As Far As I Can Tell

May 31, 2026May 31, 2026

Iceland: Weeks 42 + 43

For most of the last two weeks my parents have been in Iceland. After a couple of days in Reykjavík, we traveled around the country together, driving 1500 miles counter-clockwise on the Ring Road with excursions into Vestmannaeyjar, the Eastfjords, and around various peninsulas. They were on a tour of Iceland in 2021, so there was a little bit of overlap with that, but we did the kind of exploring that a tour would never support: driving down gravel roads deep into mountain passes, roaming the back streets of harbors in tiny fishing villages, tracking down sculptures in the mountains. A couple of years ago there would have been no way they’d be up for some of the hikes we did — up a volcano, on a glacier — but knee replacements do wonders and they have three new knees between them.

There were far too many great sites and moments to chronicle in one post, but I’ll touch on some of the highlights and things that were new to me. I have lots of photosets on Instagram if you want to see more.

On top of the Eldfell volcano in Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands).

Map of my road trip around Iceland with my parents in May 2026.

Our first stop was Vestmannaeyjar, which was the trickiest to plan around because the ferry is operating on a single engine and can’t make it across the strait in bad weather. Luckily the weather was good enough to sail there on schedule, but on advice from an agent at the ferry terminal I swapped our return trip the next day to be the first ferry out at 7am, in order to guarantee that we wouldn’t be trapped.

I love those islands, and was happy for another chance to hike up the Eldfell volcano to get a view of the whole archipelago. It was a lot greener when I was there last August, but this trip offered the chance to see a new site-specific artwork by Ólafur Elíasson that was installed earlier this month. It’s called “The Wanderer’s Perspective” and consists of two parts: a viewing sphere that frames the volcano, and a new walking path up to its summit (still in development). The walking path will follow the route of a giant piece of lava from the 1973 eruption that was nicknamed Flakkarinn (The Wanderer) because of how far it traversed across the landscape.

The viewing sphere is easily accessible, and frames the volcano in a way that the sun aligns with the volcano’s peak at 1:30pm on January 23, the exact date and time of the eruption. Circular holes in the roof trace the sun’s trajectory on July 3, the day the eruption was declared over.

“The Wanderer’s Perspective” by Ólafur Elíasson

Leaving the Westman Islands we visited lots of spots along the south coast, and it turned out that the earlier ferry was a great idea because there’s so much to see along this stretch. We stopped by the Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss waterfalls of course, but also the Sólheimajökull glacier, Reynisdrangar beach, and Hjörleifshöfði cave. The next day we hiked the Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon and walked on the Svínafellsjökull glacier before it started raining heavily. That may have contributed to lack of ice on Diamond Beach, but it was still fun to check out the massive icebergs in Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon.

After staying in the night in Höfn, we drove into the Eastfjords the next day, venturing further east than I’d been in Iceland before. It immediately felt different for me, taking in new sites versus driving through ones I’d seen two to four times before. More firsts came fast, as this region is where the wild reindeer live and we added them to our animal sightings along with the pervasive sheep and horses. It was earlier enough in the year that their antlers were still velvety and we even spotted a couple of calves.

A female reindeer and her calf, in the Eastfjords.

Also in the Eastfjords was Petra’s Stone Collection, an absolutely amazing place showcasing a single woman’s collection of rocks and minerals found all around Iceland over her lifetime. It is impossible to convey the size and scope of her collection but it’s like nothing I have ever seen. See my Instagram photoset for more.

I can’t believe how many colors and textures were in this one rock.

We stayed in Seyðisfjörður, which is reached by driving over a mountain pass that was still covered in deep snow. The town is where the Smyril Line ship arrives in Iceland after sailing from Denmark via the Faroe Islands. It’s also one of the two locations that were used in the Icelandic TV series Trapped, the other being Siglufjörður where we also stayed a few days later. I’m looking forward to rewatching the show now that I’ve spent time in both places.

While there, we also hiked up the mountain to see Tvísöngur, a sound sculpture by the German artist Lukas Kühne that consists of a series of interconnected concrete domes. The plaque notes that it can be viewed as a visualization of the Icelandic five-tone harmony tradition, and dubs it “singing concrete.” The experience is that if you stand directly underneath each dome your voice resonates strongly back to you, in an effect that feels as if you have headphones on, piping your amplified words back into your ears. It’s a strikingly simple design but a really fun and powerful effect.

