This morning, right as I was about to head off to school, my host dad, Magnus, heard that there had been a whaling on the beach at Tórshavn. He asked if I wanted to go and well, of course I wanted to go. It's very much a part of the culture here.

And so we rang school and told them I'd be late, I grabbed my camera and rang the other kiwi here, Stacey, who we picked up from the swimming hall, and we headed down to the beach.

I want to explain the whaling before I put in photos of it, because it looks barbaric, but it's not. The Faroese have many reasons and justifications for their whaling, such as:

-the whales eat the cod and haddock around the Islands, which form the base of the Faroese fishing industry

-whale, or grind (pronounced grint) is a traditional source of food for the Faroese and has been since time immemorial. It is, however, more than this. It is also a practice deeply ingrained in their culture.

-the killing of whales is extremely humane. They are not harpooned, but their throats are cut on the shore. Each whale survives no longer than 15 seconds once it is beached.

-the whalings occur only when the whales come into the bay. They are not hunted, but rounded up, and only when they can be sighted from the shore. This can happen five times a year, or not at all.

-no profit is made from the whaling, but the meat is divided equally between the households represented on the shore at the time of the killing. A large book is put on a rock and names are entered into it and later, when the whales have been weighed and measured, their meat is divided to each family who requested a share.

It was a truly beautiful day today. The sky was clear of clouds and perfectly blue, the sun shone more strongly than I think I have seen it since I have been here. I was awoken at 5AM by the sunshine coming through my blinds.

The beach in Tórshavn is small, and as we walked down to it we could see that there were hundreds of whales (230 to be exact) laid out along the shore, and they were still bringing them in. A few were still being slaughtered - humanely with a great hook that sliced a wedge from the throat of the pilot whale, but most were already dead and being hauled in onto the beach. Each whale had ten or fifteen men on a rope, and some were waist deep, chest deep in the water which was bright, vivid red with blood. There were around a hundred boats all floating close to the shore. These had been the boats used to bring the whales into the bay.

When whales are first spotted, the call of 'grind' goes out across the entire city. Within ten or fifteen minutes, everyone knows that the whales have come to Tórshavn, because the call is shouted from house to house. Everything goes on word of mouth - indeed my host father found out about the whaling from our neighbours.

Many men, mostly those who own boats, head down to the shore to help. Many go out to help bring in the whales, others wait on the shore to slaughter them and bring them to the beach with their ropes. The boats surround the school and bring them in, just as one would round up sheep. They bring them closer and closer to the beach, until they can be tied with ropes and killed on the shore.

What I couldn't believe about the whaling was the audience. People go just to watch, and though it is fascinating for me, still a relative tourist, in terms of whaling anyway, I couldn't understand that it would be so astounding for the Faroe Islanders. It took me a long time to realise that it is because it is so much a part of their culture. Their parents, their grandparents, their forebears, have all butchered the whales, and so it is a very, very important tradition.

Once the whales are all killed and laid out on the shores, they tie them in groups of 2 or 3 to the boats remaining, which then tow them from the bay into the harbour. In the harbour they are lifted from the water with a huge crane and onto forklifts, which then transport them to a clean area where they are laid on the ground, measured and weighed. I was lucky enough to see the measurement of the whales, and they have a special system whereby they calculate how many househoulds can recieve meat from each whale.

In the evening, when the weighing and measuring is finished, another call goes out - this one of 'grindaboð', or whale message. They call all of the registered people into the middle of town to collect their allocated whale, and the town is a buzz of celebration and conversation. The days events are assessed and the whales are counted and divided. This is carried out by the police.

And that is the whaling, or grindaráp, as it is called in Føroyskt.

I'm afraid this computer does not like uploading photos, so I can add only a few, but I am glad to email them. Please don't go sending any to newspapers or Greenpeace or anything, though, as that tends to cause unnecessary controversy.

I think 'Nyt indlæg' is new post ... it must be because I just clicked it and wound up here.

So yeah, as you can tell from my photos, a lot has been going down and I figured it was time for a real blog where I actually told you stuff instead of making you guess from my fragmented captions.

