Leaving aside the fact that in the area of the eruption a new mountain is rising (but this is not so unusual in Iceland), not much has changed over the past days. Volcano activity in the Fimmvörduháls area is slowly increasing, but situation seems reasonably under control. In fact, roads have been opened for tourists, and most tour operators in Reykjavík seems to be offering trips to the area, also by helicopter. The Iceland Search and Rescue operation has some advices for wannabe eruption visitors. This is not to say that future developments of the eruption can be predicted. If the eruption moves West, it might go under the Eyjafjallajökull glacier, thus causing floods and god knows what else; if it moves East, it might trigger another eruption in the much more dangerous Katla volcano (which I heard somewhere being defined as a “big bad boy”), under the Mýrdalsjökull glacier. There are two webcams pointing to the eruption, offered by mila.is.
But a couple of days ago, drama hit also other hot places in Iceland, strip clubs. In fact, on March 24th, legislation has been passed in the parliament to ban stripteases in Iceland and exploitation of nudity in commercial activities. Clubs will have until July 1, 2010 to “adjust” their activities. If you have read our other posts, you may already know our experience with prohibitionism in Iceland. Strip clubs are honestly not exactly my cup of tea – they obviously tend to attract sexism and squalor – but banning them seems a bit like hiding the dirt under the carpet. Maybe, instead of banning strip clubs, the parliament could pass a law to force them to have gender quotas for strippers. At least, in this way, they won’t be degrading just one of the two sexes, but both. And no, sorry, we do not have webcam links to these strip clubs.
Anyhow, the kind of prohibitionism that disturbed me the most in this otherwise beautiful country and tranquil city is the ban for dogs in the city center. Yes, you read it right. Some big areas of central Reykjavík, the most elegant part of the city, are off-limits to dogs. I can understand that dogs tend to leave some nasty byproducts here and there, but this can be solved by educating them and eventually punish the owners that refuse to clean-up. Is it possible that the proud, brave, strong-willed Icelanders are afraid of dog poo in their streets? Dogs and animals in general add life to even the grayest cities; and I am sure that Reykjavík would be an even nicer place with more dogs around. Thankfully, some of the shops in the city center seem to ignore the ban – and some of the coziest cafés in town are quite dog-friendly.
Ah, and do not get me started about cat laws. But this will be the subject of another post, somewhere in the future. For now, suffices to say that cats in Iceland must learn to behave before going into the streets.