I am delighted that as our World Blogging Challenge starts, Alda of the Iceland Weather Report is our blogger of the day.

An essential ingredient of any holiday is to sun yourself in the pool and that is exactly what I did today; I went swimming, Icelandic style. Since they have to find something to do with all that geothermally heated water, Reykjavik has an abundance of swimming pools.

The Icelandic Minister for Industry is obviously a little peeved that the US specifically left them out of the recent currency swap agreement with Norway, Sweden & Denmark. That's putting it mildly. Apparently he said "the US gave us the finger."

As the credit crunch becomes increasingly bizarre, not to mention scary, the Iceland government has made the extraordinary announcement that Russia is to come to their financial aid, offering to loan loan four billion euros ($5.4 billion). This of course begs the question why? Why would the Russians agree to a loan that if the harbingers of doom are to be believed Iceland has no chance of paying back?

Iceland has been causing a slight stir in the world’s media recently, and not for the reasons that have become increasingly common, as a modern, cosmopolitan, über-trendy and forward thinking society. Far from it. It is now an apparently barbaric and backward people who have the temerity to hunt whales commercially following the Ministry of Fisheries sudden announcement. This sort of story undoubtedly makes for good headlines and copy but can it really be described as an international outrage?

The article gives you tips for getting more from your trip to Iceland describing the unique combination of nature and buzzing city that is available in Iceland. You can trek the wilderness during the day and have a night out in a "ccol' city.

I’ve been reading the Icelandic telephone book. That might sound an odd way of passing the time but it is a rather interesting document. I first came across it because I wanted to interview local celebrity and queen of camp, Páll Óskar, about the Eurovision, and after asking a few people how I might contact him, did he have an agent etc, I received fairly bemused looks and the reply, “Just look him up in the phone book.” Evidently being ex-directory is not a big thing here.