Iceland is the least developed Nordic country. It is, I imagine, like Norway would have been without oil. Last to industrialize, last to embrace the Nordic model and always under heavy American influence.

It is a low-wage country, where taxes are high. People work long hours, for low pay and there's very little organized labor. The labor that claims to be organized, isn't really. Worker rights are a hypothetical idea.

The population is generally xenophobic, and I don't mean against anyone in particular - but against the entire world outside this island. Everyone is out to get us!!

But everything you'd expect from a western European country is found in Iceland. This isn't as much "at the world's end" as one might think, it's more that we're left to our own devices because nobody cares much what happens here.

There seems to be no interest from the international community to enforce their will upon Iceland, if anything Iceland is in a constant search for international recognition by adopting what they think is the international consensus.

Like a distant cousin who lives on a farm way out in the countryside, who nobody in the family takes much note of, but is constantly ordering the clothes on the front page of the mail order catalog, thinking that surely that's what the civilized citydwellers wear - though that's just a metaphor, people in Iceland actually dress just the same as any Nordics do.

Though there's a strong tendency to equate the color black and clothes you'd wear to parties, so most upscale parties look like wakes at a funeral. Except more party.

Which is what a lot of people do in their spare time, party. Otherwise, they don't have much spare time. There's those long working hours, weekdays and weekends.

Regarding seafood, I love seafood. But I'm not the typical Icelander. Sure I look the part, but gastronomically no. I'll eat anything that comes from the sea, I'm crazy about it. But Icelanders eat hamburgers.

So, seafood is really hard to get in Iceland, unless you go get it yourself.

Birgir Páll, is pronounced somehow like Bir- like in Birkenstock, -ir like in "irresponsible", Pá- like "pow" and -ll like the -tl of Hitler :)

But it is true that the major heads of the collapsed banks were sent to jail, were taken to court and the Prime Minister at the time was found guilty of negligence in a court of law. A lot of rich and powerful people were humiliated and prosecuted. Many found guilty.

All in all, it's not a bad place to live, but Iceland still has ways to go until the Nordic model is fully achieved. Though that is the general consensus of the population, that it's a goal worth achieving.