In Greenland

Surely Eiríkur Rauði, Eric the Red, must be one of the more Viking of the Vikings. Banished from Norway for manslaughter in 960, he decided to start over in Iceland, where he lived semi-peacefully for over a decade until suffering a relapse. In the early 980s, the Þing assembly at Þórsnes found him guilty of several killings and exiled him. Having run out of known places in the North Atlantic to move to, there was naught to do but discover new ones.

6.7.2012

Two Years Old: IMMI Inches Through Icelandic Parliament

When IMMI, the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, turned two years old this month, supporters cheered a few accomplishments it has made toward protecting freedom of information. However, IMMI—a legislative proposal to re-position Iceland as an information safe haven—is still very much in the developmental stages.

5.7.2012

Travellers Take Their Toll On Tourist Destinations

The image of pristine wilderness is one of Iceland’s main attractions, but this resource may be in jeopardy as the environment around some of Iceland’s most popular tourist attractions and hiking areas is gradually deteriorating.

4.7.2012

Iceland’s Neighbours Turn Up Heat On Declaring Independence

In her 2007 electro anthem “Declare Independence,” Björk shouted patriotic lyrics dedicated to Iceland’s neighbours—Greenland and the Faroe Islands. “Start your own currency! Make your own stamp! Protect your language!” the Icelandic pop star cried. But it’s not so easy.

3.7.2012

When Tom Cruise (Nearly) Met The Icelandic Sheep Farmer

For centuries it's been their territory, but that’s about to change. The Icelandic sheep farmers of the Eyjafjörður area in the north of Iceland have met their match: actor Tom Cruise is back on the volcanic rock, and he's settled down close to a sheep farm.

2.7.2012

Iceland Cubed

The question of how best to package Iceland for international consumption has long been a contentious issue, one that has no doubt been on the minds and lips of private and public citizens alike since well before the economic downturn officially hit.

29.6.2012

News In Brief: Late June Edition

We’re now in mid-June and things are going famously. Tom Cruise arrived to take part in the filming of the movie ‘Oblivion,’ which will be shot in the north of the country, near Mývatn. Upon his arrival, he spent the first few days at Hilton Hótel in Reykjavík, to much fanfare.

27.6.2012

"Freedom Of Movement Is A Fundamental Right"

As if following the pattern of a migratory bird, Iceland's refugee issues have yet again flown into the discussion. Last year's harbinger of spring was an Iranian refugee’s attempted self-immolation inside the Red Cross headquarters of Reykjavík.

26.6.2012

The Gray Rock, Gold Coffin Bay, And Ghosts

Reykjavík’s newest neighbourhoods, Kjalarnes and Grafarholt-Úlfarsárdalur, probably have the strongest connection to elves and ghosts of the city’s ten districts. Grafarholt’s Grásteinn (“Gray Rock”) is without a doubt the most famous rock in Reykjavík. After the rock was moved in the ’70s during the construction of the road Vesturlandsvegur, thousands of salmon parr died at a nearby salmon farm.

25.6.2012

So What's This Quota System I Keep Hearing About?

Since the beginning of our time, humans have had a difficult time not killing and eating everything that moves. Remember the mammoth? Well, we decided that the furry elephants were so cute that we needed to keep them with us at all times, inside our bellies, and well, the mammoth is no more.

22.6.2012

Iceland's Only Baseball Club Looks For A Rally

Steindór Steindórsson used to play his home country’s most popular sports, football and handball, but the tall and stocky 16-year-old now prefers baseball, one of the more unorthodox sports in Iceland. “I’ve been playing sports since I was small, and this was different from casual football and handball. I enjoy everything about it—hitting, catching, running,” he says.

22.6.2012

The Working Man

Hannes Bjarnason was a consultant and project manager for a small company in Norway before very recently moving to Iceland and then deciding to run for president. For much of Iceland’s voting public, he is relatively, if not completely, unknown, which may in part explain his low polling numbers (somewhere just over 1%, which he has admitted doesn’t surprise him at all).

21.6.2012

The Activist

Andrea Ólafsdóttir was the last to announce her candidacy for president, on May 1, International Workers’ Day this year. Born in 1972 in Húsavík, Andrea chairs the Coalition of Home Owners (Hagsmunasamtök heimilanna) and has been a vocal opponent of the mandatory indexing of loans. We met Andrea to talk about the past and future function of the presidential office.

20.6.2012

Seven Year Ink

In a country where an opportunity to show off skin at the local swimming pool is as commonplace as a trip to the mall, it's not so surprising to find out that we have the most tattoo artists per capita.

20.6.2012

The Mountaineer

Through his 63 years on Earth, Ari Trausti Guðmundsson has enjoyed a varied career that has entailed him earning a degree in earth sciences, writing award-winning books of fiction as well as several scientific and/or educational non-fiction tomes, acting as TV and radio weatherman and programmer, being a mountain guide and founding a radical political organisation—among other things.

19.6.2012

The Television Personality

Þóra Arnórsdóttir is a 37-year-old mother, journalist, and presidential candidate. As a reporter and game show host for the state-owned broadcasting corporation, RÚV, Þóra has been a near nightly guest in Icelandic living rooms for years, but she has formed a solid reputation as a journalist for her reporting of the Icelandic financial crisis. During this campaign, Þóra has emerged as the candidate most likely to challenge incumbent President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. We met Þóra at her home in the last days of her pregnancy to ask her about the campaign.

19.6.2012

The Negotiator

A hulking home computer produced in 1982 sits on Stefán Haukur Jóhannesson’s desk at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in place of what is usually his sleek government-issued desktop. The switch that morning is the work of office pranksters, he says. The graphics of an old spaceship-shooting video game fills the screen of the Spectravideo-328. “On the screen it had ‘game over,’” Stefán jokes. “Hopefully that doesn’t mean game over for me.”

18.6.2012

The Incumbent

Incumbent President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson is Iceland’s fifth elected president. If re-elected on June 30, he will become the longest-sitting president in the history of the Republic. For the first time since he entered office in 1996, Ólafur faces real competition, with opposition candidate Þóra Arnórsdóttir polling right behind him. We met Ólafur at Bessastaðir, the official presidential residence where he has lived for the last sixteen years, to find out why he is running.

18.6.2012

Why So Many Covers, Reykjavík Grapevine?

For this very special presidential election issue, we decided to run six different covers featuring every candidate in the 2012 Icelandic presidential elections emulating incumbent Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson’s pose for his 1996 official presidential photograph, which was shot right after he took office.

15.6.2012

News In Brief: Early June Edition

June began on an optimistic note as the Pig Farmers' Society of Iceland announced that it was going to create two organic, free-range pig farms, a welcome change from an organisation that said last year that it would be prohibitively expensive to forego factory farming Iceland’s pigs.

14.6.2012

The Presidency At A Crossroads

Iceland is one of the few nations in Europe that holds general elections to choose a president who is basically a figurehead. Most presidents of this kind in Europe are elected by parliaments.

13.6.2012

The Bars Of Weekends Past

Running a bar in Reykjavík has never been the most stable of businesses. Indeed, for the past twenty years, 101 Reykjavík has seen hundreds of bars open their doors briefly before vanishing into the ether (or bankruptcy). Most of them have a short lifespan and are mourned by few (mostly their creditors), but some have left a permanent mark on the city’s consciousness.

12.6.2012

Why Do Icelanders Drink Like College Freshmen?

Icelanders are not the kind of people who go to a pub to drink a beer or two over the course of an evening spent chatting with friends. Quite the contrary, they are the kind of people who head to the pubs long after the evening has passed, and their intention is to drink themselves into oblivion.

8.6.2012

23 Awesome (Or Not So Awesome) Vanity Plates

Among his claims to fame, MP Árni Johnsen successfully lobbied for legalising vanity plates on vehicles in Iceland and became the first proud owner of one when he snagged “ÍSLAND” in 1996.

