“I changed it to suit the times,” Olafsson said.
Blame it on the Vikings. Icelanders like to hark back to their ancestors, the rebel Vikings who, as the nation’s most revered daughter Bjork once explained, “couldn’t deal with authority in Norway. So they flew off in this mad ocean in a wooden boat which is pretty hardcore, North Atlantic in the year 800. And they found this island full of snow ... yeeeah!”
“The Icelandic psyche is an important part of all of this,” says Hellgrimur Helgason, who writes an outspoken newspaper column that exposes feuds between Iceland’s ruling class and its entrepreneurs. He is also the author of 101 Reykjavik, a popular novel populated by “Krutt-kynslotin” characters.
“Before the market reforms the country had stagnated, no one thought Icelanders could be businessmen. We were poor fishermen or farmers, so it had an incredible effect on confidence when we saw these young men out buying up British and Danish companies. Everyone grabbed at the new opportunities like children. Really, it was no surprise that Hamley’s toy shop was one of the first purchases,” Helgason said.
Gunnghilder Sveinbjarna and her friend, Anna Lara Magnusdottir, are ordering their second bottle of red wine in the Philippe Starck-designed interior of Reykjavik’s Bar 5. Tonight the young women are feeling no pain.
“We come out at the weekend to forget our children and our problems, and this time we will drink extra hard to make sure we forget the economic crisis too,” says Gunnghilder, raising a glass. “Tomorrow the sore head.”
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