Tidbits on Iceland

Its 4:30am, I'm wide awake, already showered, sitting here waiting for Kent and Margaret to wake up (sleepy heads). I'm not sure if its excitement over Amsterdam, paranoia not wanting to miss our flight, or a mixture of both. But, I thought I'd share some interesting tidbits we've learned about Iceland.

The entire island is about the size of Kentucky, and has about 325,000 citizens, or roughly as many people as Arlington and Alexandria combined. A full 2/3 of those live in the capital of Reykjavik, the only real urban area, meaning the rest of the country is very sparsely inhabited. Despite its name, Iceland actually receives relatively little snow, due to the Gulf Stream, and has a fairly steady temperature year-round. Highs in the winter average the low 40s, in the summer, mid- to upper-50s.

The island rests on the mid-Atlantic ridge, and is a hotbed of volcanic activity. There are anywhere between 20-30 active volcanos in Iceland, with four "major" ones (we all remember the havoc caused by one of those last year?), one of which is overdue to erupt.

The society is very liberal. They have universal health care, yet the world has not come to an end. there are two prisons, with a total of 140 current inhabitants; it would be as if there were ony 140,000 total prisoners in the U.S. penal system (there are about 2.5 million). There is no poverty, no extreme wealth. Basically, there's lower and upper middle class.

The language is...odd. There are 36 letters in the alphabet, and some of the words can get ridiculously long (more on this later when we talk about volcanoes and glaciers). They say its the fourth hardest language to learn, after Finnish, Hungarian and Mandarin Chinese. I can see that.

OK, time to get ready...more to come!