Names!

The naming of people in Iceland is very special and an old tradition. Earlier, this form of naming was actually very common in the germanic regions, but we have lost this tradition over the time. And that's how it works: the family name of the children is created from the first name of the father. The son of Fredrik, therefore, becomes Fredrikson and the daughter becomes Fredriksdottir. The name is kept unchanged for the whole life, even after marriage!

A curiosity is the phone book. As there are so many 'Fredrikson' and 'Fredriksdottir' the phone book is ranged by the first names. Imagine this! Okay, Iceland has only about 280'000 inhabitants, but if you don't know where someone lives exactly, you have hardly any chance to find him in any bigger town.

As I have heard the Icelanders themselves are not very happy with this system...but tradition stays tradition!

The peninsula Vatnsnes has the biggest colony of seals in the bay of Hindisvik. At the first look it is very difficult to detect any seals, because they are very shy and hardly visible between the rocks.

With some patience and the necessary care it is probably possible to discover something on the picture (Hindisvik is no zoo either, see Monday, July 17. ).

This sunday certainly merits its name. The sun shines and shines and shines... Well, I have to throw in that the temperature is only around 12 degrees celsius and there's a constant wind.

Behind the peninsula Vatnsnes and the seals, the north west fjords are already visible. Tomorrow I'll set out int that direction!

And then I had this unbelievable need for Rösti today. The swiss instruction said: take no butter (!) and a coated pan. Where the heck do I get a coated pan? Well, I decided for the version with butter and, astonishingly, Rösti from the gas cooker is just delicious! - Or did I just halluciante?