All Things Iceland

Over the last week and a half, the south of Iceland has experienced tens of thousands of earthquakes and experts told us to brace for a possible volcanic eruption. All eyes are still on Reykjanes Peninsula, the place where all the action might go down. Mainstream media in other countries have picked up the story, which has resulted in people reaching out to me to know if I am safe and to hear what life is like in Iceland as we wait to see if a volcano will go off. During this episode, I’m sharing how I feel about the situation, if we are in any danger in Iceland, what experts are saying and more.

I am not an expert in Geology or Volcanology, but I hope to have one of them on soon to talk about the situation, especially if the threat of a volcano erupting continues.

In a previous episode, I interviewed Helga Kristín, a geologist and volcano expert. She shared why Iceland is so unique from a geological standpoint. If you haven’t heard that interview, I recommend checking it out.

On Wednesday, February 24th is when we started to feel earthquakes in the south. That day we experienced an earthquake that was the magnitude of 5.7. I remember this clearly because I took a short video of it and posted it in my Instagram stories. From that day on, we started to feel earthquakes consistently but not very many of them at once. Because I live in Mosfellsbær, which is about a 15 minute drive from downtown Reykjavík, I don’t feel the earthquakes as strongly as those in the city and definitely not as strongly as people living on the Reykjanes Peninsula. It was only early this week that the frequency of earthquakes increased. 

When many thousands of them started happening in a very short period of time and there was magma build up, experts started to predict that we could have a volcanic eruption. One prediction was that it could happen within a few hours. However, that didn’t happen. The seismic activity has died down but that doesn’t mean this over. Right now we are just waiting to see what else the earth communicates to us.

For most people, their best reference regarding the Reykjanes Peninsula is that the iconic Blue Lagoon spa is located there. Keflavík International airport is also located on this peninsula. It’s about a 40 to 50 minute drive from the airport to Reykavík. The fascinating thing to me is that this peninsula is so underrated. The diverse landscape and nature is insanely beautiful there. You can find black sand beaches, an area that looks like the highlands, geothermal hot springs and so much more. I feel like it is almost hidden in plain sight because hundreds of thousands of visitors to Iceland arrive at the airport and/or visit the Blue Lagoon and then skip the rest of the peninsula.

The feelings of people in Iceland are mixed. Some are feeling very anxious because of the earthquakes and others are feeling excited about the prospect of an eruption. Of course, there are probably some people who don’t care at all. It’s important to know that Icelandic buildings have been made to withstand large earthquakes, so that is something we don’t need to worry about.

I’m in the group of people that are excited about all of this. Geological experts and other authorities have made it clear that we are not in any danger and they are doing their best to keep us all informed. Because of that, I feel comfortable being excited about possibly experiencing my first volcanic eruption. 

Below are the possible scenarios that have been outlined by experts. It is an excerpt from an Iceland Review article:

The fifth scenario essentially means a volcanic eruption. However, scientists predict that even a medium-sized lava flow would not impact people because it would not reach inhabited areas. 

Here you can see a live stream of the area where the earthquakes are coming from and the volcano might erupt.

The authorities have evacuation plans for major catastrophic events, such as a big eruption. For the most part, the instructions change depending on the region and circumstances of the event. Here is a great article from The Reykjavík Grapevine about evacuation plans that the Icelandic government has set up.

There have been some other earthquakes felt recently from the area where Eyjafjallajökull is located. There are many active volcanoes in Iceland so it isn’t abnormal that this would happen but it does make for quite an interesting experience for all of us living here.

There is a running joke in Iceland that it will be so much fun to hear foreign media people try to pronounce the name of the volcano that might go off. It’s name is Þráinnsskjaldarhraun! During this episode, I teach you how to pronounce  Þráinnsskjaldarhraun volcano.

Þráinn – the name of a person, potentially a character in Njáls Saga

Skjaldar – shield/armor

Hraun – lava

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. It’s a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!

María Thelma Smáradóttir is a talented actor in Iceland. During this interview, she gives some insight on what it was like growing up in Iceland with Icelandic and Thai heritage. She was the first person of Asian descent to graduate from the Icelandic Academy of Arts in Drama. It was fascinating to hear how she had to navigate this mixed heritage and it has been like for her as a working actor in the theater and film industry here. I think it’s fantastic that she had a one woman show called “Welcome Home”, which was a spoken word performance of her mother’s immigrant story from Thailand. 

The most epic thing is that her first feature film was her starring alongside Mads Mikkelsen in the movie, “Arctic”. How awesome is that?! As you can probably tell from many of my other interviews, I love to have different people from all walks of life in Iceland to tell their stories. I am grateful and honored that María Thelma was open to sharing hers.

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. It’s a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!

I know that Black History Month is a US tradition, I still want to dedicate the month of February to telling the stories of Black and mixed race people in the country. If you are curious about some awesome Icelandic Black history, I suggest watching my video about Hans Jonatan, Iceland’s first black citizen and listening to the podcast episode I did with the Icelandic author of the book about Hans Jonatan, Gisli Pálsson. 

