Weird things you can/can’t do in Iceland

The Police – Are there, it’s not just a myth. We have a couple hundred officers. In fact, they’re quite many on a percentage scale. They’re however, hard to find in the streets of Reykjavík. They are famous for their Social media presence. Check their Instagram and their Facebook pages, which they use to help people out with daily life. They did got famous worldwide in 2013 when the VIKING squad was forced to take a man down. The first ever reported kill by armed police in Iceland. They apologized for the killing. Read more here

Frönskukrydd, „special french fries spice“ – Aren‘t you tired of salt and ketchup with your french fries? Iceland has the solution, we use specific french fries spice, it is salty but there are aswell some added spices that make it delicious. You can find the french fries spice in almost every restaurant, and usually we dip it in „kokteilsósa“ or cocktail souce, which is yet another type of mayonese.

Polar Bears – Two polar bears invaded Iceland in the summer of 2008. They’d propably drifted south on big ice „rafts“ that broke of from one of Greenland‘s glaciers. As they drifted southwards the ice cubes melted and finally the polar bears swum to the closest land, which was Iceland at that point. The polar bears roamed in the north but had to be shot as they closed in towards nearby villages. Their story in icelandic: Click Here

Drinking in public – Public drinking is prohibited in Iceland but the police doesn‘t mind much. If they spot you, don‘t expect a fine, but they will ask you to finish your drink or throw it. I guess thats better than any drinking game out there… In short, you are not supposed to be drinking in the street.

Parking – You want to look for P3 parking. P1 is the most expensive and P2 is quite expensive as well. Bring coins to pay for the parking lot. P3 parking can be found in Skúlagata, very close to Harpa. You can find Free parking at the University of Iceland and also around the church and on various locations around the church in neighbourhoods, but I don’t recommend those. Rather find Parking garages

The Icelandic Anti Incest application – Click Here

The Book of Icelanders! – islendingabok.is – the website that shows how icelanders are related

The Icelandic Phonebook –All numbers of all Icelanders are stored in a book that is published every year. The 2014 edition is 4 cm thick. But you can also look up the numbers online

Death – Every time someone dies in Iceland, there is an announcement about his death in the newspaper, and there his relatives have a chance to write their last messages to the deceased.

Read

The Icelandic Sagas – A lot of them can be read online in an online version in this link. Some of them have been translated, including my favourite, “Brennu-Njáls saga” See here

Nutshell Viking period history of Iceland and Greenland – Major landmarks in history according to various different sagas are lined up one after another See here

Independent People by Halldór Laxness – Nobel prize winning book. A mandatory read in Icelandic curriculum, this is the equivalent to animal farm for Icelanders.

Iceland or “Thule” mentioned in various works – An Irish Munk Dicuil, writes in the 8th century that Irish monks spent some time in Islands far north of Britain, in a country where the nights where bright in the summer and an Ice Wall was to be found north of the country. See here Ari Þorgilsson, Pytheas of Massilia (Marseille) and Saint Isidore of Seville (Isidorus Hispalensis) also have references of traffic on the Islands in the far north in their writings which date from before the viking age in Europe. Despite these writings, we’ve never found tangible archaeological remains of monk’s settlement in Iceland, only place names that have been passed down generations, like Papey, that indicate Paps living there.

The story of Jörgen Jörgenssen – The danish guy who took over Iceland for 8 weeks in 1809 with a couple of his friends! See here

The Kitchenware Rebellion – The peak of democracy in the world happened in Iceland! See here

The elf rock in Álftanes, June 2014 – One of our road constructions had to be stopped because there was an elf rock in the way! It got famous and received attention in the BBC news! To read the article, See here or see it moved finally in march 2015! See here

The Elf stone in Grjótaþorp, the beautiful neighbourhood with the colourful houses we pass by during the walk. The proof of the story! See here

The Icelandic Santas – We’ve got 13 santa clauses in Iceland! Read about them and their parents Grýla and Leppalúði here or here

The Nordic mythology, Gylfaginning – Most of what we know today of the Nordic gods is coming from this source. Has all the details on how the world was created and will end one day in Ragnarök. See here

Canadians – Read about New Iceland in Gimli Manitoba, apparently it was too tough to live in Iceland because of the cold weather in the late 19th century, and people chose to move to Winterpeg instead. Icelandic is now an option for students in the University of Winnipeg. See here

Germans – Read about the Orgel in Hallgrímskirkja, made by Johannes Klais in Bonn, a fantastic piece of work. Translation required though. See here

Italians – Did you know that many of our christmas songs are Italian? We’ve given them new names and lyrics. http://www.mbl.is/folk/frettir/2010/12/23/hulunni_svipt_af_islenskum_jolalogum/

US Citizens – Read about “The Situation” in Iceland during the war years. The US soldiers were more kind than the Icelandic men, said some, others said the Icelandic women were being too easily fooled. See here or here

Watch

A Video of Reykjavík in 1926! This short clip was shot in Iceland in 1926. You might recognize some of the buildings. See here

Having Sex with Elves! – Listen to an Elf expert describe previous experiences with an elf in bed!

Thule beer advertisements – Thule, the Island furthest to the north that nobody knew but can be found repeatedly in documents throughout centuries, is today a beer company in Iceland! They proudly present the best advertisements in Iceland. Some of them have been published on youtube but they are really hard to find. A perfect example is this 30 second ad

The Video of Jón Gnarr‘s best party – Must see! All their promises laid out under the tune of Tina Turner, simply the best! See here

Movies & TV Episodes:

Trapped series, “Ófærð” in Icelandic, very popular series about a killer on the loose!

Verbúðin – Great dramatized series, the most popular in iceland by locals for a long time. Supposed to reveal the life in 1980’s and 1990’s and how fishing quotas were established in iceland and some of our biggest fishing companies formed.

The Minister – the new Icelandic Prime minister battling politics in the country with fairly naive approach, but a kind heart.

The Vikings and the Vikings of Valhalla – Gives a good idea of the Viking life

The Last Kingdom – another viking series, more about UK though but still.

Game of Thrones – Part of the series were shot in the Icelandic highlands/north part during winter to represent the area „north of the wall“

A Woman at War – Movie on energy in Iceland and environmental protection.

Music: (search for these artists online or on Spotify)

Ásgeir Trausti – getting more famous abroad recently. Popular among all generations. See here

Króli & Jói Pé – Most popular song in Iceland 2017. watch out for these two rappers. See here

Steindi Jr. – TV celebrity, actor and a comedian, featured in various videos and TV dramas See this great video for tourists published in 2017

Sálin Hans Jóns Míns – authentic Icelandic music, one of the most loved bands See here

Jón Jónsson – The icelandic James Morrison See here

Friðrik Dór Jónsson „Frikki Dór“ – younger brother of Jón Jónsson, completely opposite music style, his being hip hop, r&b style.

Hjálmar – Icelandic reggae or as close to reggae as possible. See here

Kaleo – New band 2014 huge in the USA as of 2018. See here

Páll Óskar (Paul Oscar) – The most popular performer in Iceland in the 21st century, for one of his songs. See here

Daði freyr & Gagnamagnið – Eurovision stars, 2019, 2020 and 2021! See here

Radio Channels – In the capital the most popular one is 95.7 for modern music. Add to that other channels like 98.9 , 104.5 , 90.1 , 91.9 , 97.7 , 100.5

GusGus – techno, trance music. Quite famous

Skálmöld – Heavy metal!

Sigurrós, Björk and Of Monsters and Men are the most famous Icelandic bands