Night and Day: Two Very Different Approaches, If Shirts Are Your Thing
Nonnabúð The most celebrated t-shirts in town have come out of Nonnabúð for years. Even a casual visitor will notice mobs of young people, and many older people trying to [&hel
Mourning The Old Giant
On the morning of the bombings I had been sleeping when the telephone rang out three times and stopped. This short unanswered punch into my sleep dragged me from the […]
GRAPEVINE’S PURCHASES THAT JUSTIFY EXISTENCE
1 Jonagold Apples from Bónus, still 14 ISK/kg. A bargain, and, according to our own Paul Nikolov, nature’s own toothbrush. 2 Ten ticket pass for the ITR Reykjavík swimming pool
Turning the City into the Suburbs
Reykjavík is a car city, for better or worse. According to Statistics Iceland, as of 2003 there are 69,727 private cars in the city alone – one car for every […]
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Things to Fear
Laptop entertainment centres. Apple always understood it, but now HP and Toshiba have caught up, and you can watch TV and rip DVDs—actually, you can produce Titanic—on your lap
Buy Fruit
Shopping On the low end of vegetarian shopping, there’s always our favourite standby, Bónus. At the time of this writing, whole wheat flour is going for 68 ISK/kg, loose potatoe
Government Intervention Works. The Libertarians Proved It.
According to some, Iceland is the dream model for a conservative government. The former prime minister and key member of the Coalition Government, Davíð Oddsson, has toured the w
The Consequence of Gender Inequity
The dirty secret of the great Icelandic holiday Verslunarmannahelgi (Merchants’ Holiday) is that while many young Icelanders manage to only hurt themselves over a hard weekend of
Alþingishúsið (Parliament House):Redefining Open as Closed
The House of Parliament, the working place of the oldest of its kind in the world, is open for public, claims my shabby guide book. And the locals agree: “I’ve […]
Letters
FYI – San Francisco Chronicle has a piece (or two) on Iceland in yesterday’s edition, including a para singing the praises of the Grapevine. Excerpt from John Flinn’s San
Paul Gill: Friend of the Earth or Braying Ass? You Be the Judge
As you might remember, in Issue 7 of Grapevine we interviewed Ólafur Páll Sigurðsson, one of many people who protest the building of the Kárahnjúkar dam project. We gave him [
The Royal Treatment at Nordica Spa
Located at Hotel Nordica, Nordica Spa offers a full range of massages, beauty treatments and aromatherapy to the frazzled business person, sightseeing-weary traveller, or deadline-
The Seals
This all started a week ago, when I was told about the unique farm of Hindisvík. According to sources, there was a group of scientists studying this farm where seals […]
Buy Shit
Milk This is pretty straightforward stuff, to a point. There’s the standard milk trinity of whole (nýmjólk), low-fat (léttmjólk), both 55 ISK per litre, and skim (undanrenna
The Iceberg
After an hour of photographing, I was welcomed back to the boat, though we had to stop again as Helvítis got out to stand in the shallows and take a […]
Safe… If Guilty
I had a master plan: I had long been interested in city planning for Reykjavík, as modern urban living solutions have become more and more of a draw for tourists, […]
The Fourth Newspaper in Reykjavík Gains a Readership
Are you on downtime? Today is Friday and you don’t come out again until Monday. We are looking into the possibility of coming out with a weekend paper this summer […]
Putting the G8 into Perspective
This year’s G8 Gleneagles summit became an unusually high-publicity event for Britons. One obvious reason is that it was held in Britain, but another is that it convinced celebra