I started school last Monday! It was fantastic. We had orientation week ie No Real Work, so that was cool. In fact, I think we fingerpainted, danced, made name cards for each other, and sang a Faroese song together with actions. We also got lots of Talks about ... no idea what. I couldn't understand and it was too boring to warrant translation.
My class is cool - see link to my class photo. If you want to look at my school's website, it's http://www.hoydalar.fo/ - there's a big photo of my school but it looks very tiny. The school is anything but tiny, it's massive.
Yeah so anyway my class are pretty great - they translate everything for me, they talk to me in English, they discuss music almost as well as any kiwi (they have different musics) and well, they're just good fun. Everyone plays an instrument. EVERYONE. Everyone sings, or nearly. Most people, anyway.
It's insane how musical this place is. One girl in my class, Kristina, is such a good cellist that she actually got to go and perform in an orchestra for this insanely good Danish violinist. She's also an incredible singer and pianist ... my hat goes off to her, she's just amazing. Somehow she manages to be nice as well ... yeah ... hat off. And everyone is like this - another girl, Karin, who is very cool and has ... pinkish reddish hair if you find her in my photo, she sings and plays piano and attended a music school in Denmark for a year on a scholarship. And then Mattias, he's played piano for 10 years (his mum teaches my host sister drama and her name is Hedwig - hahaha!). EVERYONE plays. It's so amazing .. and they have jam sessions and everything. It's so great. I think I am going to love it here!

But anyway, Real School started today. Or, kinda ... I'm not sure if such a thing exists in the Faroes! You see, our first class which was meant to last 95 mins, lasted 35 because our teacher, Brynjálvur (I can't pronounce it either) just didn't have anything to teach us. Weeeeird. So we sat around for an hour until our English teacher arrived - she was very nice and the class lasted the whole hour and a half but she kept stopping for breaks so I suspect we only did about an hour's work. It was nice to be understanding stuff, though!!
THEN we had art. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am SHOCKING at art. I can't draw to save myself, and today, we had to draw EACH OTHER. I was drawn by a girl called Sunniva, who is depressingly good. I had to draw her too, and she wasn't recognisable ... it was awful ... then we had to write our names on them and put them on the ground in the classroom. Highly embarassing stuff, as one would imagine! Luckily, there were ones worse than mine.
But our teacher decided to finish up 35 mins early, so we got out of school at 12.55 today! I arrived home at 1PM and have been writing letters and attempting to blogify my photos ever since.
School here is Very Different. We get free broadband access and there are none of those annoying locks that Mahu puts on webpages. Mp3 players and phones are allowed in class - people actually answer their mobiles from time to time. There's no uniform. O, and nobody does the homework because all the textbooks are in Danish and they claim not to understand it, even though everyone speaks fluent Danish. Hey, at least my excuse will be true!
But yeah, if you get the idea, it's pretty cruisy. Or it has been so far. O, and we get an overseas trip, though I have a sneaking suspicion they tend to put them in the summer holidays and so I will be heading back to NZ while my class goes to Prague or something. But we can hope, can't we?!
O yes, and I went to Klaksvík on the weekend, to visit my host grandad. Who doesn't speak a WORD of English ... it was good though, because I HAD to speak Faroese.
But there was a festival ... Sailors' Day, and it was really cute. But we wound up back at the harbour at about 2AM somehow and there were a bunch of drunks trying to catch fish, which had been put in a barrel for little kids to look at. One guy was worryingly good at it - see photos!
O and they had a live band which were quite hicksville but there were loads of old people dancing which was hilarious. They were so drunk it was like bumper cars ... ah, good fun.

Anyway, I'm going to go and finish my letters and probably sleep. Hope you liked the photos!
Kelsy

For some reason, this stupid thing has put everything on in anti-chronological order. But I'm going to caption everything in chronological order, so start at the bottom, OK?