To kick that off this month of sharing Black and mixed race stories here, I’m sharing my interview with Innocentia Fiati “Mama Ghana” Friðgeirsson. She is lovingly called Mama Ghana and she is an absolute ball of sunshine. Her happiness is infectious and she has such amazing energy. She has been here for almost two decades and has been spreading her sunshine wherever she goes. 

Before jumping into the interview, I want to share the winners of the Icelandic book giveaway. First, thank you to everyone that entered. I choose the winners at random and here they are:

Rodolfo won The Story of the Blue Planet

Kate won LoveStar

Kristi won On Time and Water

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. It’s a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!

It was such a pleasant surprise to have Áslaug Arna Sigurbjörnsdóttir, the Minister of Justice in Iceland, as my guest this week. She leads quite a busy life as a Parliamentarian and Minister, and it was great she was able to find time to chat.

During the interview, Áslaug Arna shares the positives and negatives of being in this position of power at such a young age and as a woman. Some of the other topics we talk about are the events that led up to her becoming the Minister of Justice, gender based discrimination in the workplace (including within Parliament), about refugees seeking asylum in Iceland, and more. I gained so much insight into Iceland through this episode and I’m excited to share this interview with you.

I’m giving away three of Andri Snær’s books, which are below.

To enter win one of the books, all you have to do is leave a positive review for the All Things Iceland podcast (you can use this link to easily do it), take a screenshot of your review, and send that screenshot to me in an email at jewells(at)fromforeigntofamiliar(dot)com. If you have already left a review for the podcast, please just send me a screenshot of that review.

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. It’s a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!

Gógó Starr is an Icelandic drag queen that is well known in the country. Gógó made history by being the first ever drag queen fjallkonan, or woman of the mountains, which is a symbol of the Icelandic nation and a very important part of the celebrations of Iceland’s independence. The celebration of the independence of the nation happens every June 17th. Aldís Amah, who I interviewed a while back on the podcast, was the first woman of color fjallkonan in 2019. It’s a huge honor to be fjallkonan and Gógó Starr had this role in 2018. In addition to that, Gógó co-founded Drag Súgur in 2015 after winning the annual Icelandic drag contest. 

The drag show became so popular that it was turned into a monthly event at Gaukurinn that is open to all adults who want to attend. Hopefully, when COVID is over, the show will resume. I especially love that the show is all about inclusivity. Gógó Starr goes into more about how inclusive it is during the interview. It was an absolute blast to do this interview.

I’m giving away three of Andri Snær’s books, which are below.

To enter win one of the books, all you have to do is leave a positive review for the All Things Iceland podcast (you can use this link to easily do it), take a screenshot of your review, and send that screenshot to me in an email at jewells(at)fromforeigntofamiliar(dot)com. If you have already left a review for the podcast, please just send me a screenshot of that review.

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. It’s a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!

Claudia Ashanie Wilson is a human rights lawyer and activist who moved from her home country Jamaica to Iceland in 2001. When Claudia came to Iceland she didn’t speak Icelandic nor had she previous been to law school. Through a lot of hard work, she became fluent in Icelandic. She received her Masters Degree in 2014 in international law from the Reykjavík University. Claudia passed the Icelandic bar examinations to become a district court attorney in Iceland. By passing the bar, she became the first non-European person to do that in Iceland.

Since her move to Iceland, Claudia has been very active in human rights initiatives both by in governmental and non-governmental organizations. She has served as Vice President for the Women of Multicultural Ethnicity Network (W.O.M.E.N.) in Iceland, Social Activities Coordinator for asylum seekers on behalf of the Red Cross, and was appointed by the Ministry of Welfare to the Welfare Watch of Iceland.

She currently sits on the board of representatives for SOS Children’s Villages in Iceland, the boards of Amnesty International, Iceland Chapter and the Icelandic Equality Fund.

Claudia recently became a partner at the law firm Réttur Aðalsteinsson & Partners, where she has worked since 2013. She is also a guest lecturer at United Nations University Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme (UNU-GEST), the School of Business and at the University of Iceland as well as the School of Law at University of Iceland and Reykjavík University.

I’m giving away three of Andri Snær’s books, which are below.

To enter win one of the books, all you have to do is leave a positive review for the All Things Iceland podcast (you can use this link to easily do it), take a screenshot of your review, and send that screenshot to me in an email at jewells(at)fromforeigntofamiliar(dot)com. If you have already left a review for the podcast, please just send me a screenshot of that review.

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. It’s a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!

To kick off the new year, I’m sharing my interview with Andri Snær Magnason, an award-winning author,  environmental activist and director. He has been fighting to protect Iceland’s beautiful nature. Andri Snær was on the show early on and it is great to have him back because so much has happened in his life since we last spoke. I recommend checking out part 1 and part 2 of those interviews.

One viral moment was when he and some others had a funeral for Okjökull. Ok mountain used to be a glacier but due to climate change the ice has melted from it and it has lost its glacier status. Andri Snær wrote a letter to the future that was printed on a plaque and placed on OK. He also recently did a TEDTalk on Sólheimajökull glacier and released a new book titled “On Time & Water”. This book has not yet been released in the United States. 

