As I'm reporting from Iceland, I want to tell you about a certain word in our language. In most Western languages, the word Police comes from the same common root of the Latin Politia, although the variations are many (Politi, policja, poliisi, Polizei, policía, etc.), and even in Swahili it's polisi! But up here we have the word "lögregla" for police, meaning literally "Law and Order"!
When our media report about repetitive criminals, they use the term "góðkunningi lögreglunnar", which means "a good acquaintance of the police". Through the years, we at the unconventional ISAK 4x4 Rental ISAK, have also become very well acquainted with the police, but more in the "Who wants to be a Millionaire" sense of "do you want to call a friend?" This is because, when the going gets tough and the traditional police vehicles aren't able to cope with the road or NO road conditions, we get a visit from the police.
The perfect example is from when the now famous, or infamous, glacier-volcano Eyjafjallajökull (pronounced Ayeja-fjadla-joekudl J) erupted. It immediately became a huge attraction, and Icelanders, including tourism companies, used their modified Super 4x4s to visit the eruption site at an height of 1100 meters, and to get there they had to cross another glacier, Mýrdalsjökull. To uphold law and order, and to ensure everybodys safety at the site, the police had to reach it, of course, and the only way was to cross that huge glacier. The rural police therefore contacted us and rented our ISAK 1: our Ace with pneumatic diff lockers front and rear. They fitted it with police stripes and kept it for some 3 weeks, going frequently up the mountain and crossing the glacier. This time I have included not only pictures of the police patrol at the eruption site, but also from an ISAK staff tour, that we took one of the nights.
More recently, we had an unexpected heavy snowfall in Reykjavik, just now between Christmas and New Year. Needless to say, we got a phone call from the police at 17:30 on a Friday afternoon "are you still at the office?" (of course we were), asking us for 4 ISAKs ready in about a half an hour. They were lucky, and we were lucky. This time we had enough ISAKs resting in between tours, so that we were able to get ISAK 4, 7, 9 and 14 prepped, cleaned of snow and delivered in the blink of an eye. The police had our four ISAKs in a custody for two days.
We also support the voluntary rescue troops in Iceland, from time to time, with our ISAKs. Well trained rescue troops are in Iceland essential, since we often have to fight the rough nature -but without any possible help of the military, as we don't have any military up here.
By the way, talking of quite another Police; Sting enjoyed the New Year's up here together with his family in a private lodge quite close to the Eyjafjallajökull. By now, as the air has cleared of the volcanic ash around there, he probably praised it by singing "Every breath you take"...
To be continued...