6.6.2012

So What's This New Constitution I Keep Hearing About?

After the 2008 financial crash there were loud calls for a new Republic of Iceland, where fat cats would have no more power than the public. The logical starting point was a new constitution. In 2010, an election was held to elect a Constitutional Assembly. Five hundred some people ran for 25 seats. The election was, however, nullified by The Supreme Court.

4.6.2012

The Elves Could Not Be Reached For Comment

Member of Parliament Árni Johnsen recently arranged for the transportation of a 50 tonne boulder from the Hellisheiði mountain pass to his backyard in Vestmannaeyjar—a more ideal environment Árni says, for the family of elves who inhabit it.

1.6.2012

News In Brief: May Edition

A brief overview of some stories we published on our website since our last issue.

29.5.2012

Murder And Suicide Through The Ages

Iceland saw its first official murder of 2012 this February. A 22 year old man showed up to a police station claiming to have done something awful. Given his history of drug offenses, the police saw reason to investigate.

28.5.2012

Iceland's Courts Jail Teen Refugees

At the same time as Iceland’s media revelled in its news last week about Iceland being one of “the best country in the world for children,” it became known that two Algerian boys, aged 15 and 16, had been sentenced to thirty days in prison in Iceland.

28.5.2012

Exploring Hlíðar - From Its Bums To Its Beach

The area in Reykjavík called Hlíðar (“Hills”) is made up of six smaller neighbourhoods: Norðurmýri, Hlemmur, Holt, Suðurhlíðar, Öskjuhlíð and Nauthólsvík. While ten thousand people call Hlíðar home, the 3.3 square kilometre area is not exclusively a residential one.

25.5.2012

A Time Of Confusion

In part I of this series, ‘Iceland and the rest of the world,’ I traced the history of Iceland from its time as a poor Danish colony to becoming independent, hosting a US military base and becoming Americanized—while still doing business with the Soviet Union—to the nation’s brief stint as world financiers buying up all of the shops on the High Streets of the UK.

24.5.2012

Being Transgender In Iceland

Iceland is known for its liberal attitude towards gay people. But how does Icelandic society respond to transgender people? Is it just as supportive?

23.5.2012

So What's This Bauhaus Thing I Keep Hearing About?

Well, you’d think that it were a modernist masterpiece by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe or Walter Gropius judging by the hordes of people who went to see it on opening day. But no, it’s a supersized hardware store called Bauhaus.

22.5.2012

News In Brief: May Edition

Just when we thought we had heard the last of the Worm of Lagarfljót, a former FBI agent showed up searching for the mythical creature.

21.5.2012

Back To The Future

An official acknowledgement from the Minister of the Interior confirmed that unrestricted spying on Icelandic citizens had been tolerated and allowed.

18.5.2012

The Boys Are Back In Town

‘Valtari’—Sigur Rós’ much-anticipated sixth-release—is risky.
Not that the band hasn’t, in its 18-years-active, established itself as a creative juggernaut of sorts, and cultivated an insatiable fan base.

15.5.2012

Training To Survive The Zombie Apocalypse? There's An App For That

Software developers at Iceland-based Mindgames have created an iOS game that uses your brainwaves to play. Yes, your brainwaves.

14.5.2012

Laugardalur: Not Just Home To A Swimming Pool

Laugardalur—“hot spring valley”—was so-named due to the prevalence of, yes, hot springs in the area. Some people even say that the name Reykjavík—“Smoky Bay”—derives from the hot steam that rose from these springs.

11.5.2012

So Who Is This Geir H. Haarde Guy I Keep Hearing About?

Geir Hilmar Haarde, Geir Haarde for short, was Prime Minister of Iceland when the economy sank back in 2008. His signature moment was addressing the nation on TV right after the crash and asking God to bless Itceland, which in terms of Icelandic political discourse was as incongruous as hearing the Queen of England quote Linkin Park.

10.5.2012

Iceland And The Rest Of The World

For many centuries Iceland was a colony of Denmark. Due to its isolation, it was largely neglected until the nineteenth century when Danish cultural influence became overwhelming.

9.5.2012

Out Of Africa

Ragnar Sverrisson is an engineer and technician who has been active in the humanist movement for thirty years, both in Iceland and abroad. In recent years, Ragnar has devoted his time and money to humanitarian work in Kenya.

8.5.2012

The Eight Presidential Candidates, So Far...

The Icelandic presidential elections are less than two months away and the race is heating up. For the first time ever it looks like incumbent President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson will be getting a run for his money.

7.5.2012

Friends With Benefits

Many people speak of China and Iceland as if China’s interest in Iceland is only a few years old.

4.5.2012

News in Brief: April Edition

A brief overview of some stories we published on our website since our last issue.

2.5.2012

What's Happening On Laugavegur?

Inspired by urbanist William H. Whyte’s work in New York, a group of young Icelandic architects (plus one music composer and one graphic designer) decided to research city life in Reykjavík.

27.4.2012

Harpa As A Symbol Of Iceland's Recovery

Iceland was recently described as a success story of the economic crisis in a Financial Times article.

25.4.2012

Who Rules The Streets?

After Laugavegur was temporarily closed to traffic last summer, many are wondering whether the experiment will be repeated this year.

23.4.2012

The Future Is Here

When many people hear the words “online gamer,” the image that comes to mind is a socially crippled basement-dweller who is glued to his or her computer and probably hasn’t seen actual sunlight in years.

20.4.2012

Davíð Oddsson Told A Joke

Writer E.B. White—well known for his children's books and co-authoring one of the most famous English language style guides, ‘The Elements of Style’—once wrote the following: "Analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies."

18.4.2012

KEEPING IT LEGAL

Given this increased demand for rental apartments, landlords are reportedly getting away with renting to tenants without going through the proper legal channels, paying taxes or providing a lease.

17.4.2012

Katlaaaaarrgghh (Not This Again)!

What time is it? Time for the annual Katla eruption scare, apparently.

13.4.2012

A Black Box

In post-collapse Iceland, mortgages are hard to come by, and a growing number of people are turning to the rental market.

4.4.2012

Robbery By Math

It is the things that we think we understand that inevitably catch us unawares.

2.4.2012

ENVISION SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Since the local fish factory in Stöðvarfjörður closed down in 2005 and its 32 employees lost their jobs, the eastern municipality of roughly 200 people has faced a serious decline.

29.3.2012

Árbær: Where Lots of Things Are Preserved

Not long ago, Árbær was merely heathland that walking or horse riding travellers passed through on their way in and out of Reykjavík.

26.3.2012

Want To Buy US Dollars?

Maybe you’re travelling to the US, or anywhere else that might accept its currency.

22.3.2012

Renting In The Free World

The rental market in Iceland is historically small and the large majority of Icelanders own their homes today. However, an increasing number of people have turned to renting since the financial crash.

20.3.2012

Why Do We Need karlssonwilker?

New York City design firm karlssonwilker is the brainchild of Messrs Jan Wilker and Hjalti Karlsson, one of whom happens to be born and raised in Reykjavík (no points for guessing which one).

15.3.2012

All Tomorrow’s Parties

So, will the Icelandic government survive yet another Grapevine deadline?

12.3.2012

The Long Political Journey Of Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson

President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has decided—after insinuating in his New Year's Address that he would not run and then dodging the question for two months—that he will in fact seek re-election this summer.

9.3.2012

News In Brief

February started out with some paranormal activity, when a farmer in northeast Iceland recorded a video of something moving in a snake-like motion across the river Jökulsá í Fljótsdal.

5.3.2012

EXPLORE: The Home Of Peat, The 'Fuck-You-House', etc.