Just to give you a bit about the book, It’s “Taking a path to climate science through ancient myths about sacred cows, stories of ancestors and relatives and interviews with the Dalai Lama, Magnason allows himself to be both personal and scientific. The result is an absorbing mixture of travel, history, science and philosophy.”

I am a big fan of his book “LoveStar”, a science fiction novel that takes place in Iceland. I wouldn’t call myself a science fiction nerd but I do enjoy a story that mixes science, humor and just the right amount of absurd. Similar to Kurt Vonnegut, Andri Snær does a great job of adding off those elements into the book. I highly recommend it.

I’m giving away three of Andri Snær’s books, which are below.

To enter win one of the books, all you have to do is leave a positive review for the All Things Iceland podcast (you can use this link to easily do it), take a screenshot of your review, and send that screenshot to me in an email at jewells(at)fromforeigntofamiliar(dot)com. If you have already left a review for the podcast, please just send me a screenshot of that review.

Members of the All Things Iceland Patreon Community get an additional entry to win. To join that community, check out this link.

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. It’s a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!

The Icelandic Christmas season is so much fun. Well, it’s normally a lot of fun but we are doing the best to enjoy it even though COVID is keeping many of us from our loved ones. While I have done an episode about Icelandic Christmas way back in the day of the podcast, I wanted to share with you the full breakdown of this time from the point of view of an Icelander. My lovely friend Íris Stefanía joined me for this episode to share her modern take on Icelandic Christmas traditions. 

We filmed this at her place and a link to the video on the All Things Iceland YouTube channel will be available in the show notes of this episode. During our chat we go over what is happening in Iceland from the start of advent until the last day of Christmas here, which is January 6th. I love that Íris still does some traditional things with her family but has also found ways to mix in her own style and add a modern touch. We had a lot of fun eating piparköku (gingerbread) and laufabrauð, drinking malt og appelsín (a popular mix that is available only during holidays here), and eating mondlugrautinn, which is a rice porridge. Why that is done will be explained during our chat. 

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. It’s a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Click here to rate and review the All Things Iceland podcast.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!

Because I’m very much in the holiday spirit, I’m dedicating the next two episodes, this one included, to Christmas related content in Iceland. Today, I have a special guest that has been on the show before, and that is Ólafur S.K. Þórvaldz, also known as Óli the brewmaster at Ægir Brugghús. Icelandic Christmas beer has quickly become an important part of the holiday season for brewers in Iceland and for those who enjoy drinking the beers, such as myself. Because of this, I thought it would be fun to have Óli pick his top 5 favorite Icelandic Christmas beers from craft breweries for this episode. 

To be fair, he picked four beers and was nice enough to let me include my favorite one. Full disclaimer, my favorite is not from a craft brewery by Icelandic standards but as Óli points out in this episode, all of the breweries in Iceland would be considered craft breweries if you compare it to the U.S. or other countries with much larger consumption. We did this Icelandic Christmas Beer tasting virtually. We’re both tasting the beers and talking about what they tasted like to each of us. We also talk about the growing trend of Christmas beers in Iceland, give some travel advice and more.

If you like to try beers, I definitely recommend coming to Iceland during the Christmas season. The amount of variety on offer is quite a lot for such a small country.

Click here to rate and review the All Things Iceland podcast.

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. It’s a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!

I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Birta Abiba Þórhallsdóttir, who was crowned Miss Universe Iceland in 2019. Normally, I don’t follow beauty pageants, regardless of if it is in the US or Iceland, but Birta’s story really stuck out to me.

I read an article about her experience with racism in Iceland. She’s an Icelander that has mixed heritage. She was born and raised in the town that I live in, Mosfellsbær. I was surprised to hear that she experienced physical and verbal abuse as a kid just because of her skin color. She will go into more detail during the interview, but it breaks my heart to know that she did many things to try to change her appearance, such as her skin color and hair, because she wanted to fit in.

Her journey to self-love was a tough one but she preserved. I think it is absolutely amazing that she ended up becoming Miss Universe Iceland because she is able to show the world that Icelanders can also be People of Color with beautiful curly afros.

Here is the link to the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, which I referenced in the interview.

Some of you might be aware that one of my goals for the podcast is to travel around Iceland more to interview different people in each region. In July, I set up the All Things Iceland community on Patreon. Patreon is a membership platform that was founded in 2013. It allows for creators like me to provide exclusive content to listeners like you in exchange for a monthly subscription.

Each month I am doing Ask Me Anything videos, Live Chats, and Folklore Friday each week. Sometimes I do updates about my life in Iceland. I do not share this content on any other channel. The support from my patrons on the All Things Iceland community on Patreon will help to evolve All Things Iceland. There are several membership tiers to choose from and each tier has a variety of benefits.

If you would like to join the community, go to patreon.com/allthingsiceland. I look forward to having you join.

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta (og að lesa) og sjáumst fljótlega

Thank you kindly for listening (and reading) and see you soon!