When mentioning Iceland till now I was always referring to my experience in 2006, when I visited country twice to assist the development of a student association BEST. Then I was amazed and surprised by the warmth of people, by beauty of nature.

Today I am again in Iceland. This time – traveling for business.

Iceland these days has a lot of coverage on the international news channels, especially if you follow British media.

Here I want to share my observations during last two days visit of Reykjavik. Let it be my subjective contribution making Iceland known as a great place.

After arrival I met my old friends from student association. Surprisingly, out of dozen I knew, only around half of them live in Iceland right now. Others are studying and work all over the globe – like Hawaii, New Zealand, France, or Denmark.

To my enjoyment locals (both friends and business partners) today are not declaring, but living by the saying – “in tough times see opportunities rather than problems”. I really was not expected so much of positive energy from Icelanders. However, bits of sadness shows through (let’s wait till the salary payment time this month – if people will not receive money, there might be riots; some suicides happened already because of bankruptcies..).

So what is happening? First of all, the official prices for USD or Euro in Icelandic Kroner rose +35 percent. On other hand, European airlines already inviting people to come to Iceland for Christmas shopping, I suggest to consider doing that – and help Iceland to export more! You can get Tax Returns, when was the last time you experienced that?

Two banks had troubles and were taken over by the state. The third one – Kaupthing – was perceived doing well, but was kneed by British antiterrorist law applied to its assets. It seems that nobody knows (but there are plenty of rumors) how wrong translation, wrong communication was misunderstood by British, and not dealt properly with both sides.

I have arrived here with two of my colleagues from UK and from I heard quite a good coverage on how people in UK see the case. It seems that there is no common understanding point from both media sides. At least the willingness to discuss among simple people exists, no outrages and inappropriate blames.

Anyway, right now when Icelander travels abroad upon presenting of the flight tickets at a bank he can exchange up to 250 GBP for personal use. If he uses his credit card in Europe, the exchange ratio happens to be double than one in Iceland. I was a small boy but still remember the times when Lithuanians had issues with currency – in Soviet Union, or in restored state in 1990s. Currency limitations are not a pleasant thing.

Icelandic people are disappointed and angry with European states, which turned back their shoulders and did not help their economy. Did you know that Iceland was the first country recognizing Lithuanian independence in 1991? And did you know that in 1944 the first country who recognized Icelandic independence was Russia? I would never imagine that. But it comes into different light, when Iceland goes and asks now for help from Russia.

Let’s move away from economics. Iceland has a population of 300 000 people. Everybody should know everybody. I am searching for a friend whom mobile phone is not working anymore, and email has changed. We met in 2002 in Skopje during an internships of IAESTE. It would be easy to find him in the world of Internet unless his name is John Smith. Or Icelandic equivalent – Bjorn Bjornsson . Let us see if I could dig the contacts again via my other friends in Iceland.

And finally- I would like to share my most enjoyable experience today – with the taxi driver Gunnar B. Gaistar. He drove me to the business meeting in the morning and I asked him if he could pick me up again in one hour time to drive to airport. He agreed and offered to keep my luggage in his car while I was in the meeting and even pay later for the first trip. Would you agree for such a thing? I did, and later had a lovely discussion with him on the way to airport about Icelandic habits and trust. Imagine the culture of the people, who come from a village in the west part of the Iceland, where 1000 people were coming only from two separated families. Trust and honor are essential to prosper in such environments.

And probably this is the same reason, why in the bars or airport shops it is enough to swipe your credit card without any authorization – pin or signature.

Definitely, I want to live in such society, especially when having experience of Kazakhstan or Brazil, and do you?