Doc Meth. E. Drines Practice » Iceland

Day out at the volcano

Doc Meth. E. Drine — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:15:54 +0000

So on saturday I went to the volcanic eruption which is currently going on in Iceland. 3 co-workers of mine and me rented some helicopter trip which went from Skógafoss up to Fimmvörduháls where the eruption is happening. There is only one word to describe this experience: AWESOME. We took quite some fotos and some video footage, which I’ll try to compile here as soon as possible. Here you can see some of the pictures Alex took, for a start.

Þorrablót

Doc Meth. E. Drine — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:50:19 +0000

So we had Þorrablót yesterday. For those of you which do not know what this is, it’s the traditional icelandic midwinter feast where a lot of original viking dishes are being served. And those dishes are really tough. For a start, there’s sheep head (Svið) and sheep testicles (Hrútspungur). These do actually taste a lot better than one might expect… as long as the strong smell of the putrefied shark (Hákarl) has not taken away all your senses by then (my clothes still smell from it, after having them out on the balcony for about 12 hours now).

Just make sure that you have a decent supply of Brennivin with you. Your stomach will long for it after you had those dishes; and it brings you into the right mood for dancing through the remaining night, which is definitely the more enjoyable part of the celebration.

Iceland? High-Tech-Land!

Doc Meth. E. Drine — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:15:06 +0000

If there’s one thing that constantly surprises me over here in Iceland, then it is the amount of high-tech applied in every day life. No, I do not mean that basically every delivery service and postman is equipped with some mobile credit card reading device. Even the use of facial recognition as access control mechanism to the local gyms is something that I could understand – after all, it is a small country and every high profile person is probably going to that gym, too , and leave alone the amount of times someone forgets his or her membership card to get access.

However, what really amazed me was when I was waiting at the university bus stop. It starts with some animated advertisement inside the lodge. OK, nothing special. However, that animated advertisement also has a heating device which is heating the lodge. And no, the lodge cannot be closed, so it is basically heating 24-7. To top it off that lodge also has a wifi access point.

Man, I really like this country. Always good for a surprise, and totally nerdy.