The area known as Bústaðir and Háaleiti was once one of the most important sources of peat for the residents of Reykjavík.

22.2.2012

Lighting A Fire Under The Orchestra

After an exhilarating performance of Giacinto Scelsi’s ‘Hymnos,’ the conductor turns to the audience and tells us that because we will probably never hear the piece performed again, we should pick a new spot in the hall and they will do it one more time.

21.2.2012

Lithuanian Witches Stopped Traffic In Reykjavík!

On a rainy Sunday, Lithuanian witches stopped traffic in the suburbs of Reykjavík.

15.2.2012

Twists And Turns In The History Of The Icelandic Communist Movement

The Icelandic communist movement began earlier, had closer ties with The Kremlin, lasted longer, and was more influential than had previously been recognised.

8.2.2012

A Vicious Circle Of Victimisation

In late October last year, a group of burka-dressed women who called themselves Big Sister, announced that they had “gone underground” to collect a list of 56 names and 117 numbers of alleged prostitution purchasers, which they then handed to the police.

3.2.2012

Time And Tides And Hotels

Although it is by no means a young city, Reykjavík has very few structures older than a century left standing.

30.1.2012

E-Democracy Takes Off In Reykjavík

In the midst of heated protests following Iceland’s economic collapse in October 2008, two Icelandic programmers started dreaming about a more democratic Iceland.

23.1.2012

Thirty-Three Percent Of 2009's Thirty-Three Look Back, And Forward

January of 2009 was an interesting month for Icelanders.

16.1.2012

2011: The Year In News

This was a pretty big year in the news for a number of reasons, and while we don’t have the space to cover everything we found cool or interesting, there were a number of important stories that deserve mentioning

9.1.2012

New Year's Address

Now we bid farewell to the year 2011. It is expired

6.1.2012

Grafarvogur Has A Hidden History And Some Treasure To Boot!

As a kid I used to love visiting the district of Grafarvogur, mainly because Reykjavík’s garbage dump was located there and, as everyone knows, garbage dumps are great for treasure-hunting

22.12.2011

The Encyclopaedia of Icelandic Holidays 2011

The A-Ö of the Icelandic holiday season

22.12.2011

Christmas Away From Home

Christmas is surely a magical time of year—a time when people are more connected than usual. However, not everybody can be with his or her family during this special time. Foreigners who are in Iceland temporarily or for good will likely celebrate the occasion quite differently than they would in their homeland.

16.12.2011

Getting Rid Of ‘The Man Behind The Curtain’

Before we begin, let’s just go ahead and acknowledge the illustrious, dazzling elephant in the room: Björk. She’s always there. Our cultural ambassador: a symbol for independent womanhood, for creative freedom, for our supposed musical matriarchy

15.12.2011

SHIVER ME TORRENTS!

Despite their silly name and a platform originally focused on Internet issues, The Pirate Party won an unexpected 8,9% in the Berlin elections this September

13.12.2011

The Fireworks Extravaganza

To celebrate the New Year, Icelanders buy hundreds of tonnes of fireworks and shoot them off in a completely haphazard fashion.

12.12.2011

Don't Have To Wait Until Christmas

When Guðbjörg Kristín Ingvarsdóttir opened Aurum in a small backhouse off the main street Laugavegur in 1999, her nature-inspired designs were like a breath of fresh air to the local jewellery racks

9.12.2011

Calls for Media Policy On Cultural Diversity

The representation and participation of immigrants in the media was a recurring theme at the Integration and Immigrants’ Participation, held last month in Reykjavík

8.12.2011

Our New Neighbours, The Johnsons

The Johnsons just moved to town! One thousand ISK and a sense of humour grants you entrance to the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which relocated from the north of Iceland to Reykjavík this winter. A visit to the penis museum is of course an ideal holiday activity for the whole family!

6.12.2011

Celebrating December

For those of you visiting Reykjavík over the holidays who want to attend a Christmas mass, there are a couple options available to you.

6.12.2011

Reykjavík Christmas City

If there’s one cause to which the perpetual dusk of Icelandic winter is sympathetic, it’s that of Christmas decorations. Indeed, no lights are quite as lustrous as those delicate orbs of white lining the trees, the streets, the buildings downtown.

6.12.2011

Holiday Opening Hours

Since many of you reading this may be tourists stranded in Iceland over the coming Holiday season, we decided to compile a little list for you detailing what’s open, and when.

5.12.2011

Tents Around The Tower

On a cold November evening, a large canvas tent lies half-collapsed in front of parliament. Small crates of food lie out in the open, and a young man in coveralls is helping to gather the tentpoles. This is Occupy Reykjavík, part of the global Occupy movement and formed a month previous, but already going on hiatus.

2.12.2011

ON THE SOLIDARITY OF SMALL NATIONS

A version of this story originally appeared on the newsportal DELFI, which is the most popular news aggregator for Lithuania and Estonia.

28.11.2011

Breiðholt: Where You Kick Cans Or Lampposts

If you have been wondering whether an old school ghetto can be found in Reykjavík, the answer is 'sort of.’ What Icelanders refer to as their ‘ghetto’ is more commonly referred to as Breiðholt, a neighbourhood in the east part of the city. Breiðholt, built from 1967–1982, is Iceland's clearest example of the dominant policy after the Second World War: to quickly construct cheap apartments, specially targeted at the working class.

25.11.2011

Where Have All The Puffins Gone?

After spending the summer nesting—mostly in Vestmannaeyjar, off the south coast of Iceland—the nation’s two to three million resident puffin pairs have returned to sea for the winter.

22.11.2011

Wave Of Protest

At of the time of writing the Icelandic ‘pots and pans movement’, which can also be labeled the Icelandic indignados movement, has once again confronted the government, the IMF and the world financial system, and the government has once again promised to look “seriously” at its demands.

14.11.2011

IT AIN'T EASY BEING GREEN

Why even the most environmentally friendly energy sources can still be bad for the climate.

7.11.2011

AN ICELANDIC MODERN MEDIA INFERNO

In Iceland journalists can be prosecuted for citing a public court case. Yes, in Iceland, that co-uld be ‘defamatory’…

4.11.2011

“Iceland’s Recovery: Lessons and Challenges”

Harpa, Iceland’s new mega opera house, emblematic for the boom and bust of the country’s economy in 2008, was the venue for this conference on the October 27, co-hosted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Central Bank of Iceland and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

3.11.2011

Harpa Will Pump You Up

Harpa is hosting a weekend of bikinis, speedos and bulging muscles! For three days, some of the world’s most muscular humans will descend on Reykjavík to participate in the Iceland Fitness and Health Expo.

28.10.2011

An Alternative View Of 'Iceland's Recovery'

Yesterday's conference on the global economy “Iceland´s Recovery—Lessons and Challenges” offered three thematic sessions on the international and domestic policies implemented to address the financial crisis, such as the use of capital controls and the handling of the banking sector, as well as Iceland’s maintenance its social welfare system while dealing with fiscal adjustments and IMF assistance, which ended in August. The Movement offered their own perspective.

24.10.2011

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE KEEPS STEALING OUR WORDS!

Considering Iceland’s unique position as a geological hotbed on the mid-Atlantic ridge, it’s not surprising that a couple of geological terms have been borrowed from the Icelandic language.

21.10.2011

The Meeting That Almost Changed Everything

It was the second most important event to take place in Iceland during the Cold War. However, it could easily have been one of the most important events to take place ever, and not just in Iceland, but anywhere. World peace seemed closer than ever before, yet so far away.

20.10.2011

Are Icelandic Bankers Horses and Fishermen?

Most of you will recall—possibly with distaste or distain—how Michael Lewis crushed little Iceland in his article, ‘Wall Street on the Tundra,’ shortly after the collapse, implying that a bunch of farmers and fishermen near the arctic circle had fallen foul of their plans for world domination.

