Mystery solved!

For about a week, a package I was expecting from my the States was simply no where to be found. The American postal service said it had been delivered to Iceland, but no Icelandic postal service had any record of it. Turns out it was sitting in the Customs House, which I now imagine as a vast warehouse whose inventory is unknowable, like the one at the end of Indiana Jones. Here import tolls are assessed, and I have discovered that the Icelandic definition of "gift" is restricted to anything under $100 dollars. The American postal system is not only less draconian, it also officially defines a gift as four times more valuable. Therefore proving the adage, it is better to give than to receive.

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