I dug the maps given to us press folk by our PR handlers. This map of Reykjavik looks like your standard accordion-folder, but each fold is slightly wider than the one before it, so they can make readable tabs on the sides, making it easy to open to a particular section:
A second map provided by 66 North, Iceland's indigenous outdoor gear manufacturer, is hidden inside two little sticks attached to a lanyard:
If you go to Reykjavik, be sure to carry a camera (and a ziploc bag, to deal with the surprise rainshowers); the quality of light here is unlike anything you've seen. The combination of bright sunshine and dark, roiling clouds produce lighting setups you'd spend hours trying to construct in a studio environment.
I'd mentioned the thing before about punctuality, and I found that direction-giving can be kind of vague here as well. My hotel room was a 100-numbered room located on the 2nd floor which could only be accessed by taking a stairwell from the 3rd floor, which in turn had to be reached by an elevator from the 1st floor. Getting from the lobby to my room was like an episode of Super Mario Brothers. In short, if you get drunk at the hotel bar you can forget about trying to make it back to your room, even though there are these helpful signs:
And what's with the all-caps? Dude quit shouting.
Icelandic last names are interesting in print, they all look like online banking passwords that combine random strings of consonants and what you'd swear are numbers. They have some characters in their written language that we don't have:
Do they mean "pig" or "big?" Only an Icelander knows for sure.
I later found out that thing between a "b" and a "p" stands for "th." It's a cool-looking character, and I'd be interested to see if they integrate it into emoticons on their IMs.
Create a Core77 Account
Already have an account? Sign In
By creating a Core77 account you confirm that you accept the Terms of Use
Please enter your email and we will send an email to reset your password.