Nearby was another sculpture, squarely aligned with my interest in subsea cables, called “Hvernig gengur?” — How is it going? — and was commissioned by Iceland Telecom to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first telegraph cable laid between Scotland and Iceland in 1906, which came ashore in Seyðisfjörður.

Our next stop in the Eastfjords was Borgarfjörður Eystri, the puffin capital of Iceland, where an islet named Hafnarhólmi is home to thousands of burrows. Stairs and platforms allow visitors to walk around part of the islet, providing an extremely close up view of the puffins from every possible angle. When we arrived, this closeness already made it the best puffin site I’d been to, even surpassing Mykines on the Faroe Islands. But soon after 8pm a majority of the birds that had been out to sea returned, in a seemingly coordinated ritual. At that point the hills were absolutely swarmed, with puffins taking off and landing, going in and out of their burrows, billing their mate, and strutting around.

The crowd gathered to view them all seemed to understand what a special moment this was, adopting library-hushed speaking levels and careful footsteps; it was a quiet and reverent place. These funny little birds have the ability to make everyone smile as they awkwardly fly and waddle around on their bright orange feet.

Puffin at Borgarfjörður Eystri about to take flight.

Puffin at Borgarfjörður Eystri with its mouth open.

As we started heading northwest, our first stop was the hike to Stuðlagil canyon. The water at this time of year isn’t the turquoise color you often see in photos, but the basalt columns along the river’s edge are stunning. If you’re thinking of going, I recommend hiking in on the east side of the canyon. The west side has more infrastructure, and you can drive up to the lookout spot, but there are still hundreds of steps down to the river and you can’t walk down into the canyon. You’ll see some of it, but most of the views will be just out of sight. The eastern side has a new parking lot further along the canyon, so it’s now only a ~3 miles hike instead of what used to be ~6 miles.

As we headed west we started to get back into areas of North Iceland I’d visited in early April. We went to the Hverir geothermal area, visited the cows at Vogafjós Farm Resort, stayed on a farm near Lake Mývatn, and visited Goðafoss. There was a massive cruise ship docked in Akureyri, deploying 20+ full-size buses to the sites in the area. I’m not a fan of that kind of travel, or being around those kinds of crowds, so it was nice to head up the peninsula to Siglufjörður where we spent the last two nights of the trip.

It was rainy, and even snowed, the final two days — but that was okay. We stayed at the excellent Sigló hotel, which has a geothermal hot tub overlooking the harbor and mountains that is great in any weather. We also visited The Herring Era Museum, which has excellent artifacts from the town’s history when it was Iceland’s fish export epicenter.

Hot tub at the Sigló hotel in Siglufjörður.

As we headed back to Reykjavík we detoured to see the sea stack Hvitserkur. We also passed by one of the most interesting sheep roundup pens I’ve seen in Iceland, situated unusually right by the beach.

Sheep roundup pen by the ocean, just north of Hvammstangi on route 711.

The final trip was to the Reykjanes Peninsula, to drop my parents off at the airport but also to explore the area around Grindavík. We saw the fresh lava flows that covered the old road, as well as the magma barrier walls that surround the power plant and town.

Overall, it was a great trip around the country and I’m happy that I was able to do it with my parents. One of the interesting things about traveling with other people is that they notice different things than you do. When my brother visited Iceland he pointed out many aspects of the architecture that I hadn’t seen. My Mom notices artifacts, furniture, and how people construct their homes in ways that I might overlook. She also has an incredible eye for interesting rocks and was always finding good ones as we hiked. My Dad, not surprisingly, sees the farming activity in rural Iceland with a level of depth that most of us would overlook. I see the tractors, sheep, and hay bales but he’s looking at soil type, fertilizer composition, and water management practices. We all have our travel eccentricities — I did track down a monument to a telegraph cable after all — but it was interesting to see Iceland through their eyes.

May 17, 2026May 17, 2026

Iceland: Week 41

It’s been an interstitial kind of week. After returning from London to a windy and still quite chilly Iceland, I’ve spent much of my time this week reading, getting extra sleep, and working on projects that I’ve had on my list for a while.

