OK, so it's Monday and school is not happening. Or it was, but only for 10 minutes. I had 3 classes - physics, English and art. School started at 10AM because physics was cancelled, then I found out that art was cancelled, and in English, they were doing a mock exam thing which involved Danish translation. So I didn't have to do it, and I had class for a grand total of 10 minutes. Woohoo!
I know I'm blogging late again, but there really are valid reasons. I was on an AFS camp all weekend in Mikladalur, a little town on the island of Kalsoy. It was so much fun! It snowed on Saturday night and on Sunday we had the best snow fight ever. Mikladalur is more or less a ghost town because all the houses are holiday homes, and so we conducted the whole thing like a Wild West stakeout with sieges and ambushes and hiding in doorways and stuff ... ah, it was great. Lasted about an hour and by the end of it we were all soaked. Which didn't stop Celeste and I from making snow angels!
Then when we finally got home yesterday at about 5PM I was so tired, and then my friend Lilja and her 2 little sisters, Silja and Lý came over for dinner (lasagne, really GOOD lasagne, mmm) and by the time they left at 9PM I was so incredibly tired I just went to bed.
The photos below are in the following order:
-Me in the kavikríggj having the time of my life (note, I am wearing Faroese jumper)
-Stacey in the snow war
-Katharina, also fighting
-Me, just about to tackle Ice and cover him with snow
-Stacey and Katharina
-Katharina, Celeste, Stacey
-Me!
-The 'beach' at Mikladalur, scary place
-The Mikladalur waterfall - you wouldn't believe the steps to get down to the bottom.
-Stacey in the dog carrying car - it's the AFS mode of transport.
-Katharina in the dog van
-The view of Borðoy from Mikladalur.
-Me on the boat to Kalsoy, being dramatic. As usual.
-Stacey looking shocked on the boat
-Klaksvík!
-Stacey, Ice, me and Katharina on our way to Kalsoy.

So yeah, the camp was amazingly fun which is good as I was very loath to leave Tórshavn this weekend due to another class party (damn, still haven't put up photos from the last one) and a fantastic concert involving all the best Faroese artists, one of which is my very good friend Karin - an amazing jazz singer. But I missed all that and caught a lift to Klaksvík to get on the boat and I'm glad I did. Not that we did MUCH but it was good to sit around and discuss our exchanges and what's been going on and the language (as it turns out, I'm the only one who understands Faroese and I speak the best - yay!). It was really fantastic and I can't wait until the next one, which is in February, I think.

I have a school party on Saturday night called the Superheroes' Ball ... I have to go as a superhero. Darnit. I must think of a costume. I'm sure I'll find something! Speaking of which, I am going to head into town now to do exactly that!

Kelsy
xox - LEAVE COMMENTS, GUYS! (Especially on the photos - I know everyone likes photos)

Photos from my last AFS camp in the town of Mikladalur - all stolen from Celeste's myspace, but shhh! Haha.

Hello, this week Kelsy is blogging on a Monday ... Sundays have apparently gone out the window but I just have so much to DO on a Sunday, like homework that is due on Monday. And waking up at midday. And tidying stuff. And writing letters. Reading books and wrapping Christmas presents ...

Yes, so Christmas is fast approaching!
Last week, while working on the project I mentioned in my last blog, I went downtown with Hanus and Jeffri to get pizza (we were really working extremely hard - *cough*) and we discovered that they'd started decorating the town! Now I am going to get photos but for now I can only describe the garlands of greenery (fake, of course, greenery doesn't grow her) with big, neon stars and lit up red hearts that are hanging across the streets (which, by the way, are almost all cobbled which just makes everything cosier). I am just waiting for it to snow again - I can't wait to see Tórshavn looking really Christmassy.
And the bakeries are all making peber nødder (pepper nuts, literally, like little tiny round gingernuts with lots of cinnamon) which are a traditional Faroese Christmas treat. And quite delicious.
AND, there are little stalls springing up all over town selling everything Christmassy you could imagine - decorations, giftwrap, Christmas foods, presents, souvenirs. They just sit out on the street in the [almost and soon-to-be] sub-zero temperatures, quite happily distributing their wares. According to my host family, there are going to be lots more.
Best of all, my class, who are amazed with the lack of Christmas decorations we seem to have in New Zealand, have organised a Christmas-decoration-night for ME, in order to teach me how to make advent candles (daily and weekly), wreathes, and lots of other unbelievably quaint decorations they love here, and make themselves.
I am rather looking forward to Christmas, or Jól, as it is here, though it will be very different - they do the whole gift exchange thing on Christmas eve (Jóla-aftan).