1. Team kiwi with the NZ flag at arrivals camp.

2. Sinead being super sexy with the flag.

3. Olivia, Emily, Sinead and I - I think we all tried to ruin it at once.

4. Me looking uber self righteous with the flag..

5. Cory and I making fools of ourselves with the flag..(phew - last of the flag photos)

6. Flying into the Faroes we were confronted with ... this. Very, very beautiful.

7. My host family - Magnus, Jóhanna and Kristinbjørg!

8. The Faroes from the top of a mountain. A few of them, anyway.

9. My neighbourhood - Á Mýrini.

10. This adorable little path we found in Agir (seriously, like 5 minutes walk from the city centre - imagine this in Auckland!!).

11. Jóhanna on one of the adorable little bridges - yes, I know, we have matching coats ..

12. Kristinbjørg in Tjørnuvík, the town we went to see a whaling (see post somewhere below).

13. The beach at Tjørnuvík ... now imagine it covered in dead pilot whales.

14. Klaksvík Sailors' Day!

15. The Jóhanna sailing ship (over 150 years old).

16. Two traditional Faroese fishing boats (yup, they fish from them. In Faroe weather ... go figure).

17. Drunk catches massive crab, drunk kisses crab ...

18. Drunk procures a stingray from somewhere ... thankfully doesn't kiss it ...

19. Some really pretty coloured boats docked in Klaksvík, with the city lights in the background.

20. A beautiful waterfall in the valley above Klaksvík.

21. A view of Klaksvík from the mountains.

22. The very large, very cliff-like, very imposing mountains that seem to surround EVERYTHING in the Faroes.

1. Cory and I at Frankfurt Airport, purchasing giant pretzels. We were very excited about it!

2. Team Kiwi, less 3, at a railway station in Tårnby, on the way to Copenhagen. (Nai, me, Stacey, Cory, Olivia)

3. A very, very beautiful, very, very old building in central Copenhagen.

4. Nyhavn. The place Denmark uses for advertising. More beautiful in real life.

5. The multicutural blackboard in our sleeping room/classroom thing.

6. The vineyard at the back of the SCHOOL we used to camp. It's so gorgeous there.

7. The communal showers. Yup, no kidding, this is where we showered (and it's a SCHOOL). Every gymnasium and folkeskole has one, too, so yup ... every week for the year I will be communally showering after gym class.

Hey guys, sorry but this photo upload thing takes FOREVER. When it works at all. So it will be bit by bit (it's incredible that there's ANYTHING here tonight).

My class photo, if you liked that kinda thing, can be found here.

A delightfully Færoese story:
Last weekend, there was a festival on an island just across the harbour from Tórshavn, Nólsoy. 'Twas called 'Ovastevna' (stevna means festival). We considered going but eventually decided that it was just silly because the weather was awful.
But I did ask my host father what the festival was in aid of, and he told me:

About 10 years ago, there was a man called Oví who lived on Nólsoy. He was a man of adventure, and liked to row, and one day he set out to row to Denmark. Now, this is a plane flight of 2.5 hours, so rowing there was no mean feat.
Oví succeeded, and was, of course, hailed a national hero by the Færoes, after all, his effort had been an impressive one.
He then began to campaign for a swimming hall on Nólsoy, and he raised a lot of money towards it but not quite enough. You see, before he could raise the whole amount, Oví drowned. He capsized his boat, rowing the approximately 2km distance from Nólsoy to Eysturoy (see map). He was going to visit his fiancé. He was also very drunk.
And, to this day, the people of Nólsoy hold a festival every year on the anniversary of his death to raise money for the swimming hall he never saw built!
This is very, very Færoese. This would only happen in the Færoe Islands. Seriously. O, and ignore my erratic spelling of Faroe/Færoe/Føroya. I can never really remember which one I've used but they are all correct, I promise.
OK so the other interesting thing that has been happening, is that there was a whale killing in a very small town called Tjørnuvík (pronounced Chud-no-vik - now do you see how hard this language is?). We went the next morning - I wanted to see it. No idea why, but I did. And there was nothing left but the town was adorable. Sadly I can't upload photos on this PC but somewhen I will have one blog just full of photos. I promise.

