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)