I had night-class this evening which was fun, and as Stacey and I were walking back into town to catch the bus (the school is in Argir which is really far out), one of the fellows in the class who was from Brazil offered us a lift home. As it was sitting on about freezing, we gladly accepted and he dropped us back in Hoyvík, which was nice of him. After dinner, I was attempting to read the paper (Faroese as a written language is insanely difficult but also new - only about a century old) and lo and behold, here is Santos, dude who drove us home. As it turns out, he's in the national soccer team for the Faroes. And rather good. I do tend to miss these things ...

The project last week went rather well, though it did eventuate that I was the only one in my group who knew how to use Publisher, and so I engineered the entire layout for our magazine. I didn't mind at all, as it meant I was doing something to contribute. It was a wee bit of a worry, though, as our deadline was 2.30PM on Friday, and our job was to put everyone else's work together into the aforementioned magazine. Issue with this being, we couldn't finish until everyone finished. As a result, at 2.15PM we started glueing the [30 page] book together and at 2.28PM Hanus (who thankfully lives just above the school) grabbed the lot and ran barefoot and jacketless down to the school, stapling as he went. I took pity on the poor fellow and took down a jumper and some shoes when Jeffri and I wandered down a few minutes later, having tidied some stuff up and donned jackets AND shoes. But yes, that was a fun project. We think our magazine will get a good mark, so that will be great!

I have had a great weekend - on Friday night we went to a concert in Fuglafirði where Guðrið Hansdóttir, Heiðrik and The Ghost were playing - three very good Faroese acts. There was a discotek afterwards - basically just a dance - and so we stayed until 4AM when the bus was SUPPOSED to take us home. Sadly, it didn't. We rang the company and tried to locate the bus, and the Mentanarhusið staff rang the company and tried to locate the bus, but the company couldn't be contacted, nor could the bus be located. In the end, one of the security guards who happened to live in Tórshavn drove us home. We couldn't figure out if his name was Pætur or Knut, so we called him PK. Haha. The best bit was, they asked us to sweep out the hall in order to earn our ride home. No problem, said we, so we hijacked the DJ station and put on some cleaning music, and swept for our lives. Afterwards we were all given free drinks and some food and we sat about and listened to music. It was fun.

Then on the Saturday night (Leygarkvøld), I attended a class party, thrown by my good buddy Jógvan - pronounced Yegvan. Intriguingly, the class was booked into our usual dinner restaurant, hvonn, at 4PM - this did seem a bit early as usually we book for 6. Or 7. Or 8 ... but no. The party started pretty early, too, which was actually kind of a relief as it finished early - well, early for here, which was about 3AM ... usually we party until daylight. But that was an awesomely fun party. We had a whipped cream fight. Haha.

Hmm, and nothing interesting happened at school today, though those of you with bebo can find all class party photos on there - I did discover in biology today that I can quietly sit using someone's laptop without the teacher noticing. Or perhaps he does, but dismisses it as the exchange student doing .. something. Haha.

Anyhoo, I shall be heading off to bed as I have an early start tomorrow and English (yay! Something I can contribute to!) first.
Kelsy xox

P.S PLEASE COMMENT. Anybody can if you click on comment as anonymous (comments by the way, are called acknowledgements in my blog). Then you can do it without using an account with google OR blogger, so this is Good. Please comment - gives me inspiration and motivation and goodness knows what else to write more. Takk fyri!!

P.P.S I am teaching my class New Zealandic, as they call it. And general English slang which they find hilarious. Phrases like 'Hell's teeth' and 'Wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him' entertain them immensely - any suggestions? And another thing - how do you explain 'diddums' to someone with bad English?! Help!

Hey guys, just a quick thing: http://faroeislands.dk

The above website is quite handy - if you ever want to know about any of the places I mention, you can find it on this site with a blurb and a few pictures - click the little union jack in the top left corner to change it into English from Danish. Thanks to Vicki for finding that!

And once more, PLEASE COMMENT - when you click post a comment or add a comment or 'acknowledgements', just click 'comment as anonymous' and then you can do it without having an account on blogger. Please leave your name, though, because otherwise I won't have a clue who you are.

