Reykjavik Parking

Rules for parking in Reykjavik:

1. Always drive into parking spaces forwards.
2. Reverse gear should be used in emergencies only.
3. Pavements may be used as part of the parking space if necessary.
4. Parallel parking is over-rated and is fround upon!

Christmas in Reykjavik

The 23rd December is a special day in Iceland. Aside from eating plenty of traditional Skate in the evening, Reykjavik transforms for one night only. For a start there are many more people on the streets, with people buying their last few Christmas presents, and meeting friends in the downtown area. Shops fill with mini recitals, and a candlelit carol procession travels down the hill. Worth being around for next year!

Most watched radio station?

The RÚV testcard must be one of the most watched images in Iceland. Forget about Geysir, Gullfoss, Snæfell, Byörk, Hallgrimskirkja, and the rest of them. Every day thousands of people across Iceland watch this screenshot, whilst listening to RÚV radio.

It's broadcast from the station close to lunchtime so there's plenty of time to catch it :)

Winding up Dubya

Iceland jumped into the international limelight again this week when an Icelandic teenager managed to get through to President Bush's personal telephone number, and left a message pretending to be the President of Iceland, and asked the president to call back on Monday. However instead of a phone call he received a house call from the local police following a tipoff from the secret service demanding how he got hold of the personal number.

Blog post here
mbl.is article (in Icelandic unfortunately)

Iceland: Banana Republic

Todays interesting fact: Iceland is Europe's biggest banana producer. (Before you start getting pedantic, it's probably not the case now, but was maybe 5 years ago).

Technically doesn't that make the country a Banana Republic?!?

Before you start wondering how on earth this could be the case, here's the reason: The Icelandic government imposed severe trade restrictions on the importation of bananas into the country, therefore making home grown banana production in geothermal greenhouses viable. That's what happens when you start playing with the economy.

Thanks to the Iceland Eyes blog for the heads up.

Ísland best í heimi!!

It's a phrase that gets rolled out almost as regularly as "How do you like iceland?". Sometimes with tongue in cheek, and other times very seriously. "Ísland best í heimi" translates to "Iceland is the best country in the world" or there abouts. Now recently there was a survey that gave some sort of credit to this.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2642096720071127
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/

Actually the research covers the Human Development index. This "measures a country's average achievements in three basic aspects of human development: health, knowledge, and a decent standard of living".

What do you think? You can't argue that there is a generally high standard of living here, and there are plenty of people driving nice cars.