18.10.2011

Are Iceland's Cops Underpaid Or Over-Entitled?

Some of the more iconic imagery that arose from the 2009 ‘Pots and Pans Revolution’ featured police tangling with protesters, whether involving riot shields, pepper spray, or a physical confrontation within parliament itself.

14.10.2011

Transparency Is The Answer

Jóhann Hauksson is an award-winning journalist who worked for many years for the newspaper DV, writing mostly about Iceland's political scene.

13.10.2011

How Reykjavík Got To Be What It Is

The fabled area of 101 Reykjavík is a fun place, but there is certainly more to the city. Reykjavík is actually divided into ten districts, with the 101 area (101 is the postal code for the downtown area of Reykjavík) only encompassing five percent of the city.

10.10.2011

NUTHIN' BUT A DOWNLOAD THANG!

Robert Levine recently released the book ‘Free Ride: How the Internet Is Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back’.

7.10.2011

Inspired By Iceland... no, really!

It is funny how things can turn around. For decades, Iceland languished in neoliberal hell, with signs of opposition few and far between.

4.10.2011

It's all in the algae

Mývatn: We’re sitting in what was once a cowshed overlooking clear blue skies and a rippling lake, eating one of the best kjötsúpa I’ve had in aeons.

30.9.2011

Re-Imagining Money And Banking

For the last three decades, Dr. Margrit Kennedy has been advocating for a transformation of the world money system, for the introduction of complementary currencies and interest and inflation-free money.

27.9.2011

Doing Time In Iceland

Given that the comedian Doug Stanhope has a gig at Iceland’s maximum-security prison at the end of September, we figured we would give you the low down—or something short of that—on Iceland’s prison system.

23.9.2011

WHAT DID YOU VOTE FOR, REYKJAVÍK?

We first meet two weeks before his summer vacation ends. Jón seems relaxed and at ease after a good leave. We talk a little about the upcoming winter, how he has been adapting to the role of mayor and any troubles he and the rest of The Best Party might have had adjusting to their new posts.

22.9.2011

TOO... MUCH... CULTURE!

Recently one of the biggest dates in Iceland’s cultural calendar loomed large on our collective conscience as Menningarnótt (Culture Night) took place.

20.9.2011

“It's No Coincidence We've Been Called The Ironic Generation”

HAM have a new studio album out, their first since 1989. Dr. Gunni, who was a member of the band for few months in 1988, sat down with bandleader and main songwriter Sigurjón Kjartansson to talk everything HAM.

14.9.2011

Customs Is Cracking Down

Bring up the Directorate of Customs in Iceland and you’re liable to unleash a host of emotions ranging from frustration to anger.

13.9.2011

TIME STANDS STILL

On Friday September 2, two men appeared in court in downtown Reykjavík. It wasn’t their first time—and it probably won’t be their last.

12.9.2011

No Finger-Pointing

If you've spent some time in Iceland this past summer, you may have seen them: Volunteers in International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) T-shirts, handing out leaflets, accompanied by a person dressed as a whale's tail.

9.9.2011

AGENTS OF WORLD DOMINATION?

A Chinese gentleman wants to buy a big tract of land in the Northeast, and a central weakness of Icelandic politics is revealed. It is all about opinion. A government minister comes on television and starts talking about the Chinese who are buying up all the land in the world.

8.9.2011

A BOOM AND A BUST?

Iceland too had its housing boom. As you may observe in the accompanying graph, housing prices were fairly stable between 1994 and 2000, they increased gradually between 2000 and 2004 and then BOOM, they took off between 2004 and 2008.

7.9.2011

WILL ‘A9AINST’ ENTIRELY TRANSFORM ICELANDIC SOCIETY AND MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER FOREVER?

Philosopher, filmmaker, writer and frequent-Grapevine contributor Haukur Már Helgason premiered his documentary ‘Ge9n’ (‘A9ainst’ is its English title) at the Skjaldborg film festival this spring.

6.9.2011

You Need To Pay For School Now?

While it's true that Iceland's universities are indeed very affordable, with yearly fees for most schools (minus textbooks) amounting to a week's salary per semester, maybe you don't want to live with your parents while going to school.

5.9.2011

THE ICELANDIC EDUCATION SYSTEM: A PRIMER

The Icelandic education system resembles those of Denmark and other Scandinavian countries. There are four levels of education: day-care for children aged 2–6 years old (sometimes younger), compulsory education for children aged 6–16, followed by ‘secondary school’ (akin to high school), which is usually four years, followed by higher education provided by Iceland’s universities.

2.9.2011

PARTY 101

Now that the bells have begun ringing your asses back to those classes. Don’t be sad. You gotta stay positive, and you’ve got to keep in mind that even though that annoying and needy RRRRIIING that sounds every hour or so throughout the school day signifies your enslavement to the books, it also rings in your FREEDOM TO PARTY.

2.9.2011

Reykjavík, After Class Lets Out

Icelandic nights get longer, the sun bids its goodbyes and the rain washes away the summer. The tourist season dies down and international students arrive. The home coming ball is the first of many events on the student calendar that add to the university experience after hours of lectures.

31.8.2011

The Iceland Academy of the Arts

Iceland Academy of the Arts (Listaháskóli Íslands) was founded in 1999 and it’s the only university in Iceland dedicated to the arts. We called up Rector Hjálmar H. Ragnarsson and asked him to tell us more about the university, its programmes and its future plans.

30.8.2011

Learning From The Past, Moving Into The Future

For a country of Iceland's size, the education system is particularly vibrant, especially on a university level. The Grapevine contacted acting Minister of Education Svandís Svavarsdóttir for her thoughts on the state of Iceland's universities, where they've been, and where they're going.

30.8.2011

Airwaves 2011: Get Hype!

The brightest spot of the typically gloomy and rainy weeks of the Icelandic autumn is undoubtedly the Airwaves music festival. Attracting thousands from around the world each year, the popularity of the festival is booming.

29.8.2011

WE NEED MORE YUMMY LAMB!

Icelandic lamb meat, often touted as the best in the world, has in many ways come to represent the country itself. The demand for this meat, on a global scale, has been increasing dramatically in recent years.

26.8.2011

ZOMBIE POLITICS

The political debate in Iceland has gotten horribly stale and repetitive. In some places Iceland is held up as being a model of how to survive an economic crises and rebuild society. For most Icelanders this seems totally wrong. Some politicians, including our President, like to flaunt this view when they go abroad, but this is definitely not the feeling in Iceland.

25.8.2011

ALASKAN “WOLF” INVADES ICELAND

Invasive species or non-native plants present a problem all over the world. For instance, the ragweed in Europe can cause serious allergy problems and the zebra mussel in the North America colonises rapidly, clogging water intakes that support drinking water supplies and powers hydroelectric plants. In Iceland, that invasive species is the Alaskan lupine, which was brought into the country in 1885.

24.8.2011

A Deconstruction of “Iceland's On-going Revolution”

Last night, ‘Shock Doctrine’ author Naomi Klein tweeted: “#Iceland is proving that it is possible to resist the Shock Doctrine, and refuse to pay for the bankers' crisis” with a link to an article called, “Iceland’s On-going Revolution,” by Deena Stryker.

24.8.2011

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE ORDER OF THE FALCON

You could say that the Order of the Falcon is to Iceland what the Purple Heart is to The United States. Well you could say that—kind of—in the sense that the President of Iceland doles out Order of the Falcon awards and other things, while the President of The United States doles out Purple Hearts and other things.

23.8.2011

Surfing Couches Around The World

A new type of tourism has been steadily growing over the last decade. It’s Couchsurfing, which is based on an online community whose main objective is to provide accommodation to tourists wishing to stay in the hometown of another member. What you may not know is that Couchsurfing actually has its roots in Iceland.

