Published September 1, 2009

So, this has been a pretty good summer, all things considered.

We enjoyed some pretty good weather, drank some pretty good beers and saw some sights. We travelled around the country and pitched our tents, hiking up hills and mountains, seeking out seclusion, serenity and warm streams to bathe in.

We stayed in the city for the weekend, going to shows, spending money at bars, pissing away our youth along with our brain cells and our souls.

We hung out with our families and friends, sharing memories and creating new ones, enjoying talks and walks and snacks. We hung out by ourselves, watching TV, reading books, listening to the rain or to our massive collection of illegal mp3s.

It was a pretty good summer.
It’s not over yet, not quite. But it’s fast drawing to a close. And if I am to believe the local media and the general discourse, we are
slowly sinking into what will be a harsh and ugly and evil winter. A long, cold and potentially deadly one. Unemployment rates will rise. Folks will file for bankruptcy. They will lose their homes, their cars. They will all become alcoholics, and their children will all drop out of school and become terminally depressed dope fiends.

Now we will finally start feeling the full, dull force of Kreppa in our faces.

Summer was a welcome relief, as it often is in Iceland. We had our nice weather and we had our days off and we were maybe able to coast along financially OK, even though our economy is just as collapsed as it was at the start of the year and stuff keeps getting more expensive by the day.

We also had steady influx of currency – sweet, sweet currency – to the country courtesy of you guys, the tourists. This, I am told, helped. A lot. But hey, guess what. The main tourist season is drawing to a close. This means there will be fewer and fewer of you lovely folks and your lovely money around. Your lovely conversation and asking for direction. Your lovely fluorescent outdoorsy wear and your lovely letters to us.

You will all be missed immensely. In fact, I find myself compelled to plead to you guys: please, don’t go! Don’t leave! Come back! We need you! We miss you already! You and your fun ways and your sweet currencies. You enrich our lives, our wallets, and you make us feel like we live in an actual operating city. And that is a nice feeling.  Should you decide to leave despite my pleading, I nevertheless implore you to ponder the consequences. Just think about all the poor kids that won’t be able to attend music school this winter because their homeland’s bankrupt and lacks foreign currency. Think about Kreppa-ravaged Iceland, the poor, poor folks that rely on your patronage to make ends meet.

Please don’t go.

Also, if you stay, there’s plenty of fun and interesting things happening here in the winter. Despite what some folks might tell you,
Iceland is actually quite nice in the wintertime. It’s got snow and aurora borealis and beautiful frosty mornings where time seems to stand still along with the air and atmosphere.

You can go skiing. We have excellent ski slopes. And you can go hiking if you are properly equipped to do so. Not on the highlands, pray tell, but a lot of other places.  Icelandic winter is also an excellent place for drinking cocoa,
feasting on food and fine wine by candlelight, burying oneself in the snow.

It’s outright excellent, I tell you. Please don’t go! Tourist season, don’t end! We need you!

Also, there’s all the festivals. All those excellent festivals. There’s the Iceland Airwaves festival. That awesome pile of awesomeness, good music, good drinking and general debauchery. There’s the Reykjavík International Film Festival. That’s pretty awesome as well. Aldrei fór ég suður. Crazy January shows, Christmas and the New Year’s Eve that has seen Quentin Tarantino fly over repeatedly to gorge on liquor that he hates.

Please don’t go, tourists. We need you and your currency and your company.