Today is my last Sunday in New Zealand - next time I write, I will be in the Faroe Islands. I apologise in advance, though, to the [non-existent] readership of this blog, because I shall be at least a day late. I arrive in the Faroes on Monday the 6th of August. 4 days travel, from New Zealand.
I am here, at home, not at work (obviously) recovering from the best party I've ever thrown. It was my leaving party and it makes me want to cry to know that I'm going to leave all of these people for an entire year.
The party was fantastic, big, raucous, full of dancing, and everyone was just wonderful. I'm going to miss this so much, these crazy parties that I throw on a few days notice and that somehow everyone manages to make it to, just because it's one of Kelsy's parties that are always o so great. And the mornings after, where we look at the photos and laugh ourselves silly at our own antics and revel in the friendship that we all have that is so perfect. And how everyone pitches in with food (last night, we made two batches of muffins!) and helps with the clean-up and leave one by one, stopping over and over to hug me and thank me and tell me they'll miss me.
I'm going to miss you guys so much.
Please don't forget me, and please read this, please keep in touch.
I love you all.
Thank you so much for everything. You've been amazing and I hope nothing changes when I get back. You are all fantastic.

Please stay in touch.
Love, Kelsy.

So here I am again on a Sunday afternoon, updating my blog. Its 4PM and I woke up 3 hours ago. Disgraceful, you say! Well yes, it really is. I attended my school ball last night and wore a really great dress. You'd love it, really. I'll attempt to procure some photos somehow to put up here at some point. And that finished at midnight. And of course, Mahurangi College, as any other school, has an afterball and this year it was at the Kaipara Flats Airfield and it ran from 1AM until 6AM. Me being me, I was one of the very last to leave. The music was fantastic, the disco lighting was buzzing out and the venue was super secure - 11 security guards, 10 cops and the Rodney Rams all came to make sure none of us got drunk enough to do anything overly stupid.
So I got to bed at about 6.15 which, ironically, is exactly the time I normally get up.
The upshot of this was, of course, that I slept extra long, and I only woke at 1.
It was all worth it, though! The afterball was super fun, though I wasn't drinking, and the ball itself was absolutely beautiful.

This brings me to wonder, will my host school have a ball? Surely they do ... though Silja tells me they don't have them this big and flash in Iceland. I hope they have a school ball ... I also wonder whether, if they DO have a school ball, do they have a massive afterparty like we do? There were 400 people at the afterball this year, the biggest they'd ever had. It was huge.

I read a book about the Faroes that said people in the Faroes either drink a lot, or like to talk about those who drink a lot. I wonder what this will turn out like ... could be interesting!

Guess I'll find out in 11 days!

I'm a day late, according to my phone, which informs me that today is the 16th of July. I was meant to blog on Sunday, which was the 15th. I warn you, I may be late 3 weeks from now, as well. That will be Sunday the 5th of August, and I will be ... in Denmark, I think. I may be in the Faroes by then but I'm not sure when my arrivals camp ends. We shall find out, anyway.

I'm a day late because last night I attended my last AFS Chapter meeting. I had my last orientation with Pam and received my backpack and spoke in Danish in front of the chapter and everyone thought it was pretty good because They Don't Speak Danish. That was OK.
But anyway, it was weird because my very first chapter meeting was the AFS Birthday Dinner, and the students leaving mid year 2006 received their backpacks. And here I am, exactly a year later, and I'm in their shoes just like I had hoped to be.

Do not ask me if I am excited, nervous or scared. I'm not. I feel nothing but curiosity with regard to my exchange and I find that really odd. It will come, I suppose, when I'm sitting in Copenhagen at an arrivals camp with 180 other students and thinking that just two days ago, I was in Warkworth, but I won't see it again for an entire year.
I am really looking forward to meeting my host family, because they sound amazing, and so do the Faroe Islands. I'm looking forward to it, sure, but excitement ... no, there's none of that.

I can't figure out what day I start school because my school website is all in Faroese and I can understand very little of it despite a fair grounding in basic Danish ... o dear. But in case anybody was interested, this is the wesbite of the school I will be attending:
http://www.hoydalar.fo/
Its called Føroya Studentaskúli og HF-skeið. I don't know what it means either, except that HF is some sort of address thing, og means and, and Føroya is The Faroe Islands.
There are class photos on there and everything, its really quite entertaining! I will be in the next set!!!

Today is my third to last Sunday in the country. Next Sunday I will be recovering from the ball (and the afterparty) and thankfully not going to work. That is Sunday the 22nd of July. Then there's Sunday the 29th, and hopefully I will be recovering from an equally good leaving party. I live in hope!

And after that ... Europe, for me!

Greetings, one and all. Given the history of my previous blogs, my audience is more likely to be one, but I believe I'll write as if it was many.

Chances are, you're here because you want to know how my life in the Faroe Islands is going. Thanks for caring, guys. Honestly, it will be nice if anyone looks at this besides, perhaps, my parents and my grandparents and a few cousins and stuff.

Friends, you are very much welcome to view my blog and please leave comments because then I KNOW somebody reads my posts.

So now we got all of that out of the way:

If you don't know me (and thats a bit creepy), my name is Kelsy, a.k.a Frauhauf (looong story) and I am travelling to the Faroe Islands in 25 days. If you don't know where the Faroes are, they're halfway between Iceland, Scotland and Norway, in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. They have a temperate climate which sadly, is very cold - the summer temperature averages 11C and the winter temperature 3C. A population of 50 000 inhabits 17 of the 18 Faroe Islands and the capital city, Torshavn, has 20 000 people. I will live in Torshavn. This map shows the cities and towns in the Faroe Islands. Between the major islands, tunnels run underneath the ocean to provide transport.

There are very few trees, and the trees they do have are stunted by the cold temperatures. The Faroes do, however, provide a home for hundreds of species of fauna, mainly birds, of which they have over 300 species inhabiting the cliffs around the islands.

The Faroe Islands have a culture built on tradition, and the people are very proud of this - their national day, Ólavsøka (St. Olav's Day), is laden with these traditions, and they have boat races, wear their national costume, and perform the ring dance.

Their language is Faroese, a sort of cross between Danish and Icelandic, and though the Islands are under government of Denmark, they have their own flag and consider themselves very much independent.
That's all I know.

So anyway, I am leaving the country in 25 days. I will travel first to Singapore, then to Frankfurt, then to Copenhagen, where I will have an arrivals camp and meet all of the exchange students to Denmark from all over the world. Finally, I will go to Torshavn and meet my family.

Their names are Kirsten and Magnus (host mother and father - family names are difficult because they are named for their fathers - ie Kirsten is Kirsten Hoegnesen because her father's name was Hoegne) and they have a 15 year old daughter named Johanna.

And then I won't see New Zealand, or speak English, for an entire year. And I'm really looking forward to it!

I will try to post every week, on a Sunday night, I guess it is now, though Sunday nights will change once I'm there.

If you want to send me a letter (because Kelsy LOVES snail mail) email me and I will send you my address because I wouldn't want any knife wielding maniacs turning up on my host family's doorstep. At least not before I get there!

So yeah, keep checking up, with any luck it will change from time to time.

Farvel!