And yeah, it is very cold here (summer - whaaaat?), ie 9 degrees celsius today. And there is this craaazy fog, like ... the sea is probably 30 or 40 metres from my window but when the fog rolls in all I see is white, today I actually lost sight of this house that's pretty much right below my window. It's insane how thick the fog is, and how fast it comes in. It can be a perfectly clear day and then 10 seconds later the entire view is a white-out. It's ... strange.
And, when there's no fog, there's rain. It's rather fun! Well, no ... it's wet. I have to get wet weather gear at some point because, well ... there's ALWAYS wet weather and I have to walk to school! :( Ah well.
Sometimes, there is sunshine. I actually have the most fantastically beautiful photo of the view from our living room on a sunny day (there was one last week) and I shall put it up at some point.

I started school today ... understood nada but there was a girl who I met at a partay who translated everything for me so that was helpful. And I'm going back tomorrow ... good grief. Hopefully I will actually learn some words and then everything will become easier. My Faroese is going well, though! Really, I'm picking it up quickly, which is fun. It's such a strange language though, lots of silent letters and the vowels never do what you want them to. But I'll get there. Soon, hopefully!

I was asked to play organ for a church yesterday. They were quite sad to hear I'd never played an organ. But everyone here is most impressed with my sight reading - there's a book full of Faroese music (fully getting a copy before I go home) that they have at every party, and I always play for them and they love it. It now looks as though I may attend the Tórshavn music school as well as my regular gymnasium - to play saxaphone and sing. And do theory. That will be nice. Especially as they have bands and a choir and I can rent a saxamaphone. Though one of Jóhanna's friends has a VERY nice Yamaha that she say I may borrow whenever I like, so that's FANTASTIC. My music thrives here - yay! My school has a choir also, and I am joining a gospel one called Sound of Glory TenSing, that my host sister conducts. It will be good fun, I suspect, as they have lots of camps and whatnot. So yeah, I'll let you know what goes on!

And I will post hopefully actually on Sunday next week! (Sorry I'm late - again, was at a party last night, a birthday party for ... someone my host family knows)

Well, hey guys.
I'm in the Faroe Islands - Føroya to those of you in the know ... slash who read the title on my blog.
It is amazingly beautiful here. Windswept, rugged, and majestic in its own little way. I like it ... from our window we can see two islands in the bay of Tórshavn, Eysturoy and ... something else. Can't remember. But they're beautiful! I live on Streymoy, in Tórshavn, which is lovely. Small, but with everything you need - I'm within walking distance of the only mall in the Faroes, but I haven't been there yet. My school is also within walking distance, and it is very very nice. Two big buildings (yes Mahuians, that means NO MORE WALKING AROUND IN THE RAIN), but it doesn't matter because you stay in the one classroom all the time, and the teachers move. Not sure how that will work for science, but I'm in the science stream so hopefully my class will have bunsen burners and all.
My host family are GREAT. My host sister, Jóhanna, is teaching me Faroese (Føroysk) with post-it notes. My host mum, Kristinbjørg, is vice principal of my school, and my host dad, Magnus, is just generally great. He took Jóhanna and I shopping today, for a lamp and a rubbish bin for my room. Which is lovely! It has big orange butterflies that Jóhanna stencilled. The house is beautiful. the Faroes are amazing, the nightlife is apparently pumping, can't wait for my first Gymnasium Party!!! School starts on Monday ... hopefully next weekend I'll be recovering from a morning party!
Ah now I must say, under this blog there is a thing that say (#) acknowledgements. Those are comments, I changed the name. Please comment, or I shan't have any inspiration to write!
My arrivals camp ... o. So much fun. I loved it, really I did, and I miss my new AFS friends, especially the kiwis ...
There will be photos when I actually figure out how to navigate the PC in Danish! I promise.
Denmark is beautiful. I love it. Copenhagen is just amazing. The houses are so cute, ALL the buildings are cute, the place is perfect. Again, there will be photos!
Anyway, it's 12.35AM here so I will be heading off to bed. In the holidays, people seem to sleep until noon here, so this lateness of hour is quite acceptable. Interesting, really.
I miss NZ. Keep in touch, guys!