I was so lucky to meet the best soothsayer in Iceland a couple of days ago. He told me what to expect in Iceland in the year ahead.

January 15: a big earthquake will hit just north of Iceland. There will be no casualties but a small tsunami will hit Jan Mayen destroying its only airport and leaving 43 meteorologists stranded for three weeks.

January 16: Hekla will erupt in spectacular fashion. The eruption will disrupt European air traffic for 14 days, lasting until the last week of March.

February 2: the coalition government will lose its majority and general elections will be called three weeks later. The Progressive Party is the winner, securing 47.7 percent of the votes and a majority of the seats in Alþingi. Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson will become prime minister and Vigdís Hauksdóttir foreign minister, despite only speaking Icelandic.

February 19: while drilling for hot water at his farm Sauðanes on Langanes peninsula, Halldór Jóhann Jóhannsson discovers not hot water to heat up his house, but oil. One week later, he sells his farm to the Chinese state-owned oil company PetroChina for a record USD 2.7 billion.
 
March 20: Iceland is declared a kingdom and Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson the first king, taking the name His Royal Highness Karl I.

May 1: a sudden snow blizzard hits the kingdom, leaving thousands of tourists stranded in the Lake Mývatn area. Everyone survives but many come down with a fever.

June 7: Iceland gets rid of the ISK, the Icelandic króna, and takes up the Chinese Renminbi/yuan.

June 17: the Indian government buys three of the most active volcanoes in Iceland: Hekla, Katla and Askja.

July 4: the number of tourists in Iceland reaches new heights: one million. Sven Svinhufvud from Åbu/Turku in Finland is the lucky one, the one millionth tourist to visit the island nation in 2013.

July 6: with oil money flowing into Iceland, His Royal Highness Karl I (formerly Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson) buys the Faroe Islands from Denmark.

August 20: Iceland buys Jan Mayen from Norway and changes the name of the three islands belonging to the Kingdom to Crymogea.

October 5: Sigmundur Davíð causes confusion after becoming the first person on Planet Earth to be awarded two Nobel prizes under two different names, one in literature for his poetry book, Mold (Earth), and the Peace Prize for His Highness’s great efforts to stop the war in Syria.
 
October 6: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad moves to Iceland.

November 31: After a long and heated debate, Alþingi grants 263,000 foreigners work permits. One third from the Philippines, twenty percent from Libya.

December 1: Of Monsters And Men are voted the best band in the world on MTV.

December 12: The Icelandic handball team wins silver (again) at the World Handball Championship.

December 15: Alcohol and tobacco are banned in Crymogea from June 1, 2014.

December 19: Icelandair buys Russian Aeroflot with ambitions of becoming the world’s biggest airline when they merge in the spring of 2014 under the name Iceflot.

December 24: Crymogea becomes an absolute monarchy.

December 28: Every citizen in Crymogea receive CNY 44,000 CNY (USD 7,000) from His Royal Highness Karl the first as windfall from the fast growing oil industry.

Páll Stefánsson - ps@icelandreview.com