week 1 in iceland

Welcome to Spaghetti Blogonese.

I made it to Iceland alive. I couchsurfed! Setta, a Reykjavik ambassador for the couchsurfing website,and her boyfriend Bjarni were the perfect hosts. 2 gay girls from Belgium and Switzerland were staying there too, as well as a Dutch girl, and they left on my first full day, so it was all very one in one out, shake it all about. Setta always has people staying over. Setta showed me the Icelandic film Hafið . Setta lives in a cool part of town that´s pretty central. Setta is calm, warm and wise. Setta has a toilet trained cat -that actually uses the toilet!

Then I stayed with Máni for four nights. I met Máni during my year abroad studying in Miami. Máni has a flying machine. Máni has a guinea pig. Maní gave me hardfisk - dictionary definition below - and made me lamb. Máni makes me laugh. Máni has a sister who threw a naughty party where she squashed tomatoes on the wall.

hardfisk, dried fish pieces eaten as a snack with butter (also good with coleslaw)

Then I left there to take up residence in a sub-letting arrangement, again through couchsurfing. I live with Birkir who has written for the newspaper I´m interning at (will move onto that in a moment). It´s a small world. Birkir likes hardcore music. Birkir has a crazy dog like a dingo. Birkir has 3 cats that are good stressballs after a day at the office. Birkir makes good popcorn, despite him denying it when we watched Apocalypse Now. Birkir doesn´t charge high rent.

The first night out I met a bunch of people because I was essentially out on the piss by myself like I did similarly in Nice out on the French Riviera. Reykjavik is absolute carnage on a Friday and Saturday night and it was a total epic...

... It started out with a trip with Jamie to Belly´s, the cheapest bar in town that´s like Moe´s Tavern from the Simpsons. Then Jamie bailed out of the live show I had to review.However, I knocked about with a Swedish couple and the Grapevine (my newspaper) photographer Gulli who calls himself GAS - coolest guy ever. So Steed Lord threw a good party and I bumped into Villborg, from the Miami days who needed the bathroom, then went outside because it was too hot, then back in because it was too cold, as if I´d done something wrong. She´s hot anyway. Whatever. Then it got stranger. I went to Kafibarrin, and met a father and son from Manchester who were incredibly drunk but incredibly good fun. Then Bar 11, a crazy rock bar, and this is some crazy shit...

...I was with James who I just bumped into -this happens in small cities - a British conservation worker who I´d met earlier in the square getting free black beans & cornmeal. I order a beer at the bar and some local fuck snatches it and starts downing it. I ask: "what the fuck you doing?" and he takes off my glasses and headbutts me. I am shocked, time slows down. I look around me and weigh it up; libran boy that I am. Teetotal James and myself VS local drunk fuck and his friends. I pay the tab and get the hell out of there.

In a quirky little courtyard with a blue waterfally arts wall thing, James and I look for something to take my mind of it. And something delivers. Up a huge tree a bit like a willow, but not, is a guy with a beer having a row with another guy looking up from the street How he got up there with a drink is an absolute bloody mystery. It went something like this.

GUY IN SQUARE: What the fuck are you trying to prove?
GUY UP TREE: Fuck you. I love this tree. Iceland doesn´t have too many trees. I hate America too. Get me a fucking beer.
GUY IN SQUARE: You´re confusing your points. And you have yourself a beer. How the fuck did you get up there? You know what, fuck you!
GUY UP TREE (to James and I): I love this tree, someday it could be cut down.
JAMES: Good luck with that man.

And so the newspaper. It´s of the English speaking variety made in the heart of Reykjavik. I want to intern here for 3 months if I can. The office is packed with a record number of interns. Local kids Oddur and Siggi, fellow Brit Steph or ´Stevie´ and the wonderful character that is Jamie. You´re going to here more about them later. It´s the best job ever. I wanted to be a journalist from a very young age. I eventually want to be a private English tutor, but want to try my hand as a writer to begin with. Here is the first step.



PHOTO: - Jonas and Máni, My Icelandic friends photographed in Miami. You´ll here more about them later too.


CURRENT MUSIC - Vitalic - OK Cowboy
- Max Tundra - Mastered by the Guy at the Exchange