The biggest of those projects was for the Moped Army website, where I implemented a new subscription option. People can now become a Site Supporter, which gives them an ad-free browsing experience and a supporter badge on their profile. I’ve been wanting to build that for a while, because the whole system that independent websites have depended on for years is falling apart. The way it used to work is that you could rely on search engines (mostly Google) to help people find your website, and you could afford to fund your site through reliable ad revenue. But ad rates have plummeted, and the rise of AI means fewer people actually visit the site. For a niche community of moped enthusiasts, I think it makes sense to have a way for people to provide support directly. Hopefully it works out, because I’m committed to running the site indefinitely and would like to spend my time building new functionality instead of tweaking ads.

A polling station sign in London (left) and Reykjavík (right).

Last week was election day in London, when I was there, and this week there were municipal elections held across Iceland. Across the country, including Reykjavík, the Independence Party strengthened its position. There aren’t exactly 1-to-1 mappings between U.S. and Icelandic political parties, but it’s my understanding that the Independence Party is right of center and more pro-business. More concerning, the Centre Party made advances, including gaining council seats in Reykjavík for the first time. Despite its name, it seems to be the right-wing populist party, the one that rails against being “woke” and claims it stands for “common sense.” From what I’ve read, it’s best to avoid reading too much into these municipal elections, in terms of impact on broader politics, and the Social Democratic Alliance still leads the national government. But it is a sign that even Iceland has populist-right and anti-immigrant politics.

I’ve been thinking this week about how strange it is that Iceland has so few mammals. There are only 28 species, but most of those are whales. The only land mammals are mice, hares, foxes, and reindeer, with the Arctic fox being the only native species. In contrast, the United States has 490 species of mammals. I could feel this difference when I was on my four-day trek in the highlands last year, walking all day without a single animal scurrying around, and some days not even seeing any birds. It’s part of what makes Iceland feel like another planet sometimes.

My parents visit next week. After a couple of days in Reykjavík we’ll be circumnavigating Iceland counterclockwise over the course of 10 days. It will be mostly a Ring Road trip, since they’ve been to Snæfellsnes and the Westfjords on a previous tour of Iceland. I haven’t driven all the way around, so I’m excited to fill in the gaps, especially the Eastfjords, where I’ve never been. Puffin colonies have returned to Iceland, so we’ll be trying to see them in Vestmannaeyjar (assuming the ferry issues work out) and in Bakkagerði in the east (which has a webcam placed above their burrows). I’m also excited to spend more time in the north of Iceland, and compare it with my experience there six weeks ago when everything was blanketed in snow.

May 10, 2026May 10, 2026

Iceland: Week 40 (& London)

My week started and ended in Iceland, but in between I spent four days in London, going to museums, taking lots of trains, drinking great coffee, and walking over 30 miles. It was nice to be in a giant city again, to feel the energy and possibilities that, for all its charm, are not part of life in Reykjavík. Also, while I know that London is not known for its weather, it was quite a bit warmer, and it was nice to wander around without the need for a hat and scarf.

One of the days I took the regional train northwest of the city to visit The National Museum of Computing, which has been on my list for a while. It’s housed on the campus of Bletchley Park, which was home to the British codebreakers during WW2. That’s where they worked in secrecy to decipher coded messages sent by the Nazis, which required reverse-engineering the Germans’ encryption machines. Most of the computers they created to do this were destroyed after the war, but TNMOC houses working authentic recreations alongside a broader collection of large-scale systems and personal computers. It’s a fascinating place, and the volunteers do an excellent job explaining how it all works. I didn’t make it to the rest of Bletchley Park, which is actually the much larger museum campus. They are two separate organizations, and had a bit of a falling out years ago around the time that Bletchley Park got a large grant. It seems that TNMOC is the place to go for a more technical history, whereas Bletchley Park is more about life during that period. It would have been interesting to do both, but since I only had time for one I chose to see the working recreation of Colossus over where Alan Turing used to sleep.

The Enigma machine. One thing I didn’t realize is that these were fairly common in Germany at the time, and actually marketed to the private sector to do things like send messages between banks. Although in wartime additions were made to increase the number of possible settings.

Detail of the Bombe, which was used to decrypt Enigma messages.

Colossus is the world’s first programmable electronic digital computer, and helped with the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher.

I also got to go to the Transport Museum Depot at Acton, a large warehouse that stores over 320,000 historical items from London’s transport history, from posters and signage to trains and buses. While there is a smaller museum open most days, this full archive is only accessible to the public on select weekends or by booking a guided tour.

