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.