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Do Shit: Housing Benefits Edition
We immigrants get a bad rap sometimes. Despite the fact that moving to another country, learning a new language, integrating into a new culture, and basically starting life from scratch far from the place you were born is a hell of a…
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Fighting For The Freedom To Breathe: LGBTQIA+ Asylum Seekers In Iceland
It’s no secret that Iceland is broadly regarded as a safe and accepting place for the LGBTQIA+ community. Laws criminalising same-sex sexual activity were repealed in 1940, same-sex couples have been legally permitted to register their partnership since 1996, marriage was made…
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A Measure Of Iceland’s Cultural Atomic Mass
The massive impact of the nation’s historic manuscripts “This feels strangely intimate,” Ryan Boudinot jokes as he removes stacks of paper first from a pair of reusable Bónus shopping bags and then from four cardboard boxes. There’s one box for each neatly…
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The Útlendingur’s Guide To Getting Shit Done — Just get your Icelandic drivers licence already
Before any of my fellow immigrants feel judged, I’ll offer that this column is as much meant to be informative for those not sure how to navigate various aspects of Icelandic bureaucracy as it is dressing down of myself for being really…
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Last Words: Everything’s Not Awesome
“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” has been on heavy rotation in my home in recent months. (If you haven’t seen it, please go do so now. I’ll wait.) The kids and I practice our brooding while I read them the…
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Last Words: To The Nazi In The Café
Thank you for so publicly displaying your hate in the form of a sizeable decal on your otherwise standard issue MacBook. Standing behind you in line, you spoke with such congeniality to the barista (who is most certainly not Nordic… why didn’t…
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Last Words: 101 Doom And Gloom
“Would you rather it be like a decade ago when half the storefronts were empty and run-down?” Over the course of my decade living in 101, I’ve heard or read some iteration of that rebuttal to any complaint made about the lack…
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The Vegan Food Guide: A Reykjavík ExtraVEGANza
It wasn’t a million years ago that it was hard to come up with a reliable dinner recommendation for vegans in Reykjavík. But with the rise in demand from international tourists, and the help of the wildly popular Veganuary, veganism is on…
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Women Of Foreign Origin In Iceland Join #MeToo Movement
Women of foreign origin in Iceland have presented a united front in joining the #MeToo movement. As Kjarninn first reported Thursday, a group of women of foreign origin have organised via a private Facebook group to present a united front in sharing their unique experiences…
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Labour Legislation And Mass Resignation Of Icelandic Nurses
Residents of this country, as well as visitors to it, followed the news closely throughout May and into the early days of June, as talks of rolling work stoppages and an indefinite general strike loomed. With a possible strike of many of…
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Reykjavík’s First Soundwalk: Listening To The Sounds Of The City
The wind blows, the sea hisses. Cars putter and splash. The sounds of Reykjavík are all around you and, if you’re like most, the ambient noise goes largely unnoticed as you navigate through your day. But what if it were brought into…
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The Cost of Cancer
In the wake of the holidays one year ago, after far too many baked good, chocolates, wine, assorted festive meats and accompanying sauces, and just about everything else one might binge on during the merriest of seasons, my husband and I had…
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Help! I Need A Place To Live!
”Room for rent in 101 Reykjavík. 11 square metres. Internet not included. 65.000 kr. per month.” “Room for 1 person. 50.000 kr. monthly, plus deposit. The room is very small and not very nice, but maybe somebody would like to take it.”…
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A Coin Of Our Very Own
On March 25 the internets made it rain all over Iceland. Auroracoin, a cryptocurrency for Iceland to call its own, officially airdropped, and each and every Icelander was invited to claim a gift of 31.8 AUR. The forces behind Auroracoin’s development—an anonymous faction…
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In Love And In Hate With The European Union
To EU or not to EU? That’s… not exactly the question. As Icelanders have amassed in the thousands at Austurvöllur over the past few weeks, they haven’t been protesting in favour of joining the European Union. It’s more preliminary than that. What…
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Steroid Use On The Rise?
More steroids were confiscated by police in the first 3 months of the year than had been seized in the past 3 years combined, pointing toward a potentially alarming increase in the use of anabolic enhancers. According to a report on organised…
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Baltasar Kormákur Film Debuts In New York
“Two Guns,” a new film by Baltasar Kormákur, premiered in New York Monday night, and has thus far received positive reviews, RÚV reports. The film, which stars Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington, and follows a DEA agent and an intelligence officer in…
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Search On For French Couple In Highlands
Police and search teams are on the look out for a French couple stranded in Fjallabaksleið nyrðri, a stretch of land between Sprengisandur and the route 1 in the south of Iceland. The couple contacted ICE SAR while east of Landmanalaugar, near…
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Mackerel Wars Rage On
The European Union is set to open sanction proceedings against Iceland as their latest move in the so-called “mackerel wars,” that have seen the Icelandic government at odds with the bloc over fishing quotas. The Icelandic government is arguing that the quota…
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Icelandic Short Film Wins Award
An Icelandic short film has won an award at the Giffoni International Festival in Italy. “Hvalfjörður” was awarded the Golden Spike Award at the Giffoni festival, the largest children’s film festival in Europe, for “having narrated a strong story, set in the…
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Less Traffic In The Highlands
Park rangers and rescue workers reporting that traffic through the Icelandic highlands has been less this year than in years past. 2012 saw records set for traffic across highland roads, RÚV reports. However, this summer has seen traffic levels decline, due in…
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Home Sales On The Rise
The number of people buying houses in the capital area has increased, with 37 more purchases registered last week than in the same week in 2012. 125 house sales were completed last week, compared to 88 the year prior, RÚV reports. The…
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Summer Festival Marred By Drunkenness, Violence
The good times at Mærudagar, an annual summer festival in the northern town of Húsavík, were diminished by public drunkenness and disturbances of the peace, according to the town’s chief of police. Chief Sigurður Brynjúlfsson tells RÚV that four assaults were reported…