Icespy An Icon!

So did half the world though...

The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, April 2010

Iceland, a country forced into a stereotype from the moment it was named, much like Greenland, famous for green-ness and Poland, which is of course famous for poles. Everyone has gone through the shock when they discover that Iceland is “greener” than its neighbour Greenland, and Greenland is “icier” than Iceland and many a 12 year old have dazzled friends with this piece of intellectual gold. 

Iceland isn’t exactly a country you would see on CNNN making global headlines and with a population of only just over 300,000, you wouldn't expect it to do so. However, in April 2010, the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, ( it’s a volcano, I still don’t know how to pronounce it after this guy’s help) Iceland’s eerie landscape was noticed world-wide, as dark clouds of glassy ash spread thousands of kilometers overseas to cause the highest blockage of air traffic across Northern Europe since WWII. Not what you want your beloved home land to be known for is it,

“The Viking bastards that let their volcano mess up my travels.”

Still, as far as Iceland making an impact on the world in the last 50 years (probably more), this is pretty much it. But in a pain in the bum point of view for the Icelandic population, total evacuation numbers were about 500… This obviously brought the country to a stand-still (Not really, just in case the implied sarcasm didn’t punch you in the face) but the settling ash did have a significant impact on some farms, with areas of ash being too thick to continue farming there.

Here’s a video of the eruptions, and would you look at that, music by my favorite thing to come out of Iceland, Jonsi anyone?

Chai latte!

Max

PS. I've been trying so hard to say it and this is where I'm at right now