Type samples of the Johnston typeface used throughout the system. Below are rolls of moquette, different patterned upholstery used on train and bus seats.

Old switching equipment for the Elephant & Castle station

Those two museums were the bookends of my trip, but I also went to the Design Museum, the Grant Museum of Zoology, Sir John Soane’s Museum, the Tate Modern, and the Treasures of the British Library. Other notable stops were Novelty Automation, eating at Dishoom (twice!), an incredible concert by Makaya McCraven in an old church, and a Dadaist performance/film at the Horse Hospital. I hadn’t been to London in a long time, and most of my past trips were for work. So it was nice to wander around neighborhoods I hadn’t been to before.

One thing I found notable was how seamlessly the transport system now works with contactless payment. I never had to buy a ticket — I just tapped my credit card at the start and end of my journey, on both the Tube and the regional railways. I didn’t ride any buses, but it works the same there. The system keeps track of what zones you pass through and charges you once at the end of the day, factoring in the daily fare cap. I’m already used to the convenience of showing up in another country and not having to worry about paper currency. This takes it to the next level, where I had immediate access to public transit with no separate account, tickets, or tokens to worry about.

Sir John Soane’s extremely over-the-top house museum.

A really wonderful automated diorama at Novelty Automation.

I still want to take a canal trip by narrowboat someday.

In Iceland ferry news — last week I wrote about the challenges the Vestmannaeyjar ferry was having (failed engines, harbor filled with sand, etc.). Since then, the dredging of the harbor at Landeyjahöfn went well, but this ferry company cannot catch a break! As soon as the sailings resumed, their booking system went down because of a fire in the Dutch data center that hosts their website. Luckily, I already bought a ticket for my sailing in 11 days, but given their track record, who knows what will happen before then.

May 3, 2026May 3, 2026

Iceland: Week 39

Last Thursday, 255 days after my first day of classes, I pressed submit on two final papers and wrapped up my one-year graduate program in international relations at the University of Iceland. This semester had less room to customize the courses, but I could still shape things to my interests: incorporating Arctic topics into my negotiation class and focusing on cybersecurity for security studies and international organizations. Most squarely in my wheelhouse was the class on governance of the Internet, which combined history, technology, law, and policy. That course, and the two focused on the Arctic from last semester, are the ones whose optional reading lists I’ll keep working through in the months ahead. But now, time for some rest and recovery from the inevitable cold that I got during the final week of wrapping things up.

On May 1, Iceland celebrated International Workers’ Day with a parade and rally hosted by various workers’ unions. It was a public holiday, as it is in many countries, except, of course, in America, which hosts its Labor Day in September instead. Apparently that’s on purpose. Even though the May 1 date was chosen based on the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, President Grover Cleveland sought to weaken that linkage when choosing the early September date instead. The lack of a public holiday makes it harder, so it’s heartening to see that many Americans still marched in solidarity on May Day, with particularly strong turnout in Chicago on the 140th anniversary of Haymarket.

I attended a film screening of Laxaþjóð (A Salmon Nation) by Patagonia Films about open net salmon farming in Iceland. The short film, which is available on YouTube, details the problems that salmon farming is causing in Iceland, including genetic pollution when escaped fish breed with wild salmon and the prevalence of diseases such as sea lice.

The setup for the event was interesting, including a Q&A beforehand with people who were featured in the film, and then another afterward with Icelandic politicians who are currently on the committee in charge of drafting legislation regulating salmon farming. The film was in English and the discussions in Icelandic, but they provided headphones and wireless receivers with live translation. The most interesting part was that this was not an event of purely like-minded people, as the filmmakers and activists were pushing to outright ban open net salmon farming in Iceland while the politicians were quite clear that was off the table. The politicians did discuss higher safety standards and regulations, but there was disagreement about how many jobs the industry creates, with the activists distrusting the numbers the industry provides. Beyond the potentially irreparable damage to the wild salmon ecosystem in Icelandic rivers, the argument was made to consider the impact on jobs holistically, since diseased fish are negatively impacting the fly-fishing tourism industry.

