50/50

I have a feeling when next I come to Iceland, my family and friends may well ask me to bring back all sorts of products from the United States. I was a bit relieved last summer, when the kroner was so strong, no one asked me to bring anything. But one of my cousins has always asked me to bring her Secret deodorant, which I used to think was really strange. That is until I bought deodorant here in Iceland last week. Yikes! 

Four kids just knocked on my door, dressed up in Halloween outfits! And just yesterday some Icelander was explaining to me why that tradition would never catch on here. "We are already have Bollur Dagur" he said. True, but Icelandic kids are smart enough to know another chance to get free candy isn't so bad. Occasionally, we Americans get things right. 

These last weeks here in Iceland have reminded me of being in Washington D.C. after 9/11. Icelanders are a bit in shock, people are genuinely concerned about job loss and food shortages. But signs have gone up telling people to "stick together", and today I was listening to the mayor of Reykjanesbær discuss ways city employees could bring a sense of hope and optimism to the townspeople, to imagine a brighter future despite the very real problems that must be overcome in the next few years.  I find this a very good strategy, to pull on the internal strengths within Icelandic society, rather than to seek fault and blame. At moments of crisis, there is often the tendency to support social solidarity through emphasizing the enemy without, the "other" who poses a threat, as was done in the United States against Muslims. Appropriately so, Icelanders seem to be using the crutch of an imagined other, an exterior responsible party "who did this to them," (namely th...

When I am in the States, I always pick all the pickle slices off of hamburgers and sandwiches, and I have never gotten up the nerve to bite into a Vlasic Classic.  But for some reason I cannot explain, I absolutely adore the "marinated cucumber slices" Icelanders put on their open-faced sandwiches and hamburgers. Maybe they are little less crunchy than American pickles, maybe a little more sweet, but basically, they are still pickles, and my pickle phobia ought to have transfered across the Atlantic with me. It did not. Nope, now I've started putting them on my hotdogs.  

The Inter-Cultural Center has an open house every Friday night for foreigners living here in Iceland. This Friday night, October 31st, they are going to have a Halloween party. They did not say whether people were supposed to go in costume or not, but if there was a "scariest costume" contest, I think I might win if I just went as myself, the Happy American. People would probably mistake me for Sarah Palin. 

Today I bought myself an "Icelandic" ring. Although it is made out of silver imported from Denmark, the man that made it is from Iceland, the Vestmann Islands to be exact, and his design aesthetic is definitely Icelandic. Some of his rings were fine and simple, others rather rough, many with strange elements like horse hair sticking out of the top.  I picked the one that looked the best on my finger, nothing too crazy about, just a bit unusual, wide and of various textures. But still nothing like what I could get in California. 

The American sense of humor tends towards parody, I would say, Saturday Night Live and Michael Moore as examples, whereas British towards some sort of broad physical humor. Icelanders have a real gift for understatement, that is their sense of humor, they find real delight in watching the irony of a comment dawn on the listener. I therefore think it is highly likely that Geir Haarde was basically making a joke when he said, "it is not wise for a small country to take a lead in international banking."

At the book club a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I felt Iceland was far more male chauvinistic than the United States. The Icelander in the room was really offended, suggested that this is just because I work with Sjalfstaedi flokk types over 50. Perhaps that is true. I tried to remind myself of that today as the 60 plus gentleman in charge of the building told me that my questions would just have to wait 2 months. I did not, however, remind myself of that sufficiently to resist explaining to him, in no uncertain terms, that that was unacceptable. 

Today again some man I just met got extremely concerned about my well being, as I stood right on the edge of the second floor of our exhibition hall, overlooking a 4 meter drop, with no hand railing of any sort. Of course the railing will get installed before we open to the public, but as it is now, I mount stairs consisting of a loose wooden frame to access the 2nd floor, which is covered with thick plastic, in my high-healed boots usually, and stand on this edge, looking down. All the men I work with hover next to the wall, as far away from this edge as they can get, and occasionally one of them says something to me, asks me to step away from the edge or whether or not I'm afraid of heights. Usually I just say, "Nope" very calmly, but today I thought to add that I was a diver. That is maybe a small exaggeration, but diving is really big in California, certainly I dove into our pool every time I went in, and us kids usually jumped off the roof into the pool when our pare...

Though I am far from any Smilla, I have started to develop a tiny sense of snow. Knowing where is best to step, where best not to step, how fast or how slow to walk to avoid slipping, and indeed have found the right shoes for the job, which was really key. Sort of sad that just as this skill set is getting a work out, I'll be off to California. But I suppose when I get back, there will still be plenty of snow.  

There are few things worse in my mind than waking up to the sound of an alarm clock; I really dislike them and have never found the least need for them. My body naturally wakes up with the sun rise, always has. Of course, with winter settling in here in Iceland, and the days getting shorter and shorter, this begins to present a problem. I don't wake up until 8:30, 9am, when everyone else is already at work. I have tried to use this excuse before with my Icelandic co-workers, but they were not very impressed.

