and all these things. - i am so thrilled to be talking to you. you re like the icelandic expert. - i wouldn t say that, but i definitely feel like i have a unique perspective. - jewells shares her insights on her social media channels all things iceland. - here are five habits of icelanders visitors might find strange. - today we re puttering around reykjavík on a. - ísbíltúr. - ísbíltúr. - yeah. - or ice cream road trip. the description is epic, the company is great, and jewells is convincing me that, despite my early resistance to the idea, everything will work itself out. so you ve been here almost six years. how do you feel that this place has affected you? - i definitely find myself being a lot more flexible. so icelanders have this saying called [icelandic expression]. and when i first heard it, i was kind of annoyed.
- and icelanders have been raising sheep for. - since we got here. - yeah. - the sheep has literally kept us alive through the centuries. through the cold winters, they provided both meat and wool. - that s what strikes me as an american, coming over here, where, yes, we have traditions that go back, you know, 150 years or something like that. but i m not connected, either to my land or my property or to my traditions in the same way. - well, i feel, firstly, just lucky that somehow my branch of the family ended up here. - it s amazing coming here because i just grew up in reykjavík, and it s so amazing to get to know this life. - right. - i feel it s a privilege to have grown up here. that s something that i would love my children to experience, and that is one of the reasons that i would never consider, you know, not having a life here as well. - yeah. [light music]
ran for mayor of reykjavík. - yeah. - and served four years as mayor of this world capital. now, were you playing a character when you were running for mayor, or were you really yourself? - in the beginning, i was playing a character. - a fictional version of yourself. a saga version of yourself. - exactly. - but it seems like a lot of icelanders have kind of multiple reinventions of themselves and multiple realities. - yeah. - someone can be a stockbroker and also be in a heavy metal band. - yeah, and publish poetry. - mm. because in america, you re really. culturally, people want you to be on one track. they kinda wanna know what you are. oh, you re an insurance salesman. - yes. exactly. - you re a schoolteacher. and people. it s pretty rare for people to break out of that kind of track they get kind of set into. - to be able to survive here. - mm. - you have to be adaptive because the country is quite unforgiving. i have sometimes compared to being raised