hósthóst* - ive been ill for the last couple of days, and that during my vacation. really a very annoying thing.
anyway, one thing i would like to add to this conversation: last thursday there was this “babtismday”(or whatever they call it in english, this just being a direct translation). and its a so called “red day”. meaning that its a holiday. this day is fixed(first thursday after first full moon after day and night are equally long) in the calendar. well there is this other day, “the first summer day”, which is a tradition in iceland. its held on the first thursday in a new “old” month.
anyway, those two days…both “red” happened to be fixed at the same time in the calendar. as i see it, its one less holiday for us working people. and for those who work this day, they are not payed double holiday money. now, thats darn cheating on us!
notthemama: yeah…ive wondered about those rubber dogs for a while. nothing gave me as much laugh as a pack of journalists taking photographs of the rubber dog while he was performing his “thing” in a glass(whatever) cage.
imagine going for a walk with your dog…
bj0rn - chickens for sale…!
(You know, I find it helps to copy it to WordPad and then fix all the punctuation errors, etc., so they’re not so distracting. Then I usually light some incense, sacrifice a chicken to the spirit of Kate Turabian, and get really drunk. Then it actually starts to make sense.) - notthemama
eh…or perhaps the lack of pills. never use em, thank you very much.
bj0rn - hic…and textpad!
(You know, I find it helps to copy it to WordPad and then fix all the punctuation errors, etc., so they’re not so distracting. Then I usually light some incense, sacrifice a chicken to the spirit of Kate Turabian, and get really drunk. Then it actually starts to make sense.) - notthemama
I am intrigued by the “baptism day”. It sounds like it is arrived at the same way they arrive at Easter Sunday, by figuring out the first full moon after the spring equinox. It sounds like what I’d call “Maundy Thursday”. Is it something to do with Easter?
Is there an official Icelandic church?
We have the same problem with combining holidays in February in Illinois. There’s an official federal holiday called President’s Day, in which we celebrate both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays (Washington’s was on the 22nd and Lincoln’s is on the 12th). President’s Day is always on the Monday closest to the 22nd. The kids get out of school, the banks close, the post office closes, everything. It’s a federal holiday.
However, the state of Illinois is officially known as the “Land of Lincoln”, so we also celebrate February 12 as a state holiday. But while the kids get out of school on that day, the banks and post office don’t close. So some years, when February 12 falls on a Saturday or Sunday, of course there’s no school holiday, and there is great lamentation among the schoolchildren of Illinois. Cheated out of a holiday! It’s not fair!
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
oh…accually this “babtismday” is the thursday before easter.
the “official” icelandic church, called “the national church”, is evangelic lutherisk(something like that. man! theese name translations are difficult).
yeah, i do not think its fair that this year we only have 12 holidays that end up on a eh…“weekday?” but last year there were 15(didnt bother to count so the numbers are purely examples).
seems to me that every day working folks are cheated out of holidays all around the world.
This is neat. I never met somebody who lived in a place with an official state religion. What a splendid little frisson of horror. One of the really big deals about the U.S. Constitution is of course that it specifically prohibits the establishment of any state religion. I’m fascinated. Do people notice if you don’t go to church? Does the government notice?Do they care? Is it a really big deal? Do the arguments that we’re currently having about posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms and about prayer in schools have any meaning for you? Some people here get REALLY upset by the subject, on both sides of the issue.
You evidently get a holiday for a religious event, “baptism day”. The only religious holiday that I can think of that we get a federal holiday for is Christmas, and that’s mainly just because it’s such a cultural big deal. A long time ago, when I was MUCH younger, occasionally you’d encounter an office that would close for Good Friday, but that was mainly just the personal preference of the office. Nowadays I don’t think anybody much closes down for Good Friday. The schools are usually out, but that’s part of “spring break”, usually several days before and after Easter Sunday. It’s not really a religious holiday.
It’s nice that they were able to avert a civil war by establishing a state religion, but has anybody ever complained since then? You know, clamoring for the right to “freedom of religion” and all that.
