WORK|OUT European Students’ Review

   | Federico Tarantino (REYKJAVÍK). Reykjavík, the most Nothern capital in the world. We are joining the same ground, the same planet, the same development. No doubts. Everybody is aware of that, even an inhabitant of Kulusuk knows it. Every piece of land marked by human breath is linked with another one, it doesn’t matter if they are near or far away. It makes no difference if you need to move from Casalecchio to Bologna downtown or to Mexico City. You can do it.
   7 km or 6000 km is almost the same.
   Laugavegur, hub of Iceland and engine of the economy of this nation in the middle of the Ocean, mirrors the key-concepts of the 21st century as well as the shop windows reflect the posh fashion furs.
   Before getting to Iceland I was really convinced to find a different nation compared with the States of the Old Country, where eco-compatibility and respect of nature were the most important values, where man and environment friendly gathered. 4 years ago newspapers announced: “Hydrogen and sustainable development in the trolls’ land”. Instead, I found a capitalistic country as usual, big cars, hammers and big dams.
   Icelandic nature is amazing, nothing to say about that, but if you say while you’re working “nothing to do”, well, it’s not allowed. Iceland is full of foreign employers, from Poland, Spain, Germany, Ukraine, US and Scandinavian countries. In addition, we have to add an amount of about 200 exchange students. Most of them’s got a job, in bars or in restaurants, as glass collecter or as kitchen porter, in pizzerias and so on. Shortly, they are the “kjallari” of the Icelandic pyramid. Thank to them, the well-known Icelandic entertainment can go on (have a look).
   Icelandic style of life brings you to think that here you can work a lot, something like 15 hours per day sometimes, or 7 days per week. Time is money, but where are the social right? First of all, is that life? Why do you need to work so much? What do you want to achieve?
   In Laugavegur there is a grill called Café Oliver. These people who like the capital are used to sit down here and order food at any time of the day; they can ask some bananas from Ecuador or some meat from Spain, in short “travelling” food, even if they have just eaten in the next restaurant. The cooks in the kitchen try to prepare the wished dish as quickly as they can, the dish is delivered to the customer and, after ten minutes, this dish comes back not as plate with a bit of sauce or ketchup, but exactly as at the starting point. Yes, Iceland is very skilled in moving economy. Serving food to not hungry clients. The kitchen porter, an Erasmus student or a guy from the South, doesn’t agree with that, and so he decides to eat the just-touched oranges before they are thrown away.
   Iceland is a small country; it counts 300.000 inhabitants and the two third of the population lives in Reykjavík. It is very expensive but you cannot buy water. Water is free and the energy comes from the underground, from the power of the geothermal steam. Could it be the beginning of a new era? I don’t know. The world is getting small and smaller, where is the closest Internet point, my laptop is exhausted.

Read another excellent article about Iceland in: il maleppeggio (in Italian).