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Happening Now: Christmas Markets
The holidays are here, and that means it’s time for those traditional Christmas markets, woot! Grab your cash-swollen wallets and get ready to find good offers on junk you didn’t know you (or your loved ones) needed! Elliðavatn The annual Elliðavatn Christmas…
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Don’t Let Them Do That To You: In defence of MoMA’s “Björk”
If you’ve read coverage of the recently opened Björk retrospective at Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art, chances are you’ve read a searing critique ripping the exhibit, its curator, and the museum to shreds. Art critics from esteemed publications have seized upon the…
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The Book Cellar’s Book Seller
Narratives of Reykjavík’s used book culture often take the form of jeremiads—languorous laments for a bygone heyday, a paradise lost through, by and with the fall of print media. By some estimations, there used to be as many as forty secondhand book…
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We Own This Town
It came as a surprise to many when Reykjavíkurdætur appeared on the line-up for this year’s instalment of Eistnaflug—the female rap collective might not have seemed a logical fit for the metal festival, the name of which translates to “Flying Testes.” Unfazed…
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Best Place To Cool Off On One Of Those Icelandic Scorchers
It’s 15 degrees. Fahrenheit? No, Celsius. Shorts weather? Fuck you, it’s underwear weather. The sun bears down on a thick, humid Reykjavík day. The sunbathers in Austurvöllur have burnt to a crisp. You’re parched, you’re sweaty. Does anywhere in this country have…
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Weather Or Not
Red sands, yoga, seal-watching, camp games and nightly concerts in a barn—the only thing the organisers of Rauðasandur Festival couldn’t promise was good weather. The festival, held during the first weekend of July at a remote farm in the West Fjords, is…
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Hekla’s Volcanic Heart Of Darkness
People often set aside the interior of Iceland as “other” from the rest of the country: it’s a barren, uninhabitable desert, accessible only by certain vehicles at certain times of the year. Before going on my jeep tour, the only thing I…
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No Plans, No Stress: Route 1 In 96 Hours
The plan was simple: a road trip around Iceland, sticking mostly to Route 1, but turning off when we wanted. It would be the classic Ring Road trek, a trip that I had yet to make after living here for two months.…
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Thumbs Up: Hitchhiking to Þjórshátið
As I walk up to the edge of the road, I’m filled with a feeling I can only identify as stage fright. I extend my arm and put my thumb up—a gesture I had only ever used humorously in the Southern California…
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Still Waters And Colourful Jellyfish: Kayaking In Hvalfjörður
When I was asked if I would be up for some kayaking, the image that immediately sprang to mind was plunging down frothing, rocky rapids, doing barrel rolls through deadly currents as I swatted aside electric eels and manta rays before rocketing…