Click on the picture to observe how to prepare a traditional Icelandic meal of roe and liver (hrogn og lifur). At this time of year, egg pouches are harvested from female fish, mainly cod and haddock, and sold in fish stores around the country along with the liver. The egg pouches may not look appetizing; just remember that caviar is fish eggs too.  more

Fjallabyggd (“Mountain Settlement”) is a skier’s dream. Its slopes are perfect for slaloming and there are also tracks for telemark skiing. Winter sporting enthusiasts can also go ice skating or rent snowmobiles. In summer, Fjallabyggd turns into a paradise for hikers. Read this special promotion about one of Iceland’s best hidden gems.  more

As a kid, whenever we would go to airports to pick up my dad from business trips, meet a visiting family member; or see my brother off before his flight back to university, I used to get jealous of other travelers. 

They were going to all corners of the world to see, do, and eat things that were so exotic, so extraordinary from my ordinary life. And I was getting back in the same family Honda, on the same Californian highway, returning to my same small-town USA. 

If you asked me at 12 where I thought the most romantic place in the world was, I would have said an airport.

And now, as a transient living between two different countries, I spend what feels like days of my life waiting in airports, one of those travelers I was once so jealous of.

It’s funny how in transit, even small disruptions reveal truly ugly colors. A half an hour delay can inspire reactions of such fury you would think someone just revealed the second coming of crisis in the Icelandic banking system. 

If you watch airport footage from the holidays, it seems like some twisted display of a dungeon of despair, equipped with pastel-colored molded plastic seating.

Cross the dreaded barrier of security control, and barring the perfectly manicured flight attendants, a smile in the terminal is hard to come by. A revealing of teeth usually constitutes a sign of aggression, not compassion. 

Passport Control? Forget it, those guys are so high on their power trip, they make that silver transforming robot from The Terminator look human.

So in my blossoming into adulthood, in my many, many passes through customs where I’ve been forced to drink my very pleasant Icelandic water in a very unpleasant and rushed fashion, my romantic whimsy for airports has waned.

Recently, however, Keflavík International Airport was voted best in Europe for customer comfort and satisfaction. Of course, the country’s strategic location between North America and Europe doesn’t hurt either. And I must admit: I have drunk the kool-aid.  I’m bloody drunk on Icelandic Airport kool-aid.

With the cheapest alcohol in all of Iceland, some delicious shrimp salad sandwiches, and starkly beautiful landscapes of the lava fields beyond, Keflavík International is one airport I don’t mind waiting in. 

It’s the only place in Iceland that I know of where all across the board it is socially acceptable to drink before noon. (It does, after all, make the flight easier, according to my newly acquired Icelandic logic.) 

Isn’t it simply nice when things function, and function well when you’re traveling? I somehow never get lost in the Keflavík Airport (because it’s not monstrously oversized and laid out quite logically), and in almost every corner I could get a coffee if I wanted it. 

Coming from the beige disaster that is JFK, or the humid dregs of the Aeropuerto de Malaga, stepping out onto the long hall of departures and arrivals is a breath of fresh air.  Whereas other airports destroy my jet-setting romanticism, Keflavík aptly revives it. 

The falsities of advertisement be damned, I get rather nostalgic when I see those billboards for Icelandic fleece and skyr. 

So nostalgic, in fact, I usually go a little overboard in the duty-free shop, but then again, that’s just part of the process of proper Icelandic acclamation. Therefore, I pass the kool-aid on to you.

Aina Fuller – ainafuller@gmail.com

When I first heard of the photographic book Legend by Fiann Paul, portraying people dressed in Viking-style in Icelandic landscapes, I imagined it would depict scenes from Norse mythology. However, the idea with the book is to tell a story of how “The Seeker” finds “The Legend” and it feels like a wishy-washy self-help book.  more

Fresh back from Brazil, where she was one of 28 international judges at the ‘Cup of Excellence’ awards, Kaffitár founder and owner Adalheidur Hédinsdóttir sat down with Atlantica’s Mica Allan in Kaffitár’s Bankastraeti cafe to talk about her passion and delight: coffee.  more

“Lucy” is a video and music installation by Dodda Maggý (1981), the 15th artist to exhibit in Reykjavík Art Museum’s D-gallery project in the Hafnarhús exhibition hall. In “Lucy” the artist explores the idea of the “acousmetre,” a film character portrayed only by voice, never in body, omniscient and ubiquitous.  more