22.8.2011

The Mouse That Roared

If you've taken even the most cursory glance at recent Icelandic history, chances are you're familiar with the Cod Wars: big, bad Britain sends warships up against plucky little Iceland's fishing boats, and the underdog wins.

19.8.2011

A VIEW FROM THE CHURCH TOWER

A few weeks ago I was wandering around Skóla-vörðu-holt where Hallgrímskirkja—the large church dedicated to the poet and psalmist Hallgrímur Pétursson—stands. From the top of the church tower there’s a great view over Reykjavík and the surrounding landscape.

18.8.2011

Catching Up To The 21st Century

A couple of weeks back, we ran a news story about a city proposal to give police the power to issue tickets for littering on the spot. Anyone who has walked down Laugavegur on a Sunday morning probably understands the motivation behind such a proposal. The photo we ran with the story showed the aftermath of Independence Day celebrations on Austurstræti, to which one astute reader commented, “That's funny. I'm seeing a lot of trash there, but no trash cans.”

17.8.2011

STATUES OF THE FUTURE?

We asked a handful of clever people to think about a statue of the future. Specifically, we asked, “which person, place or thing from the twenty-first century do you think should be made a statue in the future? And, why?”

16.8.2011

Iceland's Underground Sex Scene

A long-standing stereotype about Icelanders is that they do not date. The notion of asking for someone's number, inviting them out for dinner or movies, taking a potential relationship through a step-by-step process from friends to lovers has been, as many contend, a phenomenon largely absent from Icelandic society.

15.8.2011

Walking In The Shadows Of Giants

There are many sculptures and attempts at public art strewn over Reykjavík. Most of the time we don’t notice them, blinded by the familiar surroundings of our day to day. We should stop and look every now and again. A lot of them are beautiful, and almost every one of them has an interesting story that goes with it. To encourage this, we made you up a short walk which should take about 40–50 minutes of your time. In the walk, we focus exclusively on the work of fabled sculptor Einar Jónsson (1874–1954), who is one of Iceland’s most celebrated artists and is responsible for some groundbreaking sculptures. Do read on, and get to know some of the stern- faced green figures dotting our urban landscape, and why they are there.

12.8.2011

Icelanders On The Anarchy In The U.K.

Riots and looting have spread across London City over the last few days, with copycats spilling over into Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol on Monday night. What began as a peaceful vigil outside the Tottenham Police station for the police shooting of Mark Duggan has descended into anarchy that has not been seen in the U.K. since Thatcher’s ‘80s. The Grapevine has been catching up with Icelanders caught up in the violence.

11.8.2011

In Consideration of the Icelandic Vegetable

I recall once, while living in Zurich—where every Friday morning behind the Hauptbahnhof, vegetable vendors and their allies, cheese makers, sauce stirrers, picklers and curers, displayed their wares—falling deeply in love with food.

11.8.2011

Hjartatorgið

Tómas Magnússon and his wife Tanya Pollock saw an area calling for help one day when walking their child through the Hjartatorgið park. “I brought my kid over there and I was upset that I couldn’t take him out of the stroller because it was full of glass, needles, and other stuff,” Tómas said.

10.8.2011

Oodles Of Fun At The Park

Looking for something exciting to do on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday afternoon?

9.8.2011

Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Black Swan?

American firms in the 1980s. Then Prime Minister Davíð Oddsson warned that the banks themselves were becoming too leveraged and that they were too dependent on foreign capital markets for their financing.

8.8.2011

The Scandinavian Club

There’s really no question that Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are Scandinavian countries. But when it comes to Iceland, Finland, and the Faeroe Islands, it’s apparently not so cookie-cutter-simple.

4.8.2011

You Cannot Put Rules On Love

Hörður Torfason—troubadour, songwriter, actor, director and human rights activist—is one of Iceland's living legends. In recent memory, he was the organising force behind the Pots and Pans Revolution of 2008–2009, and has been invited to bring his philosophy on activism to Spain, Mexico, and further afield.

4.8.2011

Reykjavík's Secret History

When Hilmar Magnússon decided to create the Reykjavík LGBT History & Culture Walk this summer, he admits that he wasn’t sure how it would go over. There had previously been tours offering similar services, but they were only run once a year during Gay Pride Week. Hilmar wondered if there was enough interest to sustain the tours more regularly, and discovered a dormant market.

4.8.2011

Pink Iceland

Last March, Eva María Þórarinsdóttir and Birna Hrönn Björnsdóttir launched Pink Iceland, a travelling service catering specifically to the LGBT Community.

3.8.2011

Gay Pride Takes The Cake

The Icelandic LGBT community achieved an especially exciting feat this year; the Reykjavík Human Rights Prize was awarded to Gay Pride.

2.8.2011

The Constitutional Committtee

Perhaps one of the most important results of the 2009 Pots and Pans Revolution was the notion that Iceland's constitution—more or less a copy/paste job from Denmark—needed serious reworking.

29.7.2011

THE TRAGIC STORY OF SÆVAR CIESIELSKI

Sævar Ciesielski died in Copenhagen on July 13, of accidental causes. He was nothing less than Iceland’s most famous felon. Along with a group of his friends, he was convicted of two murders in 1980, after having been held in custody for a long time.

29.7.2011

The Future Belongs To Us

Richard Stallman is not a man known to compromise. This is the case whether you're talking about software freedom or where to conduct an interview (hint: he really likes Danish open-faced sandwiches). This developer, a man who attended Harvard and MIT before almost single-handedly creating the GNU operating system, still prefers to use a cheap Chinese netbook as his personal computer, as it runs entirely on free software (see sidebar on what kind of ‘free’ we're talking about here).

27.7.2011

The Many Mindless Murders Of The Great Auk

Do you remember the story of the Great Auk, or as Icelanders like to call it, the geirfugl? The history of this extinct bird is staple curriculum in Icelandic schools, probably because three Icelanders killed the very last mating pair about 170 years ago. However, "the history of the Great Auk has faded away" in Iceland, says Kristinn Haukur Skarphéðinsson, wildlife ecologist at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History.

26.7.2011

Nappies And Bytes

When picturing a ‘computer programmer’ we tend to imagine a smart, nerdy type spending his days and nights in the university library, studying books that are almost unreadable for the rest of us mortals. But is it possible to teach children how to programme in C++ or Java the same way they learn English at school?

25.7.2011

Playing The Game Of ‘This Time It’s Different’

It is curious, when one considers how obvious it now seems that the Icelandic financial miracle was a giant bubble, that this idea has really not received any attention from academic economists.

22.7.2011

IT’S REALLY EASY: JUST DON’T RAPE PEOPLE!

In the past three months, people across the world have united in a global protest against stereotypical ideas that the victims of sexual assault are somehow to blame for the attack.

21.7.2011

On the run

When I met Aisha, Bekele and Dabir, I realised I was in a precarious spot. As we settled in to chat, Bekele smiled sheepishly and told me, “If you hadn't come with him,” pointing to the Lutheran priest in my company, “we wouldn't be talking right now.”

20.7.2011

Will 101 Reykjavík Ever Reclaim Its River?

Lækjargata is one of the main streets of downtown Reykjavík, lying alongside Reykjavík’s pond, Tjörnin, through the centre of town and towards the new concert house Harpan. Not everyone is aware of the fact that a small river—or brook— runs under Lækjargata, and it is from that river that the street takes its name (“River road”).

15.7.2011

REYKJAVÍK ENERGY IN DEEP WATER

Overrun by Viking ambition, Reykjavík Energy built headquarters fit for Darth Vader, expanded ambitiously, dabbled in tiger prawn farming and flax seed production, went into the fibre optics business, invested in a new geothermal plant, speculated in places like Djibouti, and finally managed to run itself so completely into the ground that foreign investors will no longer offer the company loans.