The first winter storm has hit, strong winds, lots of snow, and advisories for everyone to stay inside, only travel when necessary. Two of my friends called me to warn me about it. This demonstrates they still very much think of me as a Californian, are worried I won't understand what a raging storm really means here in Iceland. In a way they are right, since my reaction is just to be exhilarated , which I don't think is really what the average Icelander feels. P.S. Having just heard that it is 95 degrees and sunny in California, my exhilaration is a bit ameliorated.

Metaphors are wondrous in their ability to mean so many things at once. The cliche "A stitch in time saves nine" is of course built on a sewing metaphor, and I was reminded of it this morning, looking through my sock drawer, trying to find a pair without a threadbare spot or hole. I go through socks MUCH faster here in Iceland than in California, where I never wear any, and my purchase of socks has not kept pace with increased need. So I thought to myself, maybe these wouldn't have gotten so bad if I had sewed them up sooner.  This same applies absolutely to the Icelandic banking meltdown, the global banking meltdown. And probably a lot of other things. The non-metaphorical, non-cliched way to say this would be that it is wise to take action as soon as a small error becomes apparent, rather than to wait and see just how bad it can get. But I think many of us are far too curious to see the extent of the damage, and therefore delay action, or we are waiting for someone else...

Because of the collapse of the banking system, which was insured by the government, Icelanders now owe millions and millions of dollars to overseas investors, and many of them are down right mad about it, crying out that not only them but their children's children will still be paying taxes to fulfill this debt. I just heard a guy on the radio say he is going to move to America to avoid loading his children down with this debt which he had no part in accumulating. It seems he has not heard this simple but perhaps critical piece of information: AMERICANS ARE HUGELY IN DEBT TOO!! We have a 10 trillion dollar debt, and absolutely, the taxes my children's children's children will be paying are still going to be partially going to fulfill that long-standing obligation. Such is life in a capitalist system. Debt is par for the course, nothing to fear. The story goes that with debt comes untold prosperity. 

Last year was my first year here in Iceland during Halloween, where October 31st passes like any other day. No doorbells ringing straight from 6pm until 10pm, no neighborhood kids you didn't know existed stopping by in crazy outfits, no bowls full of candy and carved out pumpkins, caving in under the heat of the candles inside, no spooky decorations on everyone's doors and windows. This year again, I'll be here, and I'm really sad to be missing all the fun. The truth is I usually dress up for it myself, even went trick o' treating off and on into my early 20s, and have come to realize this is my favorite holiday. At least last year I vicariously participated by buying Palmer his outfit (he was Bob the Builder, Bubbi Byggir in Icelandic); this year I haven't even done that. But I did tell my husband that the scariest outfit we could get for Palmer would be to put him in a suit and tell everyone he is a banker.

I often lament that one of my favorite television shows, Star Trek the Next Generation, never seems to have made it here to Iceland. I cannot therefore make references to it with any hope that people will know what I am talking about. This is particularly a shame right now, because I think Star Trek is one of the few shows to simply take it for granted that in the future, we will not have money. We will not pay for anything, no discussion of banks or budgets or affording this or that. People just walk into a place and get what they need, everybody does the same, no grand socialist state controlling the whole thing. All services and products are just provided free to everyone. Though with how loose the credit was, perhaps this fantasy had more of a reality here in Iceland than elsewhere, thus negating the need for the show.

According to my aunt, every child in Iceland has their tonsils removed at a very young age, after their first throat infection as a matter of fact. I have had terrible throat infections my whole life, loosing my voice plenty of times, and no doctor in the States has ever suggested removing my tonsils. My aunt thinks this is barbaric. I remain neutral on the subject, and merely note the discrepancy in medical practice. 

I have just finally finished the index for the book "Images of the North," which includes a number of discussions on how foreigners perceive Iceland: wild, empty, natural, supernatural. The scholars generally avoided one of the most prevalent stereotypes I have heard about Iceland, that it is a very sexually-open society. My own experience has not confirmed this stereotype, just as my experiences in Berkeley did not meet any preconceived notions of a free-love hippy town. On neither count was I the least bit disappointed. This could be a bold new tourism add campaign for Iceland, "Come here to be left entirely alone!".  Worth a shot, since certainly the British aren't likely to be coming around next summer.

For the fourth time in recent memory, my cell phone rang only for me to be greeted by an unfamiliar number and voice telling me something totally incomprehensible. 'Sebastian told me to call', 'The shipment has come in' (in Icelandic mind you), and I sit there on the other end baffled, trying to figure out what they are talking about. Invariably it turns out they are looking for a Polish woman, I guess also named Elisabeth (only she spells it Elizabet), who lives in Sandgerði. This is not to say that I never get calls by mistake in California. But if a Californian looks up a number in the phone book, their sense of security that they have the right person, and not just someone with the same or similar name, is much lower. Lower than 50/50 I would say.

The air is so clear here in Iceland that the lights I see outside my window twinkle just like stars in the desert sky. In California, the smog usually made the city lights seem more like the milky way.