Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.06.2016, Síða 14

rauða húsið
r e s t a u r a n tEyrarbakka
“Very good food,
excellent service
and a very friendly
restaurant.”
“Amazing seafood in
this little town...”
“Not to be missed. Food fabulous and
staff wonderful ... This spot is worth the
trip to the small village alone.”
raudahusid.is
Búðarstígur 4, 820 Eyrarbakki • tel. 483-3330
just 10 minutes from Highway 1, the Ring Road, via Selfoss
open 7 days a week year-round
1
1
Selfoss
Hveragerði
Eyrarbakki
to Blue Lagoon
ca. 50 min.
to Reykjavík
ca. 45 min.
to Þingvellir,
Gullfoss, Geysir
ca. 45-60 min.
39
“One of the best
restaurants in Iceland.
Fresh lobster, amazing
cod fish!!”
Talk
Small
To Me
Ever tried to small talk
with an Icelander?
Please don’t.
Icelanders have a lot of special talents
developed over generations of prac-
tice. Drinking, for example. Making
gorgeous and functional sweaters.
Taking fish out of raging, frozen
Arctic waters. Chewing down rotten
shark without gagging. But there is
one skill that my adopted country-
men have yet to develop: the art of
small talk with strangers.
As an American by birth and
background, I stand out as exces-
sively chatty when compared to the
average quiet Icelander. I have made
it my personal mission to cultivate
the small-talking prowess of my fel-
low humans on this cold rock in the
middle of the ocean. In my mind, this
is an active project in preserving my
self-identity.
But I have nothing to say to you?
Solitude is a slippery slope for cul-
tural outsiders like me, and leads
straight to social isolation. Once, I
was in line at a Reykjavík coffee shop
and realised that I had met the man
directly in front of me through a mu-
tual friend at a party the night before.
We had talked. I remembered his
name. We made eye contact and he
saw me, and then he artfully avoided
speaking to me, first staring blankly
into his phone, and then strategically
glancing over his shoulder, conve-
niently crafting a blind spot exactly
where I stood. I would have said hello,
but I wanted to see how long he could
keep it up. Ten minutes, it turns out.
I have turned this encounter over
in my mind for many months. I am
not scary. I am not (usually) mean.
Why would a person so vigorously
avoid a simple “hi” and chat for a few
minutes? He probably wanted some
peace and quiet and didn’t know me
all that well, but I am convinced that
this is a symptom of there is a larger
cultural phenomenon.
Hverra manna ertu?
My working theory for why Icelanders
avoid speaking to strangers is pretty
simple: They don’t want to commit to
getting to know one another. In such a
small place, it is highly likely that any
random person you see is connected
to you in some way, which inevitably
leads to variations on the same con-
versation I have heard over and over
again at parties where Icelanders are
actually expected to speak to people
they don’t already know. The main
aim of this conversation is to weed
out the ways in which you might be
connected to the other person.
In a small place, such a conversa-
tion is like diving into the rabbit hole
of your life experience, and waiting
for you on the other side is a new ac-
quaintance you may feel obliged to
cross the street to avoid stop-and-
chatting to for the rest of your life.
I am not sure I would want to make
that kind of investment either.

Nice weather we’re having today, eh?
There is one topic of small-talk-with-
strangers conversation at which Ice-
landers excel: weather. Weather is
a conversational safe space. It plays
such an important role in daily life
here, that literal ice is often the de-
fault ice-breaker for social inter-
action. If it is sunny, windy, rainy,
snowy, icy, still, cloudy, light, dark,
or (as often happens in Iceland) all
of these in quick succession, an Ice-
landic stranger is more than happy to
point it out to you. In these scenarios,
you are expected to parrot what the
other person says, and if possible,
come up with a quick anecdote to il-
lustrate your understanding of the
situation. “Yes! It is very icy today. I
nearly slipped this morning.” Under
no circumstances should you reply, “I
am sick of listening to talk about the
weather. I know it is shitty/beauti-
ful/rotten/gorgeous, I live here, too!
Can’t you try a sliver of creativity?” I
remind myself that though weather-
talk is maddening, at least it is a step
in the right direction. Nod, smile, and
affirm, “Jæja.”
It is not until I visit the US that I
remember how rewarding small talk
can feel. Small talk isn’t intrusive. It
isn’t personal. It’s not a lifetime com-
mitment. It is a recognition that we
are all in this wild and crazy business
of life together, and we might as well
talk about it and cheer one another
up a bit.
Words
MARY
FRANCES
DAVIDSON
Illustration
LÓA HLÍN
HJÁLMTÝS-
DÓTTIR
OPINION
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 8 — 2016
14
It’s hard not to be
proud of your city
when you learn that
there is an active
moonshine brewing community in
Reykjavík. So active they are that they
are sometimes raided by the police—
who seize hundreds of litres of both
finished product and precursor—the
raids themselves making headline
news. Moonshine has just as much
cultural meaning for Icelanders as it
does for rural Americans, though, so
it’s pretty unlikely the police will put
a dent in the stills—if some of them
aren’t partaking in it themselves.
Asylum seekers were in the news a
few times this past couple weeks, for
reasons both good and bad. Or rather,
the bad news has more to do with the
Directorate of Immigration (UTL),
who oversee asylum seeker treatment,
rather than the asylum seekers them-
selves. Just weeks after UTL threatened
reporters with the police for visiting
asylum seekers in a group home who
had agreed to be interviewed, it came
to light that even volunteers have been
banned from asylum seeker homes.
These volunteers are, again, being
asked to visit by asylum seekers them-
selves, so UTL’s decision is bewilder-
ing at the very least. In happier news,
Nigerian asylum seeker Martin Omolu
was granted asylum, and as he’s flee-
ing persecution for his sexual orienta-
tion in his home country, the news was
warmly welcomed by him. Meanwhile,
another Nigerian asylum seeker, Eze
Okafor, is still stuck in Sweden, from
where he may be deported back to Ni-
geria, where Boko Haram await him.
Lastly, if you’re planning on a trip to
Lake Mývatn this month, better bring
a netted hat and wear a long-sleeved
shirt, because midges are swarming
the area right now. Midges are not un-
usual in the area—the lake is named
after them, after all—but things have
gotten pretty out of hand lately. The
warmer temperatures over the past
few months have made the midges so
numerous that driving through clouds
of them reportedly sounds like rain-
fall hitting your windshield, and even
Icelandic river fishers—normally the
most stoic of Icelandic outdoorsmen—
have fled the area. The fact that some
of these midges bite (albeit not very
painfully) has added an extra soupcon
of annoyance to the package. Stay vigi-
lant against the winged menace!
NEWS IN
BRIEF
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