Yule

Dearest readers, thank you for your patience!

I admit it, I’ve been a lousy blogger in the past few days and I will probably not be particularily active in the coming few days. However, I can see from the blog stats that you keep visiting, although a little bit fewer in the past few days than in the weeks before. I guess you are also busy with Christmas preparations, huh?

When I started this blog I had been looking for blogs from ordinary Icelanders in English. I wanted to see if anyone was writing about the crisis. I could not find much. Now, however, I’ve found two that I really like:

The Iceland weather report - not only about the crisis, but the everyday life in Iceland and

Surviving Iceland - more focused on the crisis, but also about some other stuff

See links on the right side of the page, too.

Both of these writers are much more active than me and have the English language far better at their service than I do (is this even English?).

So, I’ve been thinking if I should just quit and leave it up to them. And I’ve decided to keep going, at least for a while.

Each of us, me and those two mentioned above have a slightly different angle. They seem to be much better up to date with headlines and better informed about activism in the society. I, however, am a thirty something mother of two, until recently unemployed and struggling to make ends meet. I don’t have much time to follow news and read blogs, I’m busy making life bearable for my two young ones. So I figured, this is what I will be representing.

And speaking of which, it looks like our Christmas will not reek of recession as much as I feared. I’ve done the Christmas food shopping and I came home with 11 bags. That is ELEVEN!

I’ve never paid so much for food in my entire life. Admittedly I did buy food that should last a bit into the new year, but still, I know that there is plenty of people that can’t afford any food or presents this Christmas. Technically we can’t either, but as long as the payments for our loans have been cancelled until March or so, we can make ends meet. No more, but ends meet.

I heard someone talking about saving up money during the months that the payments are frozen… yeah right. Even if I’d buy less than 11 bags of food for Christmas I’d still not really have a significant amount of money to save for payments of the loan.

Anyway, I want to wish you all a merry festival of light (jól) or winter solstice. Here is some Wikipedia info on the origin of that festival, now celibrated all over the world as a Christian thing.

GLEÐILEG JÓL!

And on we go

There is some sort of demonstration somewhere in Iceland just about every single day. I haven’t been very active recently. I did attend the demonstration on Austurvöllur last Saturday, but this time it was just 17 minutes of silence. No speaches. The 17 minutes signified each year that the Independance party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn) has been in power. That was all.

The Myntkarfan family is very economic when buying presents this year. As a matter of fact this was the case last year also. Only, that time we were optimistic, we thought that this year we would have a bit more money to spend. Little did we know…

Last year it was CDs for everyone, not all new CDs even (some “special offers” were included). This year, well, lets just say that there is a slightly more variation, but the cost will be about the same.

And yes, I know that there are people in the world that simply can’t afford any pressies at all. I know, we should be thankful.

I’m facing daycare problems. It adds to my discontent about soon starting a not so great job. At the same time I am also trying to be optimistic and positively minded.

The husband is very frustrated these days. More fraud is being revealed every day. The hottest news today is that the editor of DV contradicts himself. DV is somewhat a tabloid, but at the same time they have marketed themselfes as ”the voices of truth” and proudly claimed to spare noone… etc.

They have so far used all sorts of methods to reveal scandals, some less ethical than others. However, now it has been proven that the editor stopped a piece of news on bank-related corruption. He was secretly recorded by his employe who wrote the piece. He said that the newspaper would be “run over” by some powerful individuals if they’d go public with this.

So much for the freedom of speach.

But like I was saying, Mr Myntkarfan is about to fix it all. He has been very active lately, founding groups, attending demonstrations, coming up with solutions for families in debt and passing these solutions on to media and politicians. He has gotten quite some attention and I think his plan now is to found a new political party.

I’m all behind him, only I’ve lost faith in politics.

Corruption, corruption, corruption

For the past 2,5 months our trust in our government has come crumbling down in waves, so to speak. As a matter of fact our trust in human beings is also eroding.

Here is a relatively fresh gossip. And like the person who posted it on his Icelandic blog site wrote, it may be gossip, but it is still worth considering. My experience in the past few weeks is that many of the things that seemed like absurd gossip in the beginning have turned out to be true. And that just blows my mind.