Is it called “baptism day” because that’s when people get baptized? Do they have to wait all year, or is it just kind of a tradition, like when people try to get married in June? A “particularly auspicious” occasion, etc.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
first off: it was really just one man(according to history) that decided iceland should be christian. he was as your quote states, “pagan”.
pagan being of the viking religion, ásatrá(see eric the viking, but pronounced wrong).
second: there is a religious freedom in iceland.
true that the only religios holidays are related to christianity. there are other though that could be considered “pagan”. mainly because christianity replaced those days with holidays of their own. take christmas for example. which is originally a celebration of the sun, that is the day is getting longer again. same goes for “jonsmass”; celebration because the sun is at its highest peak.
what is left of “pagan” holidays is some though. “ashday”, which is similar to halloween, “kakeday”, is when we eat alot of cream filled kakes with alot of chocolate and last there is “boomday”, because you eat until your stomach goes “boom”. theese days are not holidays on their own. that is people do not get vacation from work, but its a tradition.
i think “babtism day” is related to john the babtist…like the day jesus was babtized, or something like that. i forget(which basically spells out the religious enthusiasm in iceland).
bjOrn, What relgion are you if you don’t mind me asking. Also is there large populations of other relgions in your country (jewish or muslem for example).
Please excuse my spelling. i recieved my education in the United States.
ace: unfortunately there arent any “large” religious groups besides christianity, although christianity is divited into several groups, something around 70 - 80% of the population is babtised into the evangelish lutherian church. the number of “religious” people in iceland(the number that goes to church) isnt much though. and the interesting thing about it is, that the fewest percentage of people who go to “church” in any given religious group is the e. lutherian religous group(national church).
other religious groups are from the top of my mind: ásatrú, buddism, hindu, muslim, the cross, white sunday group, jehovas witness and propably some others.
my religious belives do not lie in any of those groups, but im babtised and confirmed into the national church(at the age of 14, which i find rediculous).
bj0rn - not a religious person
(You know, I find it helps to copy it to WordPad and then fix all the punctuation errors, etc., so they’re not so distracting. Then I usually light some incense, sacrifice a chicken to the spirit of Kate Turabian, and get really drunk. Then it actually starts to make sense.) - notthemama
The time: October 10, 1999, the second Sunday in October.
The place: American Samoa, in the South Pacific.
The reason: White Sunday.
Okay, now I’m not going to be happy until Bjorn explains why there is evidently a Pacific Islanders’ celebration in Iceland.
Gee, this is the first I’ve heard of massive Samoan immigration to the North Atlantic. Something the matter with the South Pacific? Maybe they just feel like a little change of pace…
Or, no, I know–they come to Reykjavik for the good jobs…
I notice the kids get out of school on the Monday after White Sunday. Is that one of your “red days”?
LOL!
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
its a easter thingy you know, there is this day forty days after easterday(comes up on a thursday) which is a “red day”. the sunday after that is white sunday(if my memory serves me correctly, im getting a bit rusty in theese church holidays).
and yes, we have this thing called; "second of easter(monday) which is a holiday and second of “white sunday”(hate theese translations) which is also a holiday.
bj0rn - grin!
(You know, I find it helps to copy it to WordPad and then fix all the punctuation errors, etc., so they’re not so distracting. Then I usually light some incense, sacrifice a chicken to the spirit of Kate Turabian, and get really drunk. Then it actually starts to make sense.) - notthemama
Yeah, I know that, I just thought it was funny that I put “white Sunday” into Google, and suddenly all these references to a South Pacific Samoan holiday started coming up.
I think in the English-speaking church calendar, it’s usually called “Whitsunday”, and it’s one of those things that nobody really knows where it came from. I think it’s left over from the Middle Ages, when they had all kinds of holy days like Michaelmas and Candlemas, that we don’t celebrate any more.
Anyway–we’ve talked about politics, and religion. Now we ought to talk about sex (!) but I really don’t feel I know you that well.
So I guess we could talk about cheap beer instead. Last night on the ABC evening news, Peter Jennings told us that the Centers for Disease Control had released a new study which is supposed to prove that cheap beer leads to a rise in teen pregnancies and venereal disease. I can’t find the study posted anywhere yet–the CDC’s website says, “Not available yet”.
So my question is, what exactly do they mean by “cheap beer”? I don’t drink myself, so I don’t know. Are they talking about price? Are we talking about the difference between Budweiser and Value-Time beer? I always thought beer was pretty cheap to begin with; I didn’t know there even WAS a category called “cheap beer”. Now, “cheap WINE” I’ve heard of, but not cheap beer.
