Ó, Gud Vors Lands, the Icelandic National Anthem

In my comment to this post, I implied that Iceland might not be the nicest place in the world to live. I really shouldn't have done that; in fact, from what I've heard, Iceland is really quite lovely. In fact, the King and I seriously considered requesting a transfer to Iceland before we found out Hawaii was available. I did a lot of Icelandic research while we were considering it, and aside from discovering that I just love the word "Icelandic," I found that the people are supposed to be extremely friendly, they have hot springs, and it's hardly any colder than here in Virginia, with much less snow. Go figure. Also, they have geothermal heating, which is where hot water (from the hot springs, I guess) runs under the roads and houses, keeping everything warm, so that even in the darkest winter, the walls and sidewalks are actually warm to the touch. Cool, no? (Okay, no, I guess. Warm. Whatever.)

The thing about Iceland (aside from the fact that it's not Hawaii) is that they really like herring there. They eat a lot of herring, and very little lettuce. Herring eating seems to be something of a national sport. (They also have cool Viking festivals where they bury a pig in the ground, roast it, and then eat it, but we can do that in Hawaii too, so that comes out even in the Iceland/Hawaii debate.) Now, I like fish as much as the next girl, but small, oily fish used in such derogatory phrases as "Watson, that's nothing but a red herring!" just don't do anything for me. Especially with the subtle Communist overtones of "red" herring.

Aside from the fact that this may be the only post I will ever write about Iceland, I have a lot of parenthetical asides in it. 58 words of parenthetical aside, to only about 200 words of nonparenthetical text. That's a lot.