Thanks, Kelsy

Well, hello.
Wednesday, and Kelsy FINALLY gets around to blogging. Woohoo.
So, a few things have happened this week that deserve to be talked about!
The snow melted, for one. That was really quite tragic and I shall be sad until it comes back, which hopefully will be soon, god knows, it's cold enough. 'Twas 3 degrees today, but it's funny ... when I got up and looked at the thermometer, I actually heard myself say, 'It's 3 degrees. Not that cold. Indeed, 'tis a balmy temperature.' I never thought I would catch myself classing a meagre three degrees as balmy, but there we go.
What else has happened? Hmm. Well, my class is throwing a party on Saturday, which looks to be quite a lot of fun - they usually are, and on Friday night I am going to Fuglafirði, this cute little town that I've actually only seen in the dark due to it being the most frequently used concert venue in the Faroes - they have this place called Mentanarhusið (the culture house) which is very handy and has a great dance floor. The concert on Friday night involves lots of good dancing music - starts at nine and probably goes until four or five so looks to be a good night! My weekend is shaping up well.
Next weekend I may also blog late, but not because of laziness (I admit, this is the usual reason). I shall spend the weekend on an AFS camp in Mikladalur on the island of Kalsoy - I'm really looking forward to it as we have to take a ferry across from Klaksvík and it looks to be a long trip and if you know me, you'll know I love a good road trip. Kalsoy has 130 people, so I'm intrigued as to how big a population the town of Mikladalur plays host to ... not many, I'm guessing, but it will definitely be fun to go to Kalsoy, mainly because it's pronounced 'Kelsy'.
Tomorrow and Friday, I apparently don't have to go to school ... a friend rang today and informed me that we have a physics project that we are working on in groups for the two remaining days of the week. I'm a little stuck, though, as the teacher has emailed me the project via the school network, which my username doesn't work on, one of the members of my group is very ill, another is living on a different island which keeps getting cut off by snow, and so that leaves me and Hanus. Must call him or something, as there's not much I can do without the project.
I had an all day band practice today with one of my big bands which I play with, that was fun as we went from 9-5 and broke only for pizza, wienerbreyð (best thing ever. Like a long Danish but BETTER, and you know me and Danishes), and coffee. It was fantastically great, though, to really go for it, and we have a concert next Wednesday! So that shall be good fun. But then, when we finished at five, I had to attend the second band's practice, and that one is ... somewhat intense, as the music is rather difficult. 'Twas also fun, though. And it now seems that I shall be joining another music school band which is actually an orchestra - practice starts on Monday so I very much look forward to that.
Anyhoo, I'd better go and hunt down this projecty thing ...
Much love, Kelsy

Góðan dag, and welcome again to the wacky world of the Faroe Islands.

It’s Monday, sorry I’m late, but I was, as it turned out, rather busy yesterday and had exactly nil time to write my blog. Could be worse, could be Wednesday like last week ...
OK, so you have hopefully seen the photos I posted on ... Sunday?? Saturday? I don’t know. But anyway, there was a huge backlog so sorry about the massive amount of them – hope you liked and I also hope that today I can explain a few of them which may have seemed a little odd at the time.

So, since Wednesday there has been a somewhat impressive temperature drop (this is the most important news). Today started out as fairly regular, though, 4 degrees I believe it was when I checked the thermometer at 6.45AM and I wandered off to school in a hoodie as usual.
Then it began to rain, and rain, and rain ... and just when we thought it would never stop, it changed and became HAIL.
The hail was very, very good, and stopped just as it was time for Stacey and I to head back to my place and then to hers, as we mission it into town every Monday to shop. Or pretend to shop, at least.
So, having purchased a mini-dress (on sale, of course), a scarf (on sale, of course) and a pure Shetland wool jumper (no! Not on sale, but from a second-hand shop), we were wandering in Havn as we do every week.
And then the snow started.
At first it melted as it touched the ground, but soon there was so much of it, it began to pile up, the road turned white and then grey as tyres tracked through the ‘kavi’, little kids were dancing and singing and playing in it, and so were Stacey and I. We loved it, and when we finally got on the bus to go home, we both sat there grinning like pumpkins, much to the amusement of the bus driver who knows we’re from New Zealand, a Nation Of Very Little Snow. When I got home, my driveway was coated in snow and so was the roof of my house – it still is, and everything is very picturesque, though I fear the snow will melt when the sun rises tomorrow. It has been one of the best days yet of my exchange. Though the temperature is now just below freezing.
This evening I went to evening class which I take every Monday and Tuesday in Faroese. It’s rather boring as we learn to say ‘My name is ...’ and ‘I live in...’ every week without fail, but this week we did something different – Eyðun á Borg, the teacher, went round and asked, in Faroese, what everyone did today. Now, I speak English in the class, though I know all the words, and I don’t think he ever dreamed that I would answer in perfect Faroese. Neither did I, actually, but I spoke for a few minutes with perfect pronunciation and grammar (though I suspect I was just playing hit and miss and having a lucky day) and surprised him even more than myself. “Hallelujah, she speaks Faroese,” he said. So that made my day, along with the snow.