Is this relevant to anything in Iceland? Is it a nation of teetotaling Lutherans? A lot of Germans are Lutherans, and they drink beer.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
Bjorn- You are the smartest person alive, except Cecil(who isn’t alive), (also, present company not being evaluated), so expect a lot of people to be on your side, but then you should fix up your website better so they can visit you, I thinkso
beer was not allowed in iceland until 1.march 1985! we are still catching up alot of undrunk beer now ;).
dont know about that cheap thingy…over here the cheapest beer is something like $2.50 per bottle(33 cl). in denmark the beer is around 5 times cheaper, and in greece the beer is 5 times cheaper than in denmark. so the teenage pregnancy rate should be 25 times higher in greece than in iceland! (per person percentage of course).
friday in icelandic is “föstudagur”, and generally referred to as “flöskudagur”, which is translated into “bottleday”.
Oh, come on, Bjorn, you think you can pull my leg like that at long distance and I won’t notice! “Beer not allowed in Iceland until 1985”! Come ON! You are a crazy Viking laugh riot, babe.
You expect me to believe that the offspring of Vikings lived in a (pardon my French) Godforsaken place like Iceland, for a thousand years, at least, with NO BEER?
Right. And if I believe that, you’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you can probably get for me wholesale, huh?
You’re cute.
Okay, so anyway, “Friday” is the day everybody goes out and buys a bottle of beer? Like “Friday’s payday?” Golly, $2.50 a bottle? Are you sure you typed that out correctly? Like I said, I don’t drink, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that expensive. Unless it’s a really huge bottle, like a liter or something?
Maybe it’s because they have to import it? Do they have any breweries there?
Is it maybe something to do with the Lutheran church? But I thought lots of Lutherans drank beer. German Lutherans do.
I have to go now. I have to put a cold cloth on my head to get over the shock of visualizing Leif Ericsson as a milk-drinking teetotaller. How on earth do you go a-viking on nothing but water?..
being a bartender by trade i know a little about beer (plus I AM a drinker). I think what abc news ment by cheap beer is beer that is redably acessable.
If you think about it the report is kind of obvious. i meen think of it. teenagers are not going to buy the expencive stuff. there going to by cheap beer, get drunk and get laid. hence the rise in pregnance and VD. come on just think of this senerio:
TEEN ONE: Man, all i got is $6.48. do i buy that case of Shlits or that bottle of Michael Smith quadruple bock amber porter? I want to get Wanda drunk tonight, but i also want to impress her.
TEEN TWO: Go for the Michael Smith. you both could share the bottle. ya, you won’t get drunk and probley won’t get laid, or even have fun, but you’ll enjoy a 1/2 bottle of great beer. I thought you didn’t even like beer.
TEEN ONE: I don’t. i just drink it to get drunk and laid.
*it wasnt banned until 19earlysomething.
*i didnt type $2.50 wrong, when you buy it in bars its usually something around $6(but thats for 0.5 liters).
*if we were in france, we would have rebelled by now!
I guess the 19th century “temperance” reformers must have finally had their way in Iceland, huh?
You say if you were in a different country, you all would have probably rebelled by now. That got me to wondering whether back in the 1960’s you folks had the kind of student riots and protests that we had here on college campuses, etc. and that they had in France, too, at about the same time. Or are Icelanders rather more peaceful and easygoing?
Of course, Icelandic college kids wouldn’t have had the ready-made excuse that the Vietnam War offered to American college kids. But did they find other things to protest about? You know, like taking over the dean’s office and presenting a list of demands to the college trustees? Did they have a lot of protest marches in the streets?
Yeah, Ace but what I want to know is, what do they mean by “readily accessible”? I thought you had to be carded no matter where you bought it. So are they talking about the difference between Kroger and a package liquor store? What difference does it make? Is there that much of a price difference?
Is it maybe easier for underage drinkers to buy beer in a Kroger, or would it be harder? I guess I’m just such a law-abiding citizen this is never a problem I’ve had to solve.
And, say, if you’re a bartender, what I wanna know is, is it true that the bar owners always buy real cheap whiskey in bulk and pour it into the expensive bottles, and nobody can tell the difference anyway, because they’re too drunk? Or is this just a vile calumny put about by the temperance reformers? I always wondered about that.
