Sunshine to Snowstorms and Everything In Between: Viva Iceland!

We got to celebrate National Day here in Iceland today! Not to be confused with Independence Day, though, we have learned. Independence Day in Iceland celebrates when they were granted self-rule in 1918, but they were still part of Denmark until 1944, when they officially declared themselves a separate republic. I thought the history was pretty interesting: during World War II Denmark was occupied by Germany but Iceland was occupied by Britain and the United States. Because they could not operate as part of Denmark under those circumstances, Iceland declared itself a separate republic and has been ever since.

We went to downtown Reykjavik for the first time to celebrate the day. We heard the children's choir sing and saw the President and Vice President at the parliament building (the President has been in power for 20 years! Isn't that crazy?) Many people were dressed up in traditional costumes, which was neat to see.

Parliament building, called the Althingi

If you peer between the people's heads, you can see the Vice President speaking

Icelanders dressed in traditional costumes. I love the hats with the tassels!

I think one of my favorite things was to see all the children! They all had balloons, and many had Icelandic flags painted on their faces, cotton candy, and little flags to wave. Very cute. I do have to say, though, that Americans certainly have Iceland beat on patriotic gear on Independence Day. We would have looked crazy if we had decked out in the red, white, and blue that we wear on 4th of July, haha!

There was a parade with two marching bands, and people followed behind the parade for the whole route. We also saw a group of people in all white dressed as old people doing some kind of parade; I don't know what it was, but it was very cool.

We also spent some time by the lake feeding the ducks and seagulls, and ate traditional Icelandic hot dogs (with all kinds of funny toppings on them: chips and mayonnaise and more!)