Gimlé

Maybe I’m just paranoid but I can feel my English deteriorate while I’m here in Iceland.

It is a process—which repeats itself exactly in reverse when I return to an English-speaking country after being in Iceland.

Makes me worry about these posts I’m writing, resulting—of course—in a lengthened writing process where I try to check and double check everything I write.

It’s not just that I’m in an Icelandic environment with little to no English about. One of the reasons is the fact that I don’t have the time to do my regular daily reading (both online and offline) which I’m sure would have delayed the “language switch”.

Today we had my grandmother’s pre-Christmas do where I did my studious best to avoid eating roasted sheep’s heads, preferring the smoked and salted lamb.

Family gatherings like these always seem to be teaming with children, running about and screaming. More every year.

People, without fail, put up an expression of shock and horror when I call the little monsters “monsters” (or “skrímsli” in Icelandic).

Thankfully, most people have given up on the expectation that I should father a few myself (not likely, my dears).

And the perpetual “what do you do?” problem continues to plague most people who work and study away from their family.

On one hand when somebody is actually interested you are likely to put the rest to sleep or, worse even, somebody might actually view themselves as a bit of a “specialist” striking up a conversation on web design and media just because they’ve made a web page in Dreamweaver and are capable of firing iMovie up.

Cringe.

Vapid, superficial party-speak is unfortunately an international problem.

The 23rd of December is the last day before Christmas over here. Traditionally everybody wanders downtown in the afternoon to take care of the last minute shopping as well as simply to see everybody.

Running into friends and family is guaranteed.

One of the main traditions on this day, though, is on the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service’s Radio One (roughly equivalent to a mix between BBC’s Radio 3 and Radio 4).

After the 13:00 news the announcer begins to read the Christmas Greetings.

These are short 22 word greetings that the public can buy for a small amount of money to send their best wishes to all and sundry.

This year they are over forty four thousand words in total.

That’s a lot of goodwill.

Baldur,
Garðabær, Iceland.