Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.01.2013, Side 4

Hey there,
it seems that you know everything
around here (RKV) and I would like to
ask for an advice:
If you are a foreigner (bought a house)
and moved to Iceland: is a special office
or service for us, where we can get an-
swers about paperworks, the way things
work here, legal advices about common
things (like house funds etc) in iceland.
Or someone, who can point out the
right websites to get information?
Takk for your help,
Thomas B.
Dear Thomas,
We did a little snooping around for you
and found out from the Homeowners’
Association of Iceland that foreigners
who want to buy property in Iceland
need to get special permission from
the Minister of Justice prior to begin
their house-hunt, but apparently it’s not
that difficult to obtain. Supposedly! Be
warned that the buying market right
now is pretty bad though and a lot of
properties have been grossly marked
up, covering the debt incurred from the
previous owners’ mortgage. Real estate
in a post-crash country is no gravy train.
But good luck, and get in touch with the
aforementioned association for all your
paperwork help needs!
Hello!
I'm coming to Reykjavík for New Year's
Eve and I would like to know if there
is a vintage photo booth (who does the
4 different black and white pictures)
somewhere in the city?
Maybe in somme museums or gal-
leries?
I tried to have a look on internet but
I didn't find anything.
I thought that maybe you should know.
Thxs for your time anyway.
Best,
Anne-Cecile.
Hi Anne-Cecile,
By now you’ve come and gone, but we
felt like we should still answer your let-
ter in case anybody else was wondering
the same thing. In short, no, we do not
have any of those vintage photo booths
with the 4 different black and white pic-
tures anywhere in the city.
Your best bet is to check out Ber-
lin where you’ll find them all over the
place. Alternatively, you could go to Pal-
ais de Tokyo in Paris and we think there
is also one quite close to London Fields
in London.
But you probably already knew that.
Hope you enjoyed your stay!
Love, Grapevine
Dear Jón Gnarr,
Thank you for working so hard to make
our city a great place to live in, while be-
ing a cool guy! As I've been following
your work, you were stating a few times
about the importance of public trans-
portation, and your vision for the people
of Reykjavik to stop driving so much. I
think its a great initiative, truly am. But
let me share a little story with you.
Me and my boyfriend are living in
Reykjavik for the past few years, we both
work and study downtown, so both for
economic and ideological reasons we
avoided buying car and trying to get
by, by walking and biking. Each time
however when we had to use the public
transportation, we are astonished by the
undeveloped infrastructure. Take this
Friday for example. Early morning we
had to go to office in Borgatún to sign
some paper and get back to work fast.
Borgatún is 6 km from our house, aka
10 minutes drive. Yet bus wise it takes
30 minutes each direction. Ok. So the
new Stræto.is website layout made trip
planing considerately more complicated,
and also published wrong arrival time for
the bus, so we missed the first bus by 3
minutes and had to wait for the next one
for 15 more minutes, in an open bus sta-
tion (someone thought that having glass
walls around you on cold windy Janu-
ary morning is privilege). When finally
reaching our destination, it turned out to
take more time than we assumed, so our
ticket expired and we had to buy new one.
There is no payment with credit cards
or phone, and no possibility to buy the
ticket anywhere else rather on the bus,
without getting change. So, here began
our journey to find a place to withdrew
money, find where to change it into exact-
ly 700kr, waiting for the bus and embark
on a 40 minutes trip to Grandi (where my
boyfriend works). When calculating the
time (2 hours) and money (1500 kr), we
realized that Reykjavik is the probably the
only capital in world where it's faster and
cheaper to use private transportation.
Since now I will have to travel more often
out of downtown due to work, we decided
that in this city there is no option but to
buy a car. I'm sorry that the system is so
unfriendly for users that it breaks down
even those who try to avoid buying a car.
Unfortunately without massive change
throughout the entire system, I don't
see how your vision of preferring public
transportation over private cars, can be
possible.
Juli Vol
Dear Juli,
Well said! There is something so incred-
ibly frustrating about being in a country
that claims environmental responsibil-
ity and encourages public transport, yet
can’t get its act together to make their
bus system’s website remotely manage-
able. (What was wrong with it before?
Why did they change it? Why did they
make it WORSE? IF IT AIN’T BROKE,
DON’T FUCK IT UP.) Can we talk about
the bus routes for a second too? Like
how there are blocks and blocks where
no bus stops, so you end up walking a
lot anyway, but then places like Læk-
jartorg where they pile onto each other
like monkeys in a barrel? And how the
schedules for busses in consecutive
numbers all piggy-back departures, so
if you miss the 11 at 9:21, you’re gonna
miss the 12, 13, 14 and 15 between 9:22
and 9:28! URHGH. You got us started,
Juli. Slow clap to you.
(Disclaimer: this letter originally appeared
on Mayor Jón Gnarr’s Facebook page and
was later forwarded to us for print.)
Say your piece, voice your opinion, send
your letters to: letters@grapevine.is
Sour grapes & stuff
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by the sea
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Reykjavík
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4The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 1 — 2013