
Click on the picture to watch this audio slideshow about bird watching at Óshólmar, an area at the mouth of Eyjafjardará river just outside Akureyri in north Iceland, the largest Icelandic town outside the capital region. Not many tourists know about this attraction, which is perfect for a walk in the sun.
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Located just 40 minutes by car and six minutes from Keflavík International Airport, Sandgerdi (“Sandy Hedge”) is a growing town of 1,700 with a storied history and loads to see. Read this special promotion about the hidden secrets of one of Iceland's most charming seaside villages.
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Last week the website karlmennogkrabbamein.is collapsed due to overload and had to be relocated to a new server for larger websites.
A screenshot from the campaign's website.
A campaign called “Mottumars” (“Moustache March”)—where men are encouraged to grow moustaches and post pictures of themselves on the website—is the reason for its popularity.
The campaign is intended to raise awareness of and funding for cancer research among men, similar to when people buy and wear pink ribbons to support breast cancer research—only with a more masculine touch.
“The turnout has been incredible—last week 64,000 people visited the website. Since it was launched page views are close to one million and around 2,000 individuals and 384 teams have registered and uploaded lots of funny pictures,” Gústaf Gústafsson, marketing and fundraising director of the Icelandic Cancer Society, told visir.is on Tuesday.
“There is a widespread and uplifting competition spirit on the moustache web, as can be seen through the 11.5 million [USD 91,000, EUR 66,000] that have already been collected in donations,” Gústafsson added. Since then the amount has grown to ISK 13.5 million.
Karlmennogkrabbamein.is is currently the tenth most popular website in Iceland. The moustache fashion has spread quickly among Icelandic men; even Finance Minister Steingrímur J. Sigfússon seems to be participating, judging by this news broadcast.
The human being will be on display for the first time in its natural environment in the Reykjavík Family Park and Zoo next weekend. Visitors can observe three men and one woman in a cage after 10 am on Saturday and Sunday.
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The formal Videy island swim took place yesterday and there were three participants, two men and one woman, Thórdís Hrönn Pálsdóttir, who is the first woman to participate in the Videy swim since 1959.
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The Environment Agency intends to investigate whether the Heath Protection Authority handled the situation in Eskifjördur, east Iceland, in the correct manner when contaminated water from a trawler was carried into the town’s drinking water system.
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One hundred and forty million cubic meters of ash is estimated to have fallen in Iceland during the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull last spring. That excludes all the ash that fell into the ocean and in other countries.
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The second issue of the print edition of Iceland Review 2010 has just been published. Entitled “Under the Volcano” the magazine dedicates 20 pages, words and pictures, to the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull glacier which made headlines all over the word. New subscribers will receive the book Puffins as a gift and all subscribers are part of a draw to win a trip to Iceland. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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Hendrikka Waage is an accomplished jewellery designer whose first children’s book Rikka and Her Magic Ring in Iceland, takes readers on an enchanted and educational journey through the country. It’s beautifully illustrated and a good lesson in geography, but the plot could have been better thought through and the moral of the story is a bit too prominent.
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On the third day of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption we drove from Skógar to Hvolsvöllur in total darkness, a distance of 18 kilometers. It was frightening, the darkness being so impenetrable that we could hardly see out the windows of the car. We could see faint lights from the farm standing right next to the highway.
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Ásmundur Sveinsson is among the foremost Icelandic sculptors. The current exhibition in the Ásmundur Sveinsson Museum in Reykjavík is entitled “I choose women who thrive…” and features women as symbols in the sculptor’s art. The works in the exhibition are selected from his entire career.
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