Overall, I thought the event did a good job of bringing awareness to the issue and fostering public debate. It’s interesting to see Patagonia spearheading this campaign, as I don’t associate their brand with Iceland. In fact, it’s rare to even see their clothing for sale here, with 66°North dominating the high-end outerwear market in Iceland.

Sticker promoting the event. Fúsk means *negligence* or *shoddy job* in Icelandic.

There’s ferry drama in Iceland.

This winter there were lots of news stories about coastal erosion at the Reynisfjara black sand beach in southern Iceland. All winter long, strong winds pushed around massive amounts of sand, remaking parts of the beach and causing the basalt-column cave there to be inaccessible. But those same conditions have also been wreaking havoc on the harbor at Landeyjahöfn, which is the port where the ferry Herjólfr sails to Vestmannaeyjar—the Westman Islands.

Apparently the harbor is so filled with sand that the ferry hasn’t been able to use the port at all this year, forcing it instead to sail to Þorlákshöfn, a trip that takes nearly 3 hours instead of under an hour. To make matters worse, the ferry’s engine recently failed, which led to an almost seven-hour journey that didn’t arrive back to the islands until 2:30am. They sent that engine to the Netherlands for repair, and have called in the ferry Baldur as a replacement, which normally operates between Stykkishólmur on the Snæfellsnes peninsula and Brjánslækur in the Westfjords.

The ferry Herjólfr docked at Landeyjahöfn last July, before sand filled the harbor.

I guess that during the winter the people of Vestmannaeyjar are used to hunkering down and dealing with the isolation, but now that it’s summer the situation is getting much more attention. It caused problems for the annual Puffin Run race this weekend, and it’s going to be a problem for tourism if they can’t resolve it soon. The road commission has published a detailed analysis of the engineering problem, and apparently the weather conditions for dredging are finally becoming favorable.

I’ve been watching the drama closely because I have tickets to take the ferry from Landeyjahöfn to Vestmannaeyjar on May 21, and I’m not sure how well the Þorlákshöfn backup route would work with my plans. News reports from yesterday say they’ve finally started the dredging work, so fingers crossed. It’s a classic Icelandic situation where nothing that relies on nature can be certain. Hopefully the classic Icelandic saying will hold true: “Þetta reddast”—it will all work out.

April 26, 2026April 26, 2026

Iceland: Week 38

Thursday was the first day of Icelandic summer and after my oral exam in Internet Governance that morning I attended The Green Walk, a march across Reykjavík promoting nature conservation. Iceland is a country of such natural beauty that it’s easy to assume its citizens are inherently aligned with protecting nature. While I think that’s largely true, it has, for example, struggled to outlaw whaling. Also, the majority of the countryside is privately owned and not part of a protected national park. That regularly leads to controversies about private parties making profit-driven decisions regarding hydropower dams, aluminum smelting, power transmission lines, or land alterations to build tourist infrastructure. I wish I could share more specifics about what the rally was promoting, but all the speeches were in Icelandic.

This is my last week of grad school. I have an exam on Monday, and then two papers due later in the week and I’m done. I have lots to reflect on my overall experience, which I will share later, but today I just wanted to recommend the best exam study tool I’ve ever used: NotebookLM.

There are lots of things that make NotebookLM different from a typical AI chatbot. The most important thing is that it only uses source documents you upload—no “hallucinations,” no making things up or straying into other topics. The second is that it has pre-built templates to generate particular kinds of study artifacts from those sources, such as mind maps, quizzes, and flashcards. I used some of those during the exam period last semester, but only in the last week have I played with the Audio Overview feature and it’s honestly incredible.

I can get to the point where my mind is saturated and I can’t take in more information through reading. Last semester my workaround was to go on a walk and listen to the audiobook version of the textbook. But NotebookLM can generate a custom podcast where two “people” have a casual conversation that hits on all the topics in your sources. So I can upload slides from each week and have it generate a 45-minute podcast that gives a very solid overview of everything in the class. I know you’re thinking that it must be very annoying, but honestly it’s not bad. The voices and conversation are extremely realistic, and the podcast weaves together the topics in a way that feels natural. It’s not like I’d prefer this over an actual human conversation, but it’s unlike anything otherwise available because it’s so hyper-targeted to just the content in my slides.

