Pottery

Every Icelander has a container they keep their coffee in, they dump the coffee out of the bag into said container. I always lamented not having a container like that, ever since I started drinking coffee years ago.

One Fall, when I was walking along the streets of Athens, I wandered into a pottery museum, and after looking around the exhibits, I wanted to buy something. I asked the sales shop lady if she had anything for coffee. At first they looked around, half apologetic, not sure what they had. Then one lady pulled out a small white jar, with an olive branch decoration, and she pointed out that the Greek letters in the center spelled coffee. We looked at each other, both started smiling and laughing. Of course I bought it, had it with me in California, and now it is my favorite thing in my kitchen, here in Iceland.

That alone made up for my rather unfortunate Greek experience.