Dad got fired on Thursday. I haven't written so much about the Icelandic crises. It felt somewhat unfair since things had never been better for us. We had very little loans on our apartment and owned the car. The deep crises everybody else was in even made things easier for us. It was easier to get the car fixed and get people to work for us in the house, changing the windows and stuff. The play school lines were disappearing because people now move abroad and take their kids out of school. In one month I went from not being able to get into play school for the whole next year until being next in line. They had 3 kids moving abroad in just one week.

Home loans are a big problem to people because of the high mortage rate. People that had their loans tied to the Euro now pays fantasy amounts every month. You probably saw the guy on the news that bulldozed his house when he lost it and dug a hole and threw his car in it. There's no rental market here so if you are a working adult not staying with your Mom you have a home loan by default. Many people are unemployed. Unemployment is not a game around here. It's not something you do because it's a convenient way of making money like some people in Sweden. Three months you get paid a percentage of your former salary. Then you get a minimum amount that is similar to what students get that are obviously not so tied up to their homes, cars and families. We have a friend who pays more for his car every month than what you'd get per month being unemployed.
Food prices have gone up by 30% since October. Basically all other prices too because of the low Icelandic krona. There are no buyers anymore for the homes and cars that people so desperately need to get rid off.
The pictures are taken on a trip we took to my great grandmother summerhouse this weekend.

Landmannalaugar is one of the most colorful places in Iceland. The mountains look like their creator went berserk with the palette. Many people don't believe the pictures they see from Landmannalaugar until they go there in person. They think that the pictures are fake and have been tampered with. I might have to show you later though because the mountains were still partly covered with snow. The road has just been opened for the summer tourist invasion. Some roads are actually closed until June due to snow and bad conditions. We went there twice in December with our jeep and these picture are taken at almost exactly the same spot.
You don't have to be that brave now to go for a swim. In the summer they also have toilets, showers and running water.
These picture are also funny because they show just how small Iceland is. The three ladies in the picture in the middle met Mom the other day at her job and yesterday Dad came home with a picture of them from the middle of nowhere.

If you want to watch the almost synchronized swimmers swim from our neighbouring town of Kópavogur over to Reykjavík on June 17 here is the video on you tube. I think the video is a fake though you don't actually see them swim across. I think they just had someone drive them over to the other side. For those of you who are interested in trying it takes about 30 minutes and the water is good old 11°C in June. Or you can keep to the part of the bay where the pump out hot water to heat it.

My babysitters took these pictures of me in our garden. We've had really nice weather in Iceland this summer. We often have opposite weather if you compare Sweden with Iceland. Now It's about time the weather in Sweden got better. We're coming over for our vacation in two weeks.

I just had to blog this picture of Dad. It's stolen from a friend but he used our camera to take it so we're hereby taking credit for it putting it on the blog. Feel free to copy the jump.
We heard it was midsommar today on the Internet. I'm going on a trip with Dad if he doesn't drop me off on the way at my friends house. Mom is left behind to make us some more money.
I celebrated midsommar at our 17 juni party the other day by singing the traditional midsommar song små grodorna (small frogs). Except that I left the whole frog part out and went straight for the kou ack ack ack ack kaa:s.
It's just that in Icelandic: kou ack ack ack ack kaa sounds just like the word for doing number 2 (kúka pronounced kouka = to poo) and if you do the maths every verse has that word 6 times or something. Especially if you're 1,5 year years old and don't handle all the sounds perfectly. You can maybe figure out the reaction. Worried eyebrows among the guests waiting for an accident. Thanks for that I was just trying to show off my singing skills.

We're celebrating independence day very traditionally today. Dad is swimming from Reykjavik to Kopavogur. It's the Wednesday madness sea swimming extended edition. People that swim in the sea when the hot tub is 37 degrees must be mad. The lowest water temperature they've had is 1,8 degrees.
Then we're barbecuing 100 hot dogs. So if you're in the neighbourhood and have figured out where we live you are welcome at 3pm.

Demonstrations in Iceland seemed to be starting over last week. People from a home protection agency put up a tent camp in front of the Parliament building in downtown Reykjavík. Many people are now struggling with their home loans. They were joined by students protesting against the student loan conditions and protesters against the icesave agreement. Iceland now signed the agreement paying back the Dutch and Brittish savers on behalf of the bank that was taken over by the Government in October. If we divide the 650.000.000.000 kr loan that was necessary with our 330.000 inhabitants that makes almost 2.000.000kr per person. But now were no longer classified as terrorists by the Brits, whey.

Here is my great grandfather in his boat. I forgot to write about why we went to the Westfjords. We are collecting down feather from the nests of these birds for bedding and pillows etc. The bird on the pic does not care about the bird scarers but the birds who eat it's chicks does. They also collect eggs in Iceland. This time of year you can buy eggs from wild birds in your local 10-11 supermarket.

I forgot to post these pictures from our trip behind the glacier two weeks ago. After driving trough the snow for a couple of hours you end up by a hot river. Then you go swimming. The water is maybe 39-40 degrees.

You can still guess why we go to the Westfjords all the time in my last post. Maybe I will figure out a grand prize. I also want to let my Grandma and Grandpa in Sweden know that I learned how to throw stones that were almost my size into the water so if you could build up a supply of trowable stones before I come to visit that would be nice.

Clue: click on the last picture and view it in fullsize.