Noted & Done

A new subsea fiber-optic cable named AUÐUR has been announced, which will connect Iceland to Scotland. This would replace the aging FARICE-1 cable, which also connects to the Faroe Islands, although it’s unclear if AUÐUR will include a Faroese spur.
I have learned a new Latin phrase that embodies what we need to do to Trump’s legacy when he is finally ousted or dies: damnatio memoriae.
Saw lúpína perform at Kaffibarinn.
Attended a screening of The Veto at Bíó Paradís, a film about the UN Security Council. There was an interesting discussion afterwards with the director and other experts, including one of my professors.

April 19, 2026April 19, 2026

Iceland: Week 37

Signs of spring abounded in Iceland this week, from flowers pushing themselves out of the soil, to cats sneaking around the streets, to a mountain hike with only scattered remnants of snow and ice. The first day of Icelandic summer, a public holiday, is this Thursday. Icelanders don’t have Punxsutawney Phil to make predictions about seasonal transitions, but apparently it’s good luck if the temperature drops below freezing the day before summer begins.

My friend Christina and her friend Aaron were vacationing in Reykjavík this week and it was fun to meet up with them a few times. This morning we drove to Reykjadalur, a geothermal valley 45 minutes from the city, and hiked up to the source of the hot river. I had been once before, in December with my brother, when the days had only four hours of sunlight. This time I didn’t need to bring along my headlamp.

We walked further up the trail than I had before, to the spring that feeds the river. The sulfurous water spouting from the hillside had built up colorful mineral deposits that looked like a giant mutant gourd that could win any contest at a county fair. We didn’t fully soak, but waded into the river, which was the absolute perfect temperature — the kind of heat that feels amazing but never builds up to a level that makes you want to step out.

I saw this week that Pittsburgh is retiring the old wayfinder system, which has been in use on the city’s signage since 1995. It had simple color coding to reference five major zones in the city, which were reinforced using a stylized map at the top of each sign. If the place being indicated was in the same zone as the sign, its background would match that color. If it pointed towards something in a different zone, it was considered an “Exit-Finder” sign, which used the color in a stripe on a dark blue background. The existing design wasn’t perfect, but it had held up well for over 30 years and brought some sense of order to the city’s notoriously convoluted streets.

In a social media post, the City of Pittsburgh announced that it was retiring the design. Instead, the city’s signage will be black and yellow, with a useless and unreadable city seal at the top, much less readable typography, and no differentiation between neighborhoods. I don’t live there anymore, but stuff like this bums me out. They had an opportunity to build upon and improve a working system with a colorful and informative personality, and chose instead to regress to the dullest, least-considered default possible. It’s worse in every way, except I guess that the city now has terrible signs to match its Terrible Towels.

Old and new way-finding designs in Pittsburgh

April 12, 2026April 12, 2026

Iceland: Week 36

The collage above includes some photos from the previous week, a sign that I’ve been heads down since returning from my trip to the north. The upcoming week is the last for my classes, and I’ve mostly been focusing on the remaining tasks to wrap up the semester. I have a couple of assignments, a couple of exams, and four papers to complete before the end of the month. I can’t decide if the continued cold is more of a positive — because it keeps me inside working — or more of a negative, as the winter starts to feel draining. I’ll tell you, though, a little warmth from the sun would go a long way right now.

The war in Iran and Lebanon is weighing on me this week. The senselessness of civilian deaths, the war crimes and threats of civilizational erasure by an American president. I don’t have anything unique to add, despite months of classes on Security Studies and negotiations. The current US administration is so chaotic and unprincipled that it scrambles my ability to analyze the situation through theory or history. Even thinking of it as the “madman theory” is wrong; it’s just madness. I wasn’t able to attend, but there was an anti-war protest in Reykjavík this week at the US embassy.

In much lighter news, let’s talk about hotdogs. Many of you sent me the New York Times story about inflation in Iceland as told through hotdogs. Thanks for thinking of me. It’s a real deep dive into hotdog options in Reykjavík, but had nothing to say about the unique options available in Akureyri. So I had to seek out Pylsuvagninn when I was there, which was a bit tricky given their non-standard holiday hours.

Pylsuvagninn in Akureyri, Iceland on a snowy day in early April.

The toppings are certainly unique, including potato salad, bacon and eggs, and blue cheese.

Hotdog options at Pylsuvagninn in Akureyri.

