Day 50-debit card and on-line banking

   February 23-Today was English instruction at Hraunborg again.  I am feeling much more comfortable with the lesson plans and the kids now.  It helps that this was the third time they have seen me, so I am less of a stranger and they are more willing to sing the songs and do the activities.  A few of the three and four year olds even gave me hugs when I left their classroom.  That was sweet.  It's certainly not something you get from college students after class! 
   I am getting a better handle on the social situation in the kindergarten class as well.  Unfortunately, there are two bullies in the classroom.  The teachers know who they are and watch them closely, but these two just pick on the other kids mercilessly and then sit in time-out the requisite amount of time before coming out to cause trouble again.  Spencer says that he and his friends just try to avoid these two kids, but they occasionally have to deal with them.  So long as he is mostly having fun at kindergarten and enjoys interacting with the good kids, it should not be a problem.  I know that teachers are at their wit's end with these two, but I don't know what they can do.  Butts in seats (and the subsequent income) matters as much in kindergarten as it does in college!
   Sally and I headed to Borgarnes in the afternoon for shopping.  When we got into town we headed to the Settlement Center to try it for dinner, which was wonderful.  We have not yet seen the exhibit at the Settlement Center, but I imagine we will go there multiple times as friends and family visit.  The exhibit discusses the first settlers in the area, who developed one of the most prosperous farming districts during the Saga Era.  Egil's Saga discusses the settlement of the Borgarnes area, but multiple other sagas also discuss his descendants and other people who used to live here.  We still do not know a great deal about all of this history yet, but it is something we want to delve more into while we are in the area.
   After dinner, we headed to the bank, where we were finally successful in obtaining our debit cards and on-line banking access.  OK, so it must be pretty boring here, if I have to start talking about on-line banking.  Except, it's not!  Sometimes, the differences between Iceland and America pop up at the most unexpected moments and that would certainly describe our banking experiences so far. 
   First, there is no such thing as a joint account over here.  An account is connected to a single kennitala, or ID number, so there is no way to have two people on the account.  Second, any and all bills are registered on-line, based on kennitala.  I had received the bill for the girls' dinners at Varmaland a couple days ago, so I took it in to pay it while we were at the bank.  It turns out that the bill was already assigned to my account.  That does not mean that it had been paid.  I still had to agree to pay it, but the connection to me was already there.  That kind of interconnectedness can be a little frightening, but it also makes bill-paying really efficient.

   Third, our debit cards have our
pictures and our signatures, which had been recorded electronically in a previous visit.  Every time I have used the card since then, the cashier has simply turned the card over and made sure I was the person pictured on the back.  Simple, but very effective.  I am surprised that this convention has not been adopted more widely.  As I understand it, debit cards are the most widely used form of IDs, because of the picture on them.
   Fourth, the ordeal to get our on-line banking system set up was amazing.  We were assigned at least four IDs and/or passwords and came up with three more passwords ourselves.  Once we got home, I sat down and worked with the sets of numbers and passwords and I think I have finally figured out which ones we need for each purpose.
   Fifth, the manners in which the on-line baking site is accessed are completely different from the ones we use in the States.  I had wondered why every Icelander carries a gray plastic device with a numerical display on the front (left side of picture), but now I know.  Each person's account is assigned one of these (not completely) random number generators.  So, to log into your on-line banking account, you fill out the username and the password you selected, and then you pull out your ID device and turn it on.  A string of numbers appears, which you enter into their own field.  Alternatively, you can use your debit card to access your account.  You plug the card reader into the USB port, slip your debit card into it, and then enter your debit card's PIN to access your account.
   Now that we have access to on-line banking, we also can access the search engine for Iceland's kennitala ID system.  Since the kennitala number includes a person's birthdate, I
can find out anyone else's birthdate and therefore their age.  I can also get the person's address through the search engine.  Can you imagine the outrage that would accompany the introduction of this sort of publicly-accessible database in the States?