This has not been such an uneventful week, though – I spent the weekend in a town called Sørvágur, very picturesque and generally cute – population approx. 1000. I was staying with my contact person, Leila, who is very sweet and has four children – one of whom is going on exchange to New Zealand in January, Erna. While in Sørvágur, Leila took me to a few of the neighbouring towns – Bøur and Gásadalur. Bøur was small and largely unremarkable, except in the way that it is built – very precariously perched on a ledge overlooking the sea. It has a population of 200 or so, I think – not that many houses are there, but those that are are mainly built of stone with grastak, or grass rooves. The point of going to Bøur was the view – a perfect, perfect panorama featuring Mykines, the most scenic island of the Faroes, and Tindhólmur, a smaller island where nobody lives now, though people have in the past. It was a perfect day, and the view, or utsikt, was amazing.
The town that really caught my attention was Gásadalur. It is truly one of the most culturally isolated places I have ever visited – up until last year, the only way in or out of Gásadalur was a 2 hour walk over the mountains to Bøur, extremely treacherous in the winter, when it never gets light, and also in summer, because of the thick Faroese fog. In emergencies, a helicopter could be flown into Gásadalur, but this is more often than not, impossible because of the high winds over the mountains and also because of the aforementioned fog, which is always an issue when flying here.
But, a year ago, a tunnel was opened into Gásadalur, and now you can drive in, and we did. It’s a tiny town of maybe 60 people with a church that doubles as a school and an old patriarch who watches everything from a second floor window. The daily news is discussed in the street where farmers congregate with their dogs and chew the cud, so to speak. Very few new houses are built in Gásadalur, though two have gone up since the tunnel opened.
One lady living in Gásadalur, Petra, keeps cows in her basement. She used to have four, apparently, but now she has only one, Lady, who I met – and there’s a photo below. Petra is lovely, but a little special, as Leila says, and she spends her evenings playing the harp and singing to her cattle.
It was a lovely town – perhaps my favourite of all those I’ve visited so far.

On my last night in Sørvágur, I went to the Faroe Island equivalent of duck-shooting night. The rabbiting season had begun that day, and Leila’s brother was a shooter. So we went up to his house where exactly 78 rabbits had been laid out, and there were lots of men sitting around drinking. Just like duckshooting night. One of them appeared with a shiny little trophy for killing the most – 58 rabbits in a day.
This is an impressive achievement, as the rabbits here change colour – a strange trait only found in Faroese rabbits. They’re grey in the summer, and white in the winter – it’s a mechanism used to blend in.
But yes, photo below of Kelsy and a dead rabbit.

When I got back to Havn, I attended the grand opening of the local church which is extremely modern-looking, I don’t like it very much ... I shall put some photos up sometime. But inside, it’s lovely, and we sat and listened to some speeches in Faroese and sermons and what have you, sang some hymns, etc etc. An intriguing end to the weekend.

OH, I had quite forgotten Operation Dagsværk. OD is a charity set up in Denmark, which involves high school students leaving school and working for a day (well, five hours) in order to raise money for a country which is chosen. This year we worked for Bolivia, and I worked in a kiosk, which was hilarious as they decided to put me on till. I got used to it, though, and I could understand most things though my replies may have been a little cryptic. One memorable moment was when, instead of asking a customer if she would like a bag, I asked if she would like a sausage. Bags are pásar, sausages are pylsar, and you wouldn’t believe how similar they sound. That was embarassing. But I raised my Bolivia money.

Anyway, I shall head off now and do my Maths homework.
Góðanátt, Kelsy.

The photos as follows (there has been quite a back-up, sorry about that)

Me, some random and a dead bunny- bunny hunting season started today in the Faroes
Gásadalur graveyard, though most people were buried in Sørvágur which meant carrying coffins over the mountains before the tunnel was opened
A potato house (seriously) – for storage in the winter
The view from Gásadalur, cute little, amazingly isolated town which you can only drive to since last year
Lady, a cow living in someone’s basement - all will be explained when I get around to blogging all of this
A very cute dog which liked to retrieve stones from the creek and deliver them to people
(from left) Lisa (Austria), Katharina (Germany) and Celeste (Italy)
Me in a hat from Greenland – the top is seal skin, the inner is fur from a husky dog
Stacey and I – me, again, in a Greenlandic hat
Celeste and I at Skælingur being really sexy as usual
Me posing in the break, or fríkorter, at evening class
Stacey and Celeste dancing at Skælingur
Me and a sheep! Not restrained at all ... they don’t do that
The house we stayed in at Skælingur
Me and THE SIGN
That little line of houses is the village of Skælingur – town centre, right there
Soccer game – France vs. Faroes, Faroes got thrashed 8-0
Lisa, very possessive of her Guess Who (or Hvem er Hvem) game
Katharina, bravely playing against Lisa (Lisa likes to accuse everyone of cheating at EVERYTHING)
Celeste at Skælingur
Stacey, trying to be as sexy as Celeste and me
A beautiful sunrise – there are a few of these
Me in the most Faroese outfit I could assemble – we do this sometimes, just when we’re bored
Stacey and Lisa in cute matching dresses, window shopping again
Me and the biggest swede I had ever seen – we found this hilarious but the other customers of Miklagarður thought we were more hilarious
Skerkpikjøt – dried lamb which is used on sandwiches