Or not. Due to the ongoing airtraffic disruptions caused by the eruption of the volcano on the Eyjafjallajökull-glacier, the public image conveyed by the traditional press and TV is that of a nation who switched on a volcano to ground all flights in Europe because it can. As if there would be some kind of switch for a volcano. This does however have a significant influence on tourism in Iceland: for example, Icelandic airlines, Icelandair and Iceland Express, are looking at a 75 percent drop in bookings compared to what the situation usually is at this time of year.

But as we here at Sonic Iceland are declared fans of Iceland (ha!), we have now started our own PR-campaign to help Iceland: Only stupid people think Iceland is a dangerous place.

This is our call to all arms for all Icelanders and friends of Iceland. Please head over to our new group on Facebook and post a picture of Iceland that shows how nice and well everything is there in reality. There is no dangerous hot ash or pyroclastic flows around the Blue Lagoon, Iceland is “just” an island full of nice people and breathtaking scenery north of Scotland. Spread the word.

Photocredit: Hekla

So, our blog is finally online. This is of course not the finished website, but does more represent our urge to share this project with the world right from the start. So please feel free to comment, to send us mails and by all means follow us on Twitter and Facebook to participate and exchange. There’s still so much to discover.

As both Kai and I have pointed out before, this whole thing started as a spontaneous “come on, let’s do this”-idea, after we both watched Heima once too often. But after the first chaotic brainstorming we had it all kicked off very very well: we already made loads of contacts in Iceland and met many interesting people – and keep excavating so many interesting things about Iceland that not once in the last three months did I feel unmotivated or bored by this whole thing. Despite the incredible amount of work that both us naive webguys have underestimated big time. We still have to pay some bills, even though I could keep on reading sagas and travel reports from the Thirties all day without doing anything else.

And there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, though it may just be another freight train coming our way due to the short preparation time: we have pretty much established that we’ll be in Iceland the whole of June; and Kai will be flying over in a week to scout around for a couple of days, and to visit the Aldrei Fór ég Suður-festival in Ísafjörður.
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