Reykjavík Grapevine - 31.07.2015, Blaðsíða 12

MADE IN ICELAND www.jswatch.com
With his legendary concentration and 45 years of experience our Master
Watchmaker ensures that we take our waterproofing rather seriously.
Gilbert O. Gudjonsson, our Master Watchmaker and renowned craftsman,
inspects every single timepiece before it leaves our workshop.
Your biweekly compendium of poop-related stories from iceland and also other
stories relating to tourism in iceland
News | Important
Gravepooping,
firepooping, shitbirds
and gravy
Perhaps no tourism-related theme has
resonated quite as much as Tourists
Pooping Outdoors. I’m surprised no one’s
made a Tumblr of that yet. It started inno-
cently enough, as tour guides in Suðurnes
complained that there weren’t enough
outdoor toilets and public facilities for
visitors to our fair isle. A complaint we
summarily ignored.
Things kicked up a notch when it was
reported that people were literally shit-
ting on graves at the Þingvellir National
Park. No ordinary graves, either, or even
graves of war criminals or evil wizards;
these were the graves of some of Ice-
land’s most beloved and treasured poets.
Perhaps those particular poopers were
unaware that they were relieving them-
selves on graves, and it was all a mistake.
Regardless, the pooping continued.
We learned that a cyclist had accidentally
started a brush fire after lighting his used
toilet paper on fire, after emptying his
bowels by the side of the road. The fire-
pooper discourse got heated, with many
wondering why the cyclist didn’t just
bury his leavings in a small hole, as even a
house cat might have the sense to do (but
hey, house cats don’t use toilet paper, do
they?). Meanwhile, experienced hikers
relayed their own best-practice tips for
outdoor pooping, advising prospective
defecators to do their business in Ziploc
bags to be carried back to civilization and
disposed of in a suitable receptacle.
The firepooper certainly raised the
bar for poop-related news stories in Ice-
land. Apparently not wanting to be out-
done, a whole family of tourists were later
spotted in Húsavík pinching one off on in
a parking lot by the harbour, much to the
consternation of eyewit-
nesses. When confront-
ed and informed that,
contrary to what they
might have heard, public
shitting is frowned upon
in Iceland, the tourists in
question reportedly re-
sponded that “the birds
will eat it.” Which makes
you wonder what kind
of fucked up birds they
have over in whatever
country these people
hail from.
Things eventually
took a turn for the mys-
terious, as reports came out that a camper
van had unloaded its sewage tank all over
a handicapped spot in the Keflavík Inter-
national Airport’s parking lot. The mess
was so pervasive that the actual fire de-
partment was called out to clean it up. On
examining photographic evidence of the
sludge, however, several people pointed
out that the thick, beige puddle looked
nothing like faeces and everything like
brown sauce. Which, employing Occam’s
Razor, makes total sense. It is of course
far more likely that someone dumped
four litres of Knorr brown sauce in the
parking lot than that a camper in a hurry
simply dropped anchor where they stood.
It’s not just poop!
The tourism-related misadventures that
Iceland’s media so enthusiastically re-
ports on haven’t been confined to poop.
On the contrary: there are various types
of incidents to discuss
and complain about. Off-
roading, for instance has
been a popular subject
of late. The media has
reported on several in-
stances of visitors driv-
ing their vehicles off
designated roads and
across fragile local flora,
ripping up what little
plant life is holding to-
gether this giant pile of
gravel and sand we call a
country. I mean, maybe
your rented Yaris will
not personally ramp up
soil erosion in Iceland, but then you’re far
from the only person perilously thrash-
ing a rented Yaris all over the island.
Speaking of flora, rangers at Þingvel-
lir National Park recently reported stum-
bling upon some enterprising young
campers who—clearly wanting to hear-
ken back to the Middle Ages and turf
houses—had ripped up big swaths of
moss to use as insulation for their tents.
And to be fair, maybe they thought this
was some variety of fast-growing moss. I
mean sure, we’ve all heard the expression
“a rolling stone gathers no moss,” which
pretty heavily implies that moss does
not grow fast, at all, but we can’t expect
everyone to know all things. In case you
didn’t know until now, now you know.
Lastly, capital area police recently re-
vealed that they had received a call about
a bald, tattooed man allegedly wander-
ing around downtown Reykjavík, wildly
swinging a golf club at passers-by. Police
responded immediately, but upon ar-
rival found a tourist carrying one of those
selfie-stick things. The tourist in ques-
tion was apparently so full of joy and self-
involvement that the wasn’t even aware
that he was swinging his selfie-stick right
in folks’ faces. Again, totally understand-
able—recording your insufferable gloat-
ing video for your friends back home is
infinitely more important than having
any kind of awareness of your surround-
ings and the real live people around you.
---
Watch this space for further instalments of
Talkin’ Shit, and learn what the Icelandic
media is saying about you! Well, maybe not
about you personally (except when it is),
but tourists to Iceland as large, varied and
loosely connected group of individuals.
As the Icelandic tourism industry continues its unfettered
growth, the local media has been diligent about report-
ing on the tourism-related events that matter. Events
such as pooping occurring where people normally do not
poop, and the ripping-apart of various local flora. We,
Your Friends At The Grapevine, have even hopped on the
poop-train on occasion, because pooping is hilarious. In
any event, the Icelandic media talks shit about you every
single day, using their sneaky secret language. Aren’t you
curious about what everyone’s saying about you before
you show up to a party? We sure are. And that’s why we
like to report on those reports. Consider this a public ser-
vice: we are taking all the shit that’s being talked about
you behind your back, and placing it in front of your back.

Welcome to Poop News.
Words by Paul Fontaine
12 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 11 — 2015
When confronted
and informed that,
contrary to what
they might have
heard, public shit-
ting is frowned
upon in Iceland,
the tourists in
question reportedly
responded that “the
birds will eat it.”