14.7.2011

A Beautiful, Mysterious Garden

When I was a boy I lived close to the Old Cemetery (“Gamli kirkjugarðurinn”), which is just up the hill from the pond.

13.7.2011

A Box Full of Offal, A Bag Full of Blood

It’s a brisk September day and despite the winds Icelandic housewives, mothers, aunties, grandmothers have come out in droves and are queuing in the food section of Hagkaup.

11.7.2011

Whose Fault Was The Giant Icelandic Consumption Boom?

Considering the vast size of the recent Icelandic consumption boom that peaked in 2007, it is remarkable how little attention it received as it was happening and how few real explanations have been offered for its emergence.

8.7.2011

THE BEST OF REYKJAVÍK 2011

Our annual BEST OF REYKJAVÍK LIST, 2K11 EDITION is finally here in all it’s listy listness.

8.7.2011

The Best Of Reykjavík : The Anarchist’s Edition

Generalising about ‘The Anarchist’ would go perfectly against the essential meaning of anarchy, namely: Liberty from all possible manifestations of authority, not only the very visible ones—the schools, the church, the police, the government, the nuclear family etc.—but also from our own or our community's self-suppression and from media-designed stereotype categorisations.

8.7.2011

The World’s Only Elf School

“People come to me with their stories and they swear to me that they’re not a drunk, they’re not on drugs, and they’re not a pathological liar”, Magnús Skarphéðinsson says.

7.7.2011

Things They Like About Reykjavík

Here are some excellent folks and their excellent thoughts on Reykjavík.

7.7.2011

The Swimming Pool That Has It All

If there’s one swimming pool in Reykjavík that has something for everyone, it’s Laugardalslaug in 104 Reykjavík. With the biggest swimming pool in the country, numerous hot tubs, and a killer water slide, it’s no wonder that this pool is also the most visited one in the whole of Iceland.

6.7.2011

Mackerel Mayhem And The Unholy Triangle

Forty years ago, Iceland saw its last real spell of hard times before the crash of 2008. In 1968 it wasn’t the financial geniuses who failed, but the herring.

6.7.2011

Reykjavík’s Best Spots To Catch A Live Show

Pondering this question got me thinking hard about all my favourite concert experiences in Reykjavík through the years—and surprisingly enough, I found that most of them had taken place in the city’s churches.

5.7.2011

The Best Places For Skateboarding In Reykjavík

Skateboarding is doing great in Reykjavík these days. There are some new spots and people making some nice skating videos, me being one of them (search Facebook for ‘First try fail Mondays’)...

5.7.2011

Reykjavík's Zoo: Unexpectedly Fun

One of the first things you learn about things to do in Reykjavík is what isn't available. You can't buy beer in the supermarket. You can't attend a boxing match. And the city zoo doesn't have any jungle animals.

4.7.2011

They Are Not Leaving

More than 20.000 immigrants are currently living in Iceland. They enjoy the safety and serenity in this country, a rich cultural life and a functioning social system.

1.7.2011

Mayor’s Address: WELCOME TO REYKJAVÍK

Welcome to Iceland. Whether you’re here for fun and travel or for business, I hope you’ll enjoy a good time here and will get to know some locals. I would also like to make a special request that you spend a lot of money throughout the duration of your stay.

29.6.2011

The After-After-After Party

GusGus is the name given to an elite collective of party veterans, a collective that began life as a multi-method art troupe at the height of the gay nineties, and has since evolved into Iceland’s very own techno superstars.

27.6.2011

Building Giant ATMs

Real estate prices, which had remained stagnant in real terms between 1988 and 2003—that is, they simply followed inflation—took off. Between 2003 and 2007 however, real estate prices rose by a phenomenal 84%

24.6.2011

Pure Iceland?

Iceland is—against all common notions and expectations—not a very environmentally friendly country. In many ways, the environmental legislation does not go as far as EU rules command. But the problem already starts in the minds of the people.

23.6.2011

THE REYKJAVÍK ONE

A little more than a year ago, several Icelandic bankers were arrested and kept in custody in relation to the Special Prosecutor's investigation into the 2008 economic collapse, its antecedents and causes.

23.6.2011

Justice Or Revenge?

Last September, the Icelandic parliament took the conclusions of the Special Investigative Commission (SIC) under advisement and voted on whether or not four key political figures of the previous government should be charged with negligence and mismanagement.

22.6.2011

Up In The Air

Imagine if cigarettes were sold exclusively at pharmacies as a prescription drug. If Alþingi approves a proposal for a ten-year plan on tobacco control, Iceland could become the first country to take this anti-tobacco measure.

20.6.2011

Words Mean Things

Baldur Kristjánsson, a parish priest with a Masters in theology from Harvard University, is also a blogger on the popular news website Eyjan. Recently, he put forward the idea in an article that Icelanders need to change the terms they have for foreigners.

17.6.2011

THE PEN WIELDER, THE POET AND THE ROGUE

On June 17, Jón Sigurðsson will be the man of the day.

17.6.2011

Building Momentum In Moss

he sixth-annual Nordic Biennial is coming up on June 18 in Moss, Norway. But don’t worry if you can’t be there. The theme, ‘Imagine Being Here Now’, stretches time as far as it will go.

17.6.2011

"It's Incredibly Boring to Be Cool"

Árni Rúnar Hlöðversson and Lóa Hlín Hjálmtýsdóttir are surprisingly fresh, considering that the day before they flew into Iceland after a short tour of Europe with their band, FM Belfast.

16.6.2011

A CIVIL (COD) WAR?

Many people find the subject impossibly boring, but it is always simmering under the surface of Icelandic society. Many do not understand it, but others are totally obsessed by it. We are talking about fish—or more specifically, the system under which Icelanders manage their fisheries.

14.6.2011

Sticking Together And Fitting In

It's been noted many times that Iceland is a country that treats children well. Many new arrivals have remarked on this point. Iceland really is a children's paradise.

10.6.2011

ICELAND’S POLAR BEAR POLICY

The fourth polar bear in three years landed in Iceland last month. This one swam ashore in Iceland’s remote Westfjord region and was spotted roaming the countryside of Hælavík. Much like its predecessors, the bear was promptly shot and killed.

9.6.2011

THE POLITICS OF FAILURE?

Normally, local elections in Spain are not big news. Compared with the desperate revolt against tyrants in the Arab world now being acted out on our TV-screens, it looks like small fries.
It is hardly big news if an opposition party makes some gains when a two-terms ruling party has manifestly failed to deal effectively with a major economic crisis, causing massive unemployment and general economic hardship to the people.

9.6.2011

INSPIRED BY ICELAND?

Was ‘the pots and pans revolution’ imported by Spain?
Iceland and Spain are about as dissimilar as chalk and cheese. However, the two nations have lately found they might have a thing or two in common. Namely, they have come to share a common point of view about their politicians: That they are rubbish.

6.6.2011

Volcanology? That’s from Star Trek, right?

Sigh. If I had a penny for every time someone has made that joke when I tell them I study ‘volcanology’ (or worst still, ‘vulcanology’) then Iceland would not be in debt right now. And neither would I. So allow me a few minutes, if you will, to persuade you that yes, volcanology is a real science and no, it’s nothing to do with pointy-eared science fiction characters!

6.6.2011

Icelandic Volcanism: Where, Why & How?

Iceland sure has been in the global news a lot this past year or so and a lot of that has been to do with volcanoes. So why does this little country, stranded in the middle of the North-Atlantic, have so many volcanoes and why are they so damned troublesome for the rest of the world?

3.6.2011

OH NO! IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!

