Our first true encounter with the Icelandic people happened on our way back from Akureyri (see "Trips and excursions"). Here we had a small accident where we landed in the snow, without being able to get up. Luckily the local rescue team came and dragged us back out, but the whole event took a couple of hours, which meant that we had plenty of time to talk to our "rescuers". They were very sweet and one of them even tried speaking Danish to us, when he found out where we were from. Part of it we understood, part of it we didn't and so we just went for the "nod and smile" tactic. When we left them, we had not only been rescued but had also landed an invitation for a cup of coffee if we came past that way again.
The positive start we had seems to continue. So far we've been invited to join people for drinks and dinner. Some of us has been to the cinema and others have been out partying the night away. The locals are very open and extremely helpful when it comes to giving tips and advise on pretty much everything.
Us in a bar with some of the locals.
The language
The Icelandic language is a lot easier than we expected, WHEN READING it.
A lot of the words are similar or you can guess the meaning of some words, based on the context. But as soon as the Icelandic start to speak, it's a whole different story. Apart from speaking really fast (which we probably all do in out mother tongue), they cut endings and pronunce it differently from the written language, which makes it very difficult to understand. A few examples of the language can be seen here:
Written – pronounced (in Danish)
á = au (example: Hávamál = Hauvamaul)
y and i = i (example: skyr = skir)
þ (d) = th (as in the)
ð (d) = th (as in thing)
A couple of words we’ve learned.
skylda = duty
fjölskylda = family
snuður (danish pastry) takk fyrir kvølde (thank you for this evening / tonight)
takk fyrir (thank you for that).
þorramatur = (old food month)
There are also some words in Icelandic which are spelled exactly the same (or almost the same) as in Danish which we have a lot of fun with. The first time we came across something like this was in the schools cantine where it said "Lokum kl. 12". We quickly understood that this meant it closed at 12 and not that there was a toilet at 12 o'clock of course. Another funny example can be seen on the picture below.
Louise Ibsen