I went with the Volcano Dog, which has onions, jalapeños, ketchup, cocktail sauce, remoulade sauce, mustard, and sriracha. A 2024 article in the Grapevine notes that the black buns are made in a local bakery by adding bamboo charcoal into the dough. Overall, A+ from me on this one and I thought the buns were the best of any Icelandic hotdog I’ve had so far.

The volcano dog at Pylsuvagninn in Akureyri.

On August 12, 2026 there will be a total solar eclipse in Iceland. To get the fullest impact of totality you need to be on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula or the Westfjords, but it will still pass through Reykjavík for 2 hours with totality lasting 1 minute and 4 seconds. That will be my last week in Iceland, and I was already excited to experience the eclipse, but now I have actual plans beyond just looking up at the sky. This week, Björk announced that she is throwing an eclipse rave, in conjunction with her exhibition at the National Gallery of Iceland. I bought tickets immediately. Knowing that my final week in the country will include dancing with Björk under a rare celestial phenomenon feels auspicious.

The path of the 2026 eclipse through Iceland.

April 5, 2026April 5, 2026

Iceland: Week 35

I had a break from classes for Easter, so I decided to take a trip to the north of Iceland. I’d never been before, and while I plan to visit again at the end of May, I wanted to get the winter experience as well and see the mountains covered in snow. The weather was unpredictable right away, switching from clear skies to a yellow warning the morning I left Reykjavík. I made it to Akureyri before sunset, but not before some white-knuckle driving in whiteout conditions.

Akureyri is a great little town, the capital of the north, but with only 20,000 people. It sits on a hill, with city stairwells that reminded me a little bit of Pittsburgh. Its iconic church overlooks the downtown area, but it’s worth walking beyond it, higher up the hill, until you reach the botanical garden. Even in winter, it’s a nice place to visit, for the novelty of a patch of trees in Iceland, but there’s also a great little cafe called LYST that’s worth the visit.

I based myself in Akureyri for three nights, but went as far east as Lake Mývatn, and as far north as Siglufjörður, stopping at natural sites and towns along the way. I’m still on the road as I write this, from a hotel room in Stykkishólmur, where I stopped on my way back to Reykjavík. My plan was to spend all day tomorrow wandering around the Snæfellsnes Peninsula before returning the rental car tomorrow night, but the weather has other plans. Today’s weather was absolutely perfect, sunny and clear, with reasonable winds. But a massive storm is rolling in tomorrow morning, triggering an orange alert (meaning “do not travel”) for the capital region and the entire south coast. I’ll need to leave early in the morning to make it back, or else I’ll be stuck on Snæfellsnes.

Despite the weather challenges — which also included getting my car stuck in the snow and having to enlist the help of a German family to dig it out — it’s been a great trip. But right now, I’m far too exhausted to write in detail about it, so I’ll save that for later and just share some photos. You can find the rest on Instagram, where I have six photo sets for this trip: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

March 29, 2026March 31, 2026

Iceland: Week 34

The turnout for the No Kings 3.0 gathering in Reykjavík yesterday was small, but there were roughtly 20 of us gathered in solidarity with those protesting in the States. The weather was rough all week, including orange alerts for most of the country, and the wind chill yesterday was below zero. We lasted for an hour and a half outside before heading to a nearby restaurant, but not before a grotesque Jabba-the-Hutt-style snow pile effigy of Trump was constructed. These are dark times, so finding ways to spend time with likeminded people and push back against authoritarianism matters, no matter how small. I loved seeing the rallies in large cities across the United States; I wish I could have been there.

No Kings 3.0 in Reykjavík. Photo credit: Devin Kuchcinski.

I got confirmation this week that I was accepted for a creative residency at Williamshús in the Faroe Islands. Located in Tórshavn, Williamshús is the former home and studio of William Heinesen, one of the most famous Faroese writers. The basement and first floor are a museum, and the second floor apartment hosts residencies. I’ll be there for twelve days in July. I intend to focus on writing and photography, likely publishing to Looking North throughout the stay but also gathering material for longer-term projects. I’ve wanted to go back since first visiting in 2018, but with more of a purpose than simply another tourist visit. I think staying at Williamshús will fit that goal perfectly.

