Land of Vikings

Iceland

Iceland is a geologically young land mass, having formed an estimaed 20 millon years
ago due to volcanic eruptions. The first person to step on the island was Floki, also naiming the it
Iceland. One of the most well known character from Vikings stories, originating from Norway.
The females were mainly brought to Iceland from Ireland.

Even if this happened with more than 1000 years ago, the genes were transmitted from
generation to generation so that even in this days some traits of the „vikings” remain. They are
perceived by foreigners as very cold and straight forward.It is true that they are very straight
forward and will tell you what they have to say witohut hidding behind the bush or trying to
make you understand politely what they have to say. It can be characterized as a language barrier
since in their language they are not really used with patience and they are constantly in a move,
doing something, even in their days off they go and travel ,work on somethign or at lest entertain
themselves with some games or drinks.

Evolving from this subject, since they are at heart conquerers they are used with
traveling, exploring, knowing other cultures. They have a saying in icelandic „ Heimskt, er
heimaalid barn” which translates to „ Foolish is the one that never leaves home”.

They work very hard but also they know how to have fun, having a lot of parties weekly,
big concerts or a lot of stuff to celebrate. Riding sheeps down the mountain until 6 in the
morning.

They go on equality between genders, races, sexual orientation. They are the country with
the first female president in 1908 and the first homosexual prime minister in 2009, perceiving
mariagges between people of the same gender totally normal.

They don’t have last names, their name being composed from their father name plus the
sufix „son” for son and „dottir” for daughter.

Despite the fact that they are perceived cruel beeing forthright, they were named the
frendliest country in the world, being very happy all the time when they see foreigners. They are
a population of only 330000 people, so everybody knows somebody there and everybody is
related to everybody. If they are in at a party and there are foreigners they start speaking in
english so they don’t exclude the persons. Icelandic being a very hard language to understand,
they adapted and learned engish, danish, swedish, german, norwegian and other languages, one
of the reasons is the lack of patience in others while they speak their language.
 One strange things that it took me awhile to adapt to it is their way of speaking while
inhailing. „Ja”.

They make barbeques all year round since it at them it is constantly cool,or cooler.

Icelanders also leave their house doors opened and the cars with the keys inside. The rate
of crime in Iceland is very low, they have 3 prisons but with low security having around 100
people capacity all together.

Icelanders like their private space having the houses spread all over the land, no one near
each other only in Reykjavik „bay of smokes”, but even there you’ll not see tall buildings. They
have plenty of space for them

Takk Fyrir