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       Bun Day
       February 13th, 2021
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       Monday is Bun Day here in Iceland. Bollur, the buns of the day,
       are sort of like cream puffs. Folks get jams and whipped cream and
       mix them together and stuff the buns to overflowing, then smother
       them in chocolate sauce. It's a healthy time!
       
       There's also a super-duper Icelandic tradition with bun day that
       many parents choose to not teach their kids. Early on Monday
       morning children in the know will wake up early, sneak into their
       parents' bedroom and WHACK WHACK WHACK them in their bed with
       sticks! However many whacks they get in before the parents get up
       is how many buns they get. Lovely!
       
       Following Bun Day is a sort of Fat Tuesday-like holiday that
       involves gorging yourself on all sorts of special foods that are
       terrible for you. I forget the name of that one, but it's nice
       too. 
       
       Finally we get to Ash Wednesday. Here in Iceland Ash Wednesday is
       the costume & candy holiday. Halloween is a relatively recent
       phenomenon here and not very popular mostly because they already
       have most of those traditions at the start of lent. Kids dress up
       in all sorts of costumes, go to school that way, and then later go
       around begging for candy. But here they don't go to individual
       homes and say "trick or treat". Instead they go to businesses and
       sing songs for their treats! If you head downtown to Reykjavik on
       Wednesday you'll see this in full swing. It's really cute and so
       strange to see bank-branded popcorn bags and the like.
       
       Needless to say the next 3 days are pretty much party-time for the
       kids. No school work will get done and that's a joy in itself.
       Everyone is going to be on a crazy sugar rush. Good for them. :)