An unexpected and potentially confusing question

Once we’re settled in our rented wooden house I sit up on the windowsill and call the pizza place down the road. It’s snowing outside, and dark, although it’s not even four o’clock yet. I run through the shoddy Icelandic in my head as the phone rings. Pizza is 'pítsa', right? Luckily, Icelanders aren’t the chattiest of people, so I doubt I’ll have to fend off any unexpected and potentially confusing questions.

“I’d like to order a large pizza with olives and mushrooms,” I say, confidently, to the girl who answers the phone. Conor looks suitably impressed. He had wanted garlic oil, too, but I don’t know the word for it, so I had lied and said garlic? Are you crazy? Garlic hasn’t made it to Iceland yet!

“Can I take your name,” says the girl on the phone.

“It’s Annie,” I say.

“And... your last name?”

An unexpected and potentially confusing question. Icelanders never ask for your last name; there aren’t enough people in the country to justify needing it — even the phone book is listed alphabetically by first names. But I handle it smoothly all the same. “Atkins,” I tell her.

“Annie! I knew it was you!” she screeches, in perfect English. “I could tell by your grammar!”


This is part of a post I wrote for the Icelandic tourist board's new website. The rest of the story is here.