Hasta La Ideas

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pI was sent to Reykjavik to cover their newly inaugurated Design March festival, an annual event dedicated to showcasing Icelandic design. Iceland is the only Scandinavian country I hadn’t been to so I was curious to walk around and soak up the vibe. Unfortunately, a flight that landed at 5:50am and jetlag sent me traipsing around Reykjavik in the early morning, when there wasn’t a lot of vibe to soak up as everything was closed. But I broke out the camera to record whatever differences I could find./p

pFirst sign I’m technically in Europe is the omnidirectional street parking. /p

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pIt’s not a big deal in most of the world, but if you do this in the ‘States you get a ticket. Why? Because no U.S. municipality has any confidence that its citizens are competent-enough drivers to pull a U-turn to park without killing someone. And after the first accident there’d be a lawsuit. Sigh./p

pSecond sign I’m in Europe is the small, sensible American cars you’ll never see in America. Chevy Lacetti, anyone? /p

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pThese cars are basically the automotive version of U.S. movie stars doing coffee commercials in Japan–they do it for the overseas money and hope that no one back home finds out about it. /p

pWalking around Reykjavik, I soon noticed that every other car’s tires made a strange noise rolling down the street, a sort of quick clopping noise, almost like a bunch of miniature horses wearing horseshoes on asphalt. Simultaneously I found myself almost tripping and stumbling through two crosswalks in a row; I chalked it up to the jetlag and had no idea my clumsiness was actually related to the noisy tires (read on).br /
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