Listen, people
Now that I've spent time in Iceland, and have gotten to know some people who live there, I find myself feeling sort of protective of them when people who know nothing about Iceland start going on about the only thing they've ever heard about Iceland -- their current financial problems. I was just talking to someone about my trip, and someone else broke in with "Oh my god, did you SEE that Times article a few weeks back, about how they used to be a fishing economy and then they went into finance and now they're BANKRUPT? It's unbelievable!" Dude, things aren't so great here either. In fact, the stories are shockingly similar. The numbers over there are far worse, and there are a whole lot more of us here to bring down the per-person amount of debt, but otherwise, this isn't like, some weird thing that happened over there in that weird place. I guess I'm just getting annoyed by what feels to me like ignorance. Like when I went to Colombia -- I didn't get this from everyone, certainly, but I got a lot of weird looks and advice to be careful and not get kidnapped. And mentioning Iceland, there was a lot of fussing about the bankrupt thing: omg, the currency is worthless, they might mug you, I heard they're blowing up their cars in the street for the insurance money, etc. (I think like, one guy blew up his car one day.) I mean, please. None of this crap is true. Bogota and Reykjavik were two of the friendliest cities I've been to. It's not even like it's bad if one just doesn't know about certain places -- that's fine. But if you don't know about a place, then you should be aware that you probably don't know anything about whether it's hostile or not. It just makes you sound retarded because it's not like things are perfect here, either.
Anyway.... Pictures!
Check out Album 1, Album 2, Album 3, and Album 4.
Anyway.... Pictures!
Check out Album 1, Album 2, Album 3, and Album 4.