Anyway;  many of us wonder why on earth the central bank manager mentioned in a recent post, Davíð Oddsson, has not resigned. Only a few politicians have called for his resignition. At the same time many of us have wondered why none of the politicians involved have resigned.

According to the aforementioned gossip this is a case of blackmail. Davíð Oddsson has proofs of various sorts of less than ethical business conducted by politicians. If they force him out, he threatens to publish this data.

Should any of this be true this also partly explains why the governing politicians sit still. The sooner they step aside, the more likely it will be that their successors will be able to properly investigate the swindle, the fraud, the cheating, the mess, whatever you choose to call it.

In the meanwhile, our foreign currency loan is growing again. I’d be out of here in a second if my patriotic husband would agree to come with me. He is still looking for ways to fix the problem. I think he still has a shred of faith in those in charge.

But speaking of fixing, our car is fine again. This time it was just a small repairment and the guys at the garage said we could “pay next time”. This is happening everywhere these days, this kind of solidarity that us, the normal people who never got around to buying expensive villas in various countries, show each other. And this is very important, in order to hang on to our precious sanity.

Car

Damn, our car is broken. It is only a couple of months since we had it repeared last time. It was not for free, don’t expect it to be this time either. It’s only 8 years old. I know I haven’t been taking good enough care of it, but still…  I wish it would not break down every second month…

Meeting, riots, video

The citizen meeting was ok. There were about 800 people, or so they say. There was only one minister, the others were representatives from trade unions and pension funds. The discussion was interesting. I was a bit annoyed by some unbalanced personalities who kept shouting obscenities at the representatives. To make a long story short I think the last citizen meeting was better, but this is anyway a great effort and Myntkarfan is determined to keep showing up.

There have been several small riots and more small gatherings in the past few days. There have also been some arrests. The situation keeps getting more and more surreal.

Here is a video that I came across today. It is mostly in Icelandic, but I am sure that it will give those of you who don’t speak Icelandic an idea about the atmosphere:

RÉTTLÆTI EKKI OFBELDI (it means “justice, not violence”)

Apple juice, WC-paper, Cheerios

A short post this time.

I just wanted to mention that some say that we will face a rough winter, with shortage of supplies, soupkitchens, starving kids, etc., etc.

I have so far not stacked my cupboards full of canned foods, as I somehow find it hard to imagine this. That being said I also found it hard to imagine what has already happened.

However, when I went shopping in Bónus on Friday there were some products missing. Before I go any further, Bónus is a part of Baugur Group, actually it is the chain of grocery stores that got Baugur started. For political reasons many of us have systematically tried to boycott Bónus. However, for economical reasons, few of us have suceeded.

And back to the subject: Last Friday the Bónus store I went to was out of apple juice, all but one or two brands of WC-paper and Cheerios. Those of you who are European may not know what Cheerios is, it is a cereal. Those of you who come from the US may not realize how important Cheerios seems to be to Icelanders. There is simply no home without Cheerios…

I wonder if the lack of those 3 key products is the beginning of the dreadful shortage of supplies…?!

Chiao, am off to the Citizen meeting.

Numbers

We were there, yesterday, at the protest. Both me and my husband this time, no kids, so we could actually pay attention. However, it was a bit duller than before, only two speakers, no sparks and a lot fewer people. According to the police there were only about a 1000, but I am afraid those guys don’t know how to count. There were a lot more than a thousand, I’d say between 2000 and 3000. Not that I had an overview. I posted a photo below, though, I took it after the program was over and people were leaving. They did not feel so few.

Actually I think there were also a bit more than a thousand on Arnarhóll last Monday, some sources said about 2000, but nevermind. It’s just numbers.

The first speaker at yesterday’s meeting was introduced as “a young man who represents those who have lost everything”. He, like us, had a foreign currency loan (myntkörfulán). However, it turned out that he only got a loan to pay for a truck (he was a truckdriver). The truck originally cost 2,2 millions, of which he borrowed around half. True, he lost all of it and more, but hey, he does not represent US!

