I hope that the new year brings us all joy and lots of more blog posts.

This footage of my town is taken on New Years Eve. The weather was great, the wind was a bit too calm though so the town litterally gets covered in its own smoke.

The people of Iceland are proud of their firework show on new years eve. The main firework sales is in the hands of the Icelandic Search and Rescue and it’s by far the largest fundraising event. Fireworks are quite expensive here but because of the good cause people are happy to spend a well over $100 each. Most streets have two or three very eager competitors who try to outdo one another in an extravagant sound and light exhibition, leaving the rest of the street in awe and smoke.

And on the morning of the first of january some volunteers go out and collect the debris; paper, plastic and wooden sticks and leave them in piles for the town workers to collect or return it to the recycling stations. It is really amazing how clean the town is after all that has been going on the night before.

via Heima Er Best___Haustið 2011 – YouTube.

I just love the handmade feeling of letterpress printing. It’s so genuine and sincere. Somehow. Maybe it’s just nerdy designer stuff that make normal people roll their eyes over, but with all this easy and fast printing everywhere with cheap paper masses, it’s so comforting to revert back to when printed material was made with care for the subject at hand.

Business cards are like the extension of your character, a piece of yourself that you leave behind. It must make a great first impression and it must leave the receiver exhited to contact you again.

Pic: Centvingtcinq

More excellent namecards can be found at Cardobserver.com

I went to a friend this sunday who runs a Hair Salon in what should be her garage. Brilliant interiors and she was so kind to let us in on a sunday afternoon. I may sound strange but I won’t let just anyone cut my kids hair, sometimes I do it myself because their hair just grows so fast, but you can always tell.. my friend does it way better

My younger one’s hair is just too adorable. It’s waivy and usually all over the place. I was really reluctant to see the golden locks go but I know it will grow really really fast and it’s much more comfortable for him.

Dispite the look on his face, he was really happy about it

After all our big banks (3 of them, each 3-12x bigger than our national GDP) failed in 2008 and in the financial collapse that followed, the unemployment numbers grew. Alot, more then we’ve seen in about 20 years or so. Our currency had been tremendously overrated so import was cheap and therefore production was low. All the old factories since the 80′s were out of business by then.

Then one weekend in october, everything changed. Thinking back, it was like everything had switched places.

Our currency dropped by over 80%. Restrictions had been set out by the government regarding currency trading. It’s still on actually, for instance, an individual can’t leave the country with more than $3.000 in foreign cash. I don’t know why anybody would, but it’s still not allowed.

So many people became unemployed overnight. The unemployment rate had been really low during the years before the crash, and now suddenly there was a large number of good workforce with no tasks. Just measuring the streets, as we say.

What happened was that creativity took over. People started thinking; “now that import is so expensive, what can we create ourselves that could replace that?” or even more: “how can we create more value in foreign currency?”. Workshops on innovation were set up, more funding was placed in funds that supported innovation (and I even got sponsorship from a womens fund for one side-project that I’m working on, I’ll tell you about that later) and more importantly, people started placing value on local and traditional crafts. The sheep wool, for instance had been thrown away on a large scale before because of the low price that was being paid, was all of a sudden a highly sought after good and sheep farmers were thrilled, naturally.

So, “Eitthvað annað” litteraly means “Something else” is all about that. Icelandic products and design, stories of entrepreneurs and an inspiration to other people that everything is possible if you have a good idea.

It’s also related to the fight against the belief in big solutions, aluminum smelters on a grande scale that pollute, waste energy and our resources and basically move all profit out of the country. We don’t want that, we’d rather want something else. Which is a little bit of everything.

It’s on my to-do list to translate this little project into english aswell because obviously it’s in an obscure language to you I’d appreciate a comment below if you are interested in seeing this go further.

I must share this video site that my friend Ragnar Freyr is running. What a great selection of mind blowing / mind resting, thought provoking and inspiring little windows into peoples lives.

Excellent points from Inspivids:

• Be mindful
• Take your time
• Reduce distractions
• If video quality allows, watch full-screen
• Use headphones when possible
• Be open minded for new ideas
• Pause and reflect after the video is over
• Take action! Create! Make better! Change!

Inspivids – Inspirational Videos | Videos that inspire thought and action!.

When everybody’s up and running, the boys have breakfast with their dad and I put on my face before work. So instead of leaving the house on an empty stomack (which i’ve done too many times) I’m growing the habit of making a boozt/smoothie with berries from the freezer, mango, banana, coconut… ect and pure juice, joined in the blender. With endless combination, the freshness is so rewarding and it’s basically the best thing my tummy could ask for after a nice long snooze And it’s quick!

The above photo shows frozen berries, pear, ginger and apple juice.
In Iceland we have a traditional type of yoghurt that is so perfect for these smoothies, it’s called Skyr. It’s much richer in protein and lower in fat so it’s lighter in consistency. It’s sold in the US under the name Siggi’s Skyr but over here we have two different brands.

So what do you have for breakfast? Do you have a fruit-smoothie recipe to share?

So a while back, and this is why I’m so intrigued by Odden’s article, we though that we could produce and market “Womens balls”, which could be stones or grainbags, that women could have in their pocket or purse, and by fondling with it they would get more self esteem… be a little bolder.

Daily, we experience roadblocks on the way to success. These blocks come in infinite form and variety; all of them serve the purpose of holding back our potential and ambition, unless they are overcome through a bold attitude to move forward. However, when these blocks are removed, the doors of possibility swing wide and some of our best work is realized.

I’ve actually once been on top of that glacier – another location though, it’s really huge! We stayed in a cabin over a weekend and toured the area on snowcats, it was magnificent. I’d love to do that again sometime.

Image from Kverkfjoll by Hanna Kata, from the Vatnajokull National Park website.

My country, Iceland, is very much alive!

It’s was only a year ago that Eyjafjallajökull caused so much havoc, with flights being cancelled in a large part of Europe. We hope that this volcano Grimsvotn, which placed in Vatnajokull – Europe’s largest glacier, won’t disturb the western world as much. However, it’s believed to be 10x the size of Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption and the power it leashes really startles even the most experienced volcano nerds around here. The ash that comes up is much more course so it doesn’t spread as far, and thankfully – scientists say that it’s not rich in fluoride, which would be dangerous to the people in the area and harm the sheep and horses that are mostly outdoors at this time of year.

Volcanic Eruption in Grimsvotn, Iceland May 21 2011 from Jon Gustafsson on Vimeo.

It hasn’t harmed anyone, but the stock animals ofcourse suffer , it’s a big dirty mess. And it gets to your soul. And the farmers in the south-east area are heroes in my mind if they hang on through this. It’s extremely difficult to see your livestock suffer and all the land covered in 1-2cm of ash. Again.

But a lot of help is available and we will get through this. Everyone.

It’s maybe easy for me to say, living up north and not affected by this at all, apart from my co-worker being stuck in Norway because the flights to/from Iceland have been cancelled. This morning when we woke up there was only little ash on our car, just a small sample to remind us of what country we live in and that we belong to the same community as the people being affected the most.

The northern winds have been dominating the last few days, with unappreciated coldness (+3°), and with us placed far north from the Volcano, the winds see to it that most of the ash (2-5 thousand tons per second) is drifting out to sea south of the country.

Apart from everything, I belive it’s a priviledge to live and belong to a country that is so vivid and alive, and I know that it will be beautiful this summer and full of life.

My town, Akureyri – taken while landing at the airport on May 6th. Looks the same today, although abit greener perhaps

Places to follow on Facebook:
Inspired by Iceland
Reykjavik Grapevine magazine
Iceland wants to be your friend