This week was the start of the Reykjavík Open at Harpa, an annual international chess competition. I didn’t realize that chess was a big deal in Iceland, but apparently it really took off after the country hosted the World Chess Championship in 1972, pitting Bobby Fischer against Boris Spassky. That match, and the way it put Iceland “on the map,” was the reason the government gave Bobby Fischer Icelandic citizenship when the United States was seeking his extradition for violation of economic sanctions against Yugoslavia.

In 2005, Fischer moved to Iceland and lived there for the rest of his life. I knew that he settled near Selfoss, but I only recently learned that he also spent a lot of time hanging out at Bókin, a used bookstore in Reykjavík that is one block from my apartment.

First Day Cover for the Icelandic postage stamp commemorating the 1972 International Tournament in Chess in Reykjavík, released in 1976, and also promoting that year’s tournament.

March 22, 2026March 22, 2026

Iceland: Week 33

In a week that included the first day of spring, the weather in Iceland was still very much winter. As usual, it’s the wind that makes things harsh, reaching over 45 MPH and causing yellow travel warnings across much of the country. In less than two weeks I have a trip to Akureyri planned during Easter break, so I’m crossing my fingers that things improve.

Luckily there were some indoor activities to check out. The Stockfish Film Festival kicked off, and is conveniently held across the street from my apartment at Bíó Paradís. Yesterday, I went to two sessions, both focused on Icelandic shorts: five documentaries and six narrative shorts, each including a Q&A with the filmmakers. At least half of the films were directed by film students studying at the Iceland Academy of the Arts. I don’t know how it works at other film schools, but it was impressive to hear about the level of financial and expert support they receive. It sounds like there are people on staff to support lighting, sound — even intimacy coordination — during 10–12 hour shooting days, sometimes in remote locations. Film is one of the creative industries where Iceland punches above its weight, and this was a glimpse into the educational foundation that makes that possible.

It’s not just film students who are well supported. Earlier in the week I attended a lecture by Jens Schildt, a Swedish graphic designer who did extensive archival research into the Swedish business equipment company FACIT. His work is fascinating, and involved recreating some of the company’s typefaces and publishing a book. Because his collaborator was living in the Netherlands they were able to tap into generous Dutch funding for this kind of design project.

His lecture (also at Bíó Paradís) was organized by Iceland University of the Arts and the Association of Icelandic Graphic Designers. While talking to one of the design instructors, he mentioned receiving Erasmus funding to take his entire class of graphic design students on a trip to Belgium. Europe has always had more funding for the arts, but the contrast with America (especially under Trump) is so stark. Imagine living in a society that supports and rewards creative activities that don’t have an obvious commercial profit motive?

Jens Schildt presenting his archival research on FACIT at Bíó Paradís

March 18 marked the 100-year anniversary of Iceland’s first radio broadcast, and I attended the opening of an exhibition celebrating that milestone in the building where it happened. Loftskeytastöðin, which translates simply to “the radio station,” is a small building on the University of Iceland campus that I walk by multiple times a week. The main floor has a permanent exhibition dedicated to Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the first woman president of Iceland, but the basement has rotating exhibitions.

There was a collection of some of the first radio receivers in Iceland, often with a unique story of how they came to the country. For example, one of the old shortwave radios belonged to a farmer who had taught himself German and wanted to listen to broadcasts from abroad to improve his language skills. Overall, the exhibition is small but interesting. I would have liked more information on the history of the building and broadcasting, but it focuses more on tangible artifacts from the history of radio.

Architectural detail on Loftskeytastöðin, the old radio station building.

I do, of course, love the design of old radios, particularly shortwave models with city selectors.

Finally, I attended the opening performance for Harmonic Tremor by Ben Frost and Francesco Fabris at The Living Art Museum. The installation is set up as a series of upward-facing speaker cones, filled with lava collected from eruption sites on the Reykjanes peninsula. As the speakers vibrate, the lava shifts and bounces, slowly escaping the cone to create a pile of dust surrounding the speaker stand on the gallery floor. These eight speakers were augmented by many others throughout the space.

The performance was composed from field recordings made at the eruption site, including sound recorded from contact microphones placed directly on cooling lava. It felt like you were inside the eruption itself: ethereal, immense, at times startling. I’ve followed both of these artists for years, but never seen them perform, so I feel lucky to have been able to attend such an immersive joint performance. It felt like a very Icelandic experience to walk back home, in 40+ MPH wind and snow, after attending a sound performance based on nearby volcanic eruptions.