Unicode Sandwich, demonstrating multiple encodings.

unicode_sandwich.py

# -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-
import re

# Byte string containing an Icelandic pangram encoded in mac_iceland
input = 'Svo h\x9alt, yxna k\xe0r \xdfeg\xddi j\x9c um d\x97p \x92 f\x8e \x87 b\xbe.'

# Create a Unicode object from the string, decoding with the mac_iceland
# encoding
u_string = input.decode('mac_iceland')
re.sub(r'\w{4}', u'xxxx', u_string, flags=re.UNICODE)

# Print to UTF-8, which your terminal probably understands
print u_string.encode('UTF-8')

with open('output.txt', 'wb') as file:
    # Write the new unicode string to file using UTF-8 encoding
    file.write(u_string.encode('UTF-8'))