It’s not like we are the only ones in the situation we are in, as far as I know between 20  and 30% of all those who were buying their homes at the same time as we fell into the foreign currency trap (sorry if I am repeating myself).

An update on our situation: When I last posted on this site our once so cute and small 22 millions had grown into 58 MILLIONS. However, this week there has been a huge theatric display and the Krona has been artificially strengthened, so last night when we checked it was down to 46 millions again.

Wow, I feel so rich, in only a couple of days we’ve made 12 millions… Again, it’s just numbers.

From the demonstration, Saturday, Dec. 6th:

Deadlocked

The front page of the only newspaper that I receive was scary this morning. It says there that Mr Davíð Oddsson (see last post) threatens to get back into politics if he will be forced out of The Central bank.

Oh man! This man used to be our prime minister, in fact I think he was the longest-serving prime minister in history (1991 – 2004). See where that has lead us…

Some may wonder why many Icelanders get a certain, uncomfortable fusion of goosbumps and claustrophobia when we see him or hear his voice. I am just going to give one example, an example that blew my mind (in a not-so-positive way) when I witnessed it on TV. It must have been in or around the year 2002 and people were standing in lines outside the emergency clothes and food distribution centers. When asked how this went along with his statements of a perfect society (ok, can’t remember what words were used exactly) he replied that “people just tend to go for things that are for free” (this I remember pretty exactly).

This post was not supposed to be about Mr Oddsson in particular. Although he has a huge responsibility in the crisis we are now going through, he is not the only one.

I’m not one of those that want his head on a silver plate. I just want him away. He has done enough. Now step aside, go!

In one of my first posts as Myntkarfan I believe I expressed some doubts about elections. This is because I did not believe in the opposition any more than those parties in charge. “The left-green movement” has somehow been kidnapping the discourse in the crisis. I used to have some faith in them, but as it is now, I simply don’t. That party is just as corrupt and incompitent as any other in Icelandic politics. Surely they contain a slightly higher proportion of ideologists than most of the others, but I think they are just too involved.

By now it seems that there are some smart people coming forward, ready to make some radical changes. If only those forces can manage to form a strong alliance of some sort, strong enough to get rid of the old ones, then I’d go for it.

Oh, and as far as I know they are “floating” the Icelandic Krona again. For the past weeks it has been under artificial control, but from today onwards they’re making an experiment, to see how fast it will sink us.

Arnarhóll

… is the name of the little hill in central Reykjavík where there was a national meeting today in biting frost. I was there, with my little one (who usually finds the clapping of the hands the highlight of each demonstration / meeting). The older one at school and the husband at work.

My first impression was a bit of a disoppointment because of how few we were. The media says there were around 1000. I soon found a friend, however. We listened to the speaches. The one who impressed me most was a speach by a very young person, Snærós Sindradóttir. It may not have been the best speach, but what impressed me was that such a young person (18) seemed so well informed and had such a sane view.

Not the type of flag we have usually flagged on our Sovereignty day, but I think it expresses our feelings pretty accurately

When I mentioned to my friend how few of us there were she pointed out that given the not-so-meeting-friendly temperature, the painfully icey breeze, the fact that it was a Monday, during work hours (15.00), she was amazed by how many there were. When you put it that way… ok.

We had parked our cars in the same area, so we walked off together after the meeting. We passed by The Central Bank of Iceland, which is practically on top of Arnarhóll. Suddenly a flock of masked men came running towards us. They carried rolled up flags, as big as themselves. One of them was looking behind him. He ran just into the pushchair and tripped over. He said “sorry” and ran off. No problem, at least he was a polite masked young man.

When I was in the car and on my way out of the center I heard on the radio, that my masked buddy and his friends (or so I assume) had, along with about 100 others, rushed into the Central bank, throwing eggs and red paint. They demanded to speak with the chairman of the board of governors, Mr Davíð Oddsson, who hurried out through the back door.

The demonstration then turned peaceful, as the protesters sat down, for about an hour or so. Then they asked the police to put down their “weapons”, which they did, and then they left. That’s all.

Happy Sovereignty day!