Small problems

Last night, whilst out listening to my favourite DJ playing, Einar Sonic at Sirkus bar, I struck up a conversation with a guy who somehow managed to work on his laptop at a corner table, whilst the music was raging along with all of the people inside the bar. He told me he was waiting to learn Icelandic until he fell in love with an Icelandic girl. This was proving a little bit hard apparently. That same day he had had a date with a girl who, once found out he was from Israel, got really flustered and red-cheeked, and said she hoped he didn't mind that she was going on a protest march downtown against Israel. He responded that he didn't mind at all. And then he laughed at the total surreality of the situation.

Whilst our conversation of course turned to serious matters such as the terrible situation right now in the middle east and the bombardment of Beirut's airport, he sighed and said it was funny living in Iceland at times like these. " All of us, from these different nations will just end up having a drunken fight with drunk Icelanders in the toilets of Sirkus. That's how far our differences go over here." We went on to ponder how Icelanders, who have such a cushy life up here in the far-north, with no experience of war and terror and a minimal crime rate. Whether people here had to create problems for themselves because of the lack of action in their own lives. Up here, people don't have to think about just surviving, and can manage to screw up their simple lives in all kinds of ways imaginable. Or just fight it out in the bar toilet.

anna@reykjavik.com