Rotary Happenings: Fun facts about Iceland
Golly, everyone must have gotten the memo up north that the weather was changing and not in a good way. Last Friday the dining room was full to capacity with snowbird Rotarians and we had at least six visiting Rotarians including a couple from Switzerland. It was a busy morning with the induction of two new Sanibel-Captiva Rotarians and two transferring Rotarians from other clubs here in the states.
Information about these Rotarians will be included in Rotary Happenings next week and you definitely will be impressed by their professional credentials.
It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing throughout the meeting on Friday. Our mic went missing for a while and the computer server connection at the Dunes was down. Mischievous elves might have been at work because the program for the morning was a travelogue report and slideshow on Iceland by Rotarian Clair Beckmann.
At this point, it might be noted, Icelanders believe that Elves are true beings and inhabit Iceland and beyond. That’s just one of the quirky facts Clair brought to light during her talk on Iceland. Clair and her husband Ron like to travel the world exploring new lands and ferreting out the unusual. The trip to Iceland was actually Ron’s idea. He had heard the airfare to Iceland was relatively inexpensive (Ron is a little on the cheap side according to reports from Clair) and so off they went late July.
According to Clair just 10 years ago Iceland had about 350,000 visitors, last year 1.5 million visitors. Must be the cheap flights, but as the Beckmann’s pointed out the bare necessities of life like a place to stay and food is pretty expensive in Iceland. The island itself is only 39,000 square miles-close to the size of Ohio with a population of 332,000, 200,000 of that population lives in the Reykjavik area. This small island has a volcanic plateau in the middle of the island. It is circled by mountains. Lava fields cover 11 percent of the island and glaciers cover 12 percent. Hot springs, geysers, lakes, and snowfields attribute to the attraction for visitors to this island, but missing are any forests. Volcanic eruptions happen about every four years changing the topography of the land.
During the time Clair and Ron visited Iceland the sun only set for a few hours a day and Clair cautioned that if traveling to the island during this time of the year, not to forget, booking a hotel room with blackout shades. Iceland is a temperate country, not too hot or too cold.
The preferred way of getting around the Reykjavik area for the Beckmann’s was walking. Beautiful walks to lake areas with gorgeous waterfalls, natural hot springs, and steaming geysers. Iceland’s Blue Lagoon a geothermal spa is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland. Blue Lagoon is a man-made lagoon fed by the water output of the nearby geothermal power plant going through turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for municipal water heating systems and the Blue Lagoon. Clair seemed to make a face about this process.
Trying some of the country’s food delicacies could be a problem – how about raw puffin hearts, fermented shark that smells like ammonia, salted fish and dried animal parts Americans are not used to eating. Of course, to tame those unusual delicacies taste, you can always snack on the wonderful Apollo Lakkris (liquorice) candies or salute’ with a liquorice drinks. Don’t forget the amazing Skyr-somewhat like yogurt.
Just some fun facts from Clair:
Sheep always travel in threes
Beer wasn’t allowed in Iceland until 1989
The average work week in Iceland is 43 1/2 hours per week-higher than all Europe
Babies are left outside alone in their prams to nap- take the air,
No surnames are used in Iceland
Icelanders use the traditional Nordic naming systemread about this yourself
Horses have a different gate in Iceland
No mosquitoes
The Icelandic language remains unchanged from ancient Norse
Iceland’s revenue from whale watching exceeds any income from whaling
Iceland is home to one of the world’s oldest democracies; established in 930
Iceland had the first democratically elected female and openly gay prime ministers
Consumption of Coca-Cola per capita is higher than in any country
Roughly 85 percent of Iceland’s energy is from renewable resources, and well over half of that is geothermal, and the off-beat goes on.
Check out some of the others on-line.
The Sanibel-Captiva Rotary meets at 7 a.m., Friday mornings at the Dunes Golf & Tennis Club, Sanibel. Guests are always welcomed. There is no meeting on Nov. 25.