Notes from Iceland

The restaurant scene is much improved, compared to nineteen years ago, though don’t expect much in the way of vegetables.  Reykjavik seems to have an excessive capital stock relative to current income.  Natasha finds it hard to get decaffeinated coffee.  The tap water is superb and, on weekends, only two people work in what is the world’s second largest geothermal plant.  Icelandic horses and ponies look quite genetically distinct.  Puffins fly faster than you might expect.  It is back to being an expensive country.

Overall I see a society on the verge of a massive and permanent transformation.  The Icelanders face two questions rather immediately.  First, will they allow mass tourism, with its cultural and environmental implications?  (Most likely they will, if only because they don’t know how to stop it.)  Second, will they allow continuing or perhaps even accelerating immigration?, noting that the current population (not all native Icelanders) is only about 320,000.  A relatively small amount of immigration, or tourism for that matter, would make for a big cultural change, most likely with no way of turning back, for better or worse.  High-skilled immigration alone could do it.  It is already the case that the biggest association of Icelandic horses worldwide is in Germany, namely the Islandpferde-Reiter- und Züchterverband.

Wikipedia claims that Icelandic has no unique word for “pony.”