"Fun With Iceland" or "Kim is Bored at Work"

Ever wondered what Iceland is like? No??? Well my goal is provide you with a virtual tour of our island neighbor to the northeast and make you rue the day you said you didn't care about Iceland. Here we go....

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Tempting Cuisine
YUMMMMM - check out the national food of Iceland. Once you taste this you'll be saying "hamburger, schmamburger".

You are feasting your eyes on Þorramatur which, of course, is described as food of the þorri. Here is a description sure to tempt your tastebuds: it consists of many different types of food, for example sour ram's testicles, rotten shark, burned sheep heads, sheep's head jam, blood pudding, dried fish with butter.

Ahh - the butter makes it all good.

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Happening People

This guy is the president and this girl is Iceland's main entertainment export. Who wouldn't want to party with them?

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Easy to Understand

It will be totally easy to meet and find your new Icelandic friends. Here is a quick tutorial on their naming system. Piece of cake!

A person's last name indicates the first name of the subject's father (or mother in some cases). For example, a man named Jón Stefánsson has a son named Fjalar. Fjalar's last name will not be Stefánsson like his father's; it will become Jónsson, literally indicating that Fjalar is the son of Jón (Jóns + son).
The same practice is used for females. Jón Stefánsson's daughter Kata would not have the last name Stefánsson; she would have the name Jónsdóttir. Again, the last name literally means "Jón's daughter" (Jóns + dóttir).

One consequence of this is that in Iceland, directories of people's names, such as the phone directory, are alphabetised by given name, not by surname.
As a result, in a four-person family there might be four different last names: the married couple Jón (Stefánsson) and Bryndís (Atladóttir), and their children Fjalar (Jónsson) and Kata (Jónsdóttir). This also means that names of children do not necessarily reflect the marital status of their parents.

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The Capitol of Cool

The capitol city, Reykjavik is "The Capitol of Cool" and is described by the Icelandic Tourist Board as: "Throbbing with life by day and by night". Sign me up. And kudos to that slogan writer for a job strangely done.

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But seriously - the pictures do look pretty cool - see below. When I was contemplating doing some actual work today I was suddenly hit with the realization that I didn't know enough about Iceland - so I educated myself. And I think it would be an interesting place to visit someday - I'll just pack my own lunch.