Reykjavík Grapevine - 26.08.2016, Qupperneq 4

Your Letters
This
Issue's
Winners
Dear Grapevine,
I was recently in Reykjavík for the first
time, after many years of wanting to visit.
It was a dream trip—the weather was beau-
tiful, the food and culture were great, and
the glaciers and black beaches were totally
inspiring and everything I had dreamed of.
However, I was puzzled about one thing. I
was really looking forward to meeting some
Icelanders. But from the hotel reception to
the bars and restaurants, to the trips we
went on, everyone seemed to be from other
European countries.
In the end, we went to Kaffibarinn and
started talking to local-seeming randoms.
First we approached a group of guys with
beards, but they were Americans hikers.
Then we tried talking to a group of blonde
girls in the hope of finding a viking buddy,
but it was a Danish bachelorette party.
The only Icelander we met was the cab driver
taking us back to BSÍ, and he didn’t speak
English. Where are all the Icelanders at??
Confusedly,
Kelly
Hey Kelly.
It’s true, downtown is totally overrun
with tourists in the summer. A lot of
Icelanders actively avoid the downtown
area during the peak season. Female
Icelanders are known to avoid the main
downtown bars because of being ag-
gressively chatted up by gropey creeps,
and there’s a consensus that the
slow-walking Gore-Tex hordes make
Laugavegur kind of a roadblock for nor-
mal Icelandic folks May-September.
We asked around the office for where
you could find some Icelanders to talk
to next time. One suggestion was the
Hrafnista old folks home, a leisurely
walk from Laugardalslaug. They might
not speak English, but they may also be
too infirm to run away. You could also
look into the opening hours of prisons,
or take a stopover in London and just
stand in any branch of H&M listening
out for an Icelandic accent.
Love.
Grapevine
Check it out! Whoever sent in this
issue's LOVELIEST LETTER gets a
free copy of the Museum of Hidden
Beings, from which our Monster Of
The Month is taken. Don't panic if
your letter wasn’t found to be this
issue's loveliest. You can still get a
bookat arngrimur.com.
LOVELIEST
LETTER:
FREE BOOK OF
MONSTERS!
SOUR
GRAPES
Each week, we run an Instagram competi-
tion to win a Grapevine t-shirt. The winning
pictures are posted to our account, @rvk-
grapevine—and also right here in the maga-
zine. Just tag your pictures with #GVpics to
enter. Here are the winning shots from the last
two weeks by @astaraldin and @lydiadanis.
Congrats, you two!
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 13 — 2016
4
#GVPICS
INSTAGRAM
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@lydiadanis
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Reykjavík
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quality garments and accessories
from the best Icelandic wool and
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