Farmer Erlendur Björnsson and his wife Þórunn Júlíusdóttir were in Reykjavík celebrating their son’s high school graduation when the subglacial volcano Grímsvötn began erupting on Saturday evening. “We were eating dinner when we got the message and we simply thought, ‘Grímsvötn, that’s nothing. It has erupted over the last few decades and we’ve never had any ash’”.

3.6.2011

More Asylum Seeker Woes

After the Directorate of Immigration refused to grant him political asylum in Iceland, Palestinian asylum seeker Mousa Sharif Al Jaradat went on a five-day hunger strike, and then slit his wrist in a suicide to attempt.

2.6.2011

Don’t Forget Your Speedo!

Here’s a fun activity: Go to your nearest pool and start swimming. Swim around until your arms get tired, your legs go numb, your lungs burn, and your heart feels like it’s going to burst. Then, swim some more. This is essentially the experience for most people the first time they play water polo.

1.6.2011

THE CONSUMER’S REPUBLIC OF ICELAND

The newspaper DV recently made considerable hay out of the fact that from 2005–2008 Iceland was the second largest market in the world for the Danish luxury home electronics brand Bang & Olufsen. This is according to one of the owners of the now bankrupt Bang & Olufsen store in Reykjavík.

30.5.2011

THE MASTER BUILDER, THE MINISTER AND THE CHURCH WE USED TO THINK WAS UGLY

The idea of building a church on the hill called Skólavörðuholt was first broached as early as 1916. Architect Guðjón Samúelsson started making sketches for the church in 1937.

26.5.2011

VIDEO: Driving Into Öskumyrkur

Living in one of the most volcanically active areas in the world, Icelanders not surprisingly use a number of words that derive meaning from eruptions. For instance, the word ‘öskumyrkur,’ which translates to ‘ash darkness’ is used to describe total and utter darkness.

26.5.2011

Ode To Nature's Fuzzy Balls

Iceland, the land of volcanic eruptions, glacial fields, and herds of grazing sheep, does not welcome plant life with open arms. The ones that do slip through the cracks (quite literally sometimes) are often marvels of evolutionary accomplishment.

25.5.2011

Beards Gone Wild

When you live in a town of Reykjavík's size, any change in the surroundings is instantly noticeable. So when an increasing number of men with long and sometimes extravagant beards began to appear downtown, it got our attention.

24.5.2011

Whale Watching Tourists Eating Whale

Tourists who go whale watching are mostly against whaling and come from anti-whaling nations. Yet, by the time they find themselves on a whale watching boat, 19% say they have already eaten whale and the majority say they would eat whale for cultural and historical reasons.

24.5.2011

Whale Watching Tourists Eating Whale

Tourists who go whale watching are mostly against whaling and come from anti-whaling nations. Yet, by the time they find themselves on a whale watching boat, 19% say they have already eaten whale and the majority say they would eat whale for cultural and historical reasons.

20.5.2011

DESPERATE TIMES DESPERATE MEASURES

“There was nothing else for me to do, I couldn’t take it anymore”, says Iranian asylum seeker Medhi Kavyanpoor (born 1958), who for seven long years has waited for a positive reply from Icelandic authorities regarding his status as a refugee.

18.5.2011

The Troubled History Of The Harp

For many centuries Iceland was a country without music. There were no musical instruments; dancing was banned by the church, the only thing akin to music were the rímur—long and rather monotonous poems chanted to simple melodies.

17.5.2011

The Three Stages of Integration

I've lived in Iceland for nearly 12 years now, and have been a citizen for the last four. Along the way, I've met other foreigners who moved here for various lengths of time, and have always been fascinated by the transformative process people go through as they try and make a life for themselves here.

12.5.2011

ICELAND’S BIG BROTHER IN LAW?

Passed by the parliament and quietly signed by the President just before the country shut down for its four-day Easter holiday, Iceland’s new media law, Law no. 38/2011, hardly made a splash in the public discourse. However, while legislation like the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative put Iceland on the map as a haven for the freedom of expression, this newly passed media law has created a hubbub in the media world, with some likening it to an Orwellian Big Brother.

11.5.2011

WOULD-BE ICELANDERS

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: North American billionaires apply to Alþingi for instant Icelandic citizenship. They’re likely all crooked assholes, hell bent on buying up the country’s natural resources á la Magma Energy “Sweden” and at least one of them has a shady financial past.

6.5.2011

IS HARPA JUST A FAÇADE?

Like it or not, HARPA, Reykjavík Concert Hall and Conference Centre, is now open for business, permanently altering downtown Reykjavík’s cityscape while revolutionising the conditions for live music in the country.

26.4.2011

Jukebox Babe

My first impressions of the second Reykjavík Fashion Festival were of a well-run and well-organised event. Gone were last year’s queuing and outdoor toilet fiascos.

21.4.2011

Pop Goes The Bubble!

In 2007, just as the housing bubble was about to burst, Newsweek senior editor Daniel Gross published a book called ‘Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great For The Economy.’

15.4.2011

Literature In The Land Of The Inherently Cute

(Practically) all political writing engages in representation and a form of adjudication—i.e. “picking a side”.

13.4.2011

Taking Out The Trash

The concept of a ‘trash day’ will soon take on a whole new meaning for the hitherto spoiled residents of Reykjavík.

11.4.2011

Making More With Less

Stand at any given busy intersection in Reykjavík, and one of the first things that you’ll notice is the car traffic. More prudent city planners, recognising the potential for problems arising from a focus on car traffic, might turn their attention towards mass transit.

8.4.2011

Why Can't She Stay?

By now many of our readers are familiar with the case of Priyanka Thapa. A young Nepalese woman who came to Iceland as an au pair for a family with two half-Nepalese children, she began studying and working in Iceland, and planned to make a future here, when her family informed her she had been slated for an arranged marriage.

1.4.2011

Improving Life In Suburbia

Two years ago a fresh cohort of architects returned to Iceland from their studies in Denmark. Wanting to do something together, the six of them decided to unite under the name ‘Skyggni Frábært’ (‘Visibility Fantastic’).

29.3.2011

A FOREIGNER'S GUIDE TO THE CONFUSING WORLD OF ICELANDIC CELEBRITIES

While America is awash in third generation entitlematon celebrity and other fruit of Satan's loins and the UK drags fame-starved Urukhais out of the Sing-Star mud to sate the gossip beasts, Iceland is content to contend with a different brood of idiots.

25.3.2011

The Iceland Airwaves Of Fashion

Reykjavík’s first real fashion festival took place in March 2010, a timely event coinciding with the current surge in Icelandic design. The festival proved an ample platform for fresh young talent, drawing considerable attention from the international press. But is the Reykjavík Fashion Festival set to become the ‘Iceland Airwaves of fashion’?

24.3.2011

Introducing The Grapevine Product Awards

We wanted to do something special for this year's DesignMarch, seeing as we had so much fun at the last edition.

24.3.2011

Design In Times Of Change

We called up the renowned Jerszy Seymour and went on to have a fascinating conversation with him involving everything from “the life paradox” to his ideas on an “amateur utopia.”

23.3.2011

The Professor And His Pixel Prince

The two have known each other since Siggi was a teenager. They get along well but at the same time seem exact opposites, Goddur being an outspoken motormouth who changes his mind mid-sentence while Siggi is quiet, firm and stubborn. What sort of discussion arises when student meets master after making his way in the wide world?

21.3.2011

Pucks In Motion

An ironic lack of ice in Iceland let hockey long go unnoticed in the world of Icelandic sports. But thanks to a dedicated group of puck-handling enthusiasts, hockey is rapidly cross-checking its way into the national spotlight.

18.3.2011

The Amazing Political Acrobat

For many generations of Icelanders there hasn’t been a time when our President, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, wasn’t around in some form or the other. He is a man of extraordinary political skills—he might even be called a political acrobat—but many doubt whether this is matched by convictions or integrity.

