Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.07.2017, Side 4

The Top
Stories
June 30 – July 13
Words: Paul Fontaine
Not tourists
NEWS IN BRIEF You might have
noticed a preponderance of news
regarding tourists behaving
badly lately. These stories run
the gamut from outdoor pooping
to venturing too close to Geysir to
engaging in some freelance lamb
hunting. In defense of the local
media, including the Grapevine,
this is a time of year in Iceland
known as “cucumber time,” i.e.,
the summer months when news is
slow because all the official-type
people are on vacation. We hon-
estly love you folks, we really do,
and we know the vast majority of
you won’t take a dump by the side
of the road. Now if we can only get
you to stop asking cashiers at gro-
cery stores for directions when
there’s a long line behind you…
Learn Icelandic here!
The University of Iceland has been
positively delighted by recent
data that came to light regard-
ing their admissions; namely,
that Icelandic for foreigners is
the most popular subject at the
university right now. As learning
Icelandic is pretty much the only
way you’re ever going to make
more than the bare minimum
wage for your profession, this is
hardly surprising. And it might
help relieve the worries of those
bemoaning the impending death
of the Icelandic language, too.
All your cash are belong to us
To the great surprise of exactly
no one living in Iceland’s capital,
it turns out that Reykjavík is one
of the most expensive cities in
the world, and is in fact almost
30% more expensive than New
York. A closer look at the data
shows that consumer goods and
rent comprised the lion’s share
of what Icelanders are shelling
out for. Again, no surprises there.
Soon, grocery shopping will in-
volve taking out a bank loan.
That, or we’ll just go back to us-
ing dried fish for currency again.
A whale, yesterday
Are whales smart enough to avoid
whale hunters? It could be. For
example: both whale hunting and
whale watching tours are con-
ducted in Faxaflói Bay, around
Reykjavík, but in different areas
of the bay. It turns out that whale
hunters are having a hard time
f inding m in ke whales, but
whale watching tours are see-
ing plenty of them. We can only
imagine that the minke whales
are telling one another to “stay
out of the bad neighbourhood”
and just chill in the part of the
bay where people just look at
them, rather than try and har-
poon them.
Foreign Minister: Lovin' the bomb
In a surprising foreign policy
move, Iceland opted to refrain
from voting on a nuclear weap-
ons ban at the United Nations.
Why, you might ask? As Minis-
ter of Foreign Affairs Guðlaugur
Þór Þórðarson put it, the nuclear
powers didn’t sign on for the ban,
so Iceland signing up for it too
would have been “unrealistic.” He
added that so long as North Ko-
rea has nukes, NATO should have
them, too. And here you thought
the concept of Mutually Assured
Destruction was a relic of the
Cold War!
4The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2017
FIRST WE TAKE REYKJAVÍK
Goin' nuclear
Elín Elísabet
First
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