17.3.2011

Easy Money, Even Money

'Deep Freeze: Iceland’s Economic Collapse' (Ludwig von Mises Institute), by Philipp Bagus and David Howden?both economists specialised in business cycle theory?is hot off the presses, and packs a punch.

16.3.2011

Where Is Iceland's Stock Exchange Today?

Much like Britney Spears, the Iceland Stock Exchange went from topping the charts to having a meltdown in 2008 to basically falling off the face of the planet.

15.3.2011

Vík Prjónsdóttir Grows And Matures

Vík Prjónsdóttir was born in 2005, the brainchild of five Icelandic designers in collaboration with Víkurprjón, the knitting factory where their brilliant woollen knits come to life. Today, Brynhildur Pálsdóttir, Guðfinna Mjöll Magnúsdóttir and Þuríður Sigurþórsdóttir are the three designers behind the brand being awarded Grapevine’s “Product Line of 2010 Award.”

15.3.2011

Art you can smell!

For Andrea Maack, who according to our panel of experts made ‘the Product of 2010’, being an artist doesn't necessarily entail working solely within the confines of sight or sound.

14.3.2011

Skyr's New Partner In Crime

Skyr. It’s creamy, filling, and good for you. It’s cheap. It comes in so many flavours. Everyone loves it. How could it get any better? Well brace yourself.

11.3.2011

Telekinesis For Dummies

Packed into a single floor of the Íslandsbanki (née Glitnir) building on Lækjargata are several fledgling software companies, among them the six-person operation known simply as MindGames.

7.3.2011

Eat, Eat, And Eat Some More

Bolludagur, Sprengidagur, and Öskudagur: an Icelandic holiday trifecta of food and fun. They take place on the three days leading up to the start of Lent, and centre mostly around stuffing yourself with treats.

2.3.2011

Birgitta Jónsdóttir and the Icelandic-American Debacle

For both Iceland and the U.S., Cablegate has been a point of great contention. Whether that changes remains to be seen.

1.3.2011

Today Is Beer Day!

Beer. It comes in countless colours and flavours. It’s been around for centuries. It’s drunk around the world. And it makes me a way better dancer… or so I like to believe.

25.2.2011

Another Year Has Passed: Where Are We Now?

In October 2008, on the eve of the economic crash, then Prime Minister Geir Haarde appeared on television and gave a speech to the nation, closing with the words: “God bless Iceland!” The phrase stuck.

22.2.2011

Here Today Gone Tomorrow Or Next Week

In early 2009, a new institution washed ashore in the Reykjavík harbour, a little lifeboat providing some refuge from Iceland’s economic shipwreck.

18.2.2011

Gettin' Siggi Wit It

A life without skyr is a life half lived. As a writer for the Grapevine in 2008, while doing research for the “definitive guide to mjólk,” I discovered Iceland’s most delectable culinary secret.

17.2.2011

I'll Huff And I'll Puff And I'll Blow Your House Down

“The creditors who could potentially suffer the fate of recovering nothing from the Landsbanki estate are the same creditors to whom Iceland will be looking in the future to raise much-needed foreign funding.” —Unnamed Landsbanki creditor quoted in The Financial Times

15.2.2011

A FAILED ATTEMPT TO DISPIRIT ACTIVISTS

While a verdict is still pending in the trial of The Reykjavik Nine, it’s safe to say that the prosecution has lost the case in the court of public opinion. The decisive blow came during the court hearings in January, delivered by the prosecution itself.

10.2.2011

Information Without Borders?

The info-wars have begun, and Iceland is begging to be the legislative battleground. In the wake of the international controversy made mainstream in part thanks to WikiLeaks’ highly-publicized and continued release of leaked documents from around the world, Iceland remains curiously relevant to the debate raging globally about transparency reform, information freedom, and the future of journalism.

7.2.2011

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

By now, probably many of our readers have at least perused the diplomatic cables made available on WikiLeaks.

4.2.2011

IMF Urged “Debt Restructuring Outside Courts”

According to one of the American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, Mark Flanagan, chief of the IMF team in Iceland, advised the Icelandic government to encourage the restructuring of private sector debt outside of the legal system.

2.2.2011

Crealism Comes to Iceland

Luis de Miranda, philosopher, novelist and publisher, is the mind behind a new philosophy he calls ‘Crealism.’ He was recently in Iceland to spread the word.

26.1.2011

The Decade of Failure

While history—meaning: ‘the past’—does not change, history—meaning: ‘the narration of past events’—does in fact change. This is because we view history through the lens of the present.

20.1.2011

The Last Decade: What Happened?

The first decade of the millennium is over, and you know what that means - it’s time for some retrospection.

15.1.2011

GRAPEVINE'S ANNUAL YEAR-END ROUNDUP 2K10 EDITION!

So this is the New Year. Again. Except this time is slightly different, because we are also ringing in a new decade. Oh yes, say goodbye to ‘the noughties’—it’s time for us to mess up ‘THE TEENS’ (or is it ‘tweens’? ‘tens’? Whatever you want to call them).

14.1.2011

The Stories That Made 2010

The general consensus around here about 2010 seems to be “good riddance”. Where 2009 gave us hope that we’d be able to emerge from the rubble of our ruined economy, 2010 was more like striding proudly from said rubble, and falling flat on our faces.

7.1.2011

To Be Or Not To Be

Will October 6th, 2008 (the day Iceland’s luckless PM Mr. Haarde, asked God to help his poor nation since he himself could not) live on in our collective memory as a “day of infamy”—a sort of Icelandic Pearl Harbour?

3.1.2011

A Slice of Icelandic Christmas Through the Ages

How did a child-eating ogress, thirteen mischievous yuletide lads and a creepy bogeyman crash Jesus Christ’s birthday party? Ethnologist Árni Björnsson runs through the history of the Icelandic Christmas.

20.12.2010

The Yuletide Lads Rise To Christmas Stardom

In Iceland, Santa Claus doesn’t live on the North Pole. He doesn’t come to town on a sleigh guided by flying reindeer. He doesn’t squeeze down chimneys delivering presents, and he doesn’t eat milk and cookies. In fact, in Iceland, there is no Santa Claus.

17.12.2010

Bringing It All Back Home

They say that in Iceland everything happens five years too late. So it was only in the early ‘70s, ironically when Dylan’s influence in the English-speaking world was at a low, that echoes of him could be heard here.

14.12.2010

Low Voter Turnout, Mixed Messages

On November 27, Icelanders partook in an unprecedented election when the nation voted representatives for a Constitutional Assembly whose task is to rewrite the Icelandic Constitution.

10.12.2010

In Rainbow We Trust

Paul Vasquez, AKA Double Rainbow Guy, was in Iceland this past month to spread the word of the Rainbow. In line with the popular narrative so dear to the American entertainment industry, Paul Vasquez' story is one of rags to rainbows.

9.12.2010

Let's Talk

On the morning of November 6th, the entrance to Borgarleikhúsið could have easily been mistaken for a busy New York sidewalk. People from every corner of the world had assembled to converse in several languages about the common bond they share; they each call Iceland home.

7.12.2010

SEEDS Of Revolution

They creep so subtly under the radar that it’s easy to miss them. Like invisible elves bustling about, fixing up properties and green spaces in your rural villages, building and maintaining huts and trails in your national parks, organising cultural projects in your community spaces, building playgrounds in your housing estates, and picking up litter on your beaches.

3.12.2010

From Farm to Fork

Rummaging through boxes of vegetables in a local supermarket recently, I noticed something on my quest for the holy trinity of quality and freshness at an affordable price. The level of debate going on amongst shoppers about the quality of vegetables relative to their cost seemed to be greater than for any other food types.

30.11.2010

Features

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