Frauhauf Í Føroyum

2008-05-01T12:54:00.004Z

2008-04-21T19:55:00.005Z

Hello, it's Monday and as usual, I am late. Today is my 17th birthday and before you ask, being 17 feels uncannily like being 16. Uh so yes, what happened today? My host family gave me a CD which is really nice Faroese music, this guy called Teitur who sounds a bit like Jeff Buckley or slow Paolo Nutini, and cooked me feskasupan for dinner which is the most unbelievably delicious meal I can ever imagine - soup made of meat stock with vegetables and pork balls with these little dumplingy things. It's like a broth and the taste of it is amazingly good.
Funny story, though. I got to school and was actually fairly horrified to find that my friends had done nothing - I had honestly expected them to seeing as we generally get up really early and fill the classroom with balloons to celebrate birthdays. So I was a wee bit down for most of the day right up until I stopped caring and we went to the mall after biology. And as it turns out this little crew of mine had basically hatched an awesomely amazing plan to make my birthday the best I'd ever had.
So yeah, first I really have to explain the week, I suppose! This will be a long blog.
On Thursday Sunniva, Christina and I skipped Maths to go and pick up my mate Cory from the airport - he's from New Zealand, on exchange in Denmark, and right now staying in Kaldbak with Sunniva. We took him back to school and afterwards went into town to show him the sights, so to speak. And that night we had a party at Jógvan's place for his 18th, which was a pretty good party - I scored a Sherlock Holmes hat and some hippy glasses out of it ... the hat belonged to Sunniva and I gave it back, but the glasses, which belonged to Jógvan, are still in my handbag. It's OK though, he says I can keep them. Haha.
So yes, on Friday night a bunch of us headed out to Sunniva's (and had a wee powernap) where we basically sat around listening to music and talking all night, followed by some dancing like crazies as the sun came up. Then we slept for another hour or so, and drove into town where we had a cake tombola to attend as fundraising for the class trip. And yeah, then I basically slept the whole day.
On Sunday I got up ridiculously early (at about 8) and started organising a trip out to Sandoy, the island that my friend Ronja lives on. We road tripped about there, saw beautiful places, amazing cliffs and views, and part of a soccer match. It was so pretty. And yes, we got back to Havn at 8.45PM and I went with Sunniva and Cory to Kaldbak for dinner, because they were having WHALE. Yes, whale. Or grindabøf as it is called - literally whale beef or a kind of whale steak. It was delicious! I really loved it. The meat tastes like a kind of mixture between fish and red meat, and it is absolutely black. It's strange.
So yes, anyways! Today was my birthday and as I had mentioned I walked into class thinking that my friends had forgotten me so I was a wee bit grumpy at school. After biology though, we went down to the mall - Cory, Elin Maria and I (Sunniva APPARENTLY had to go watch her sister's kids and Christina APPARENTLY had to go to her job). And yeah, Cory bought a Faroese jumper and we just hung about for a while before the others arrived and we were going ... somewhere? when I called Stacey to go up to her place in Hoyvík to pick up the present she wanted to give me. She wasn't there, though, and while I was in there the others took off back down to SMS under the pretence (pretense?) of Sunniva picking up her pen (?). I called them, having been stranded alone at Stacey's place, and they had to turn around to get me which I guess altered their plans. I found Stacey at SMS but then lost eveyrone else and Elin Maria eventually came to find me - we had no idea where everyone else was, though, or rather I didn't, and so when we spotted them at Williams, Sunniva's work, we went after them but lost them again. Then Christina came out of nowhere and Cory pretty much rugby tackled me in order to prevent me seeing Sunniva motoring across the mall with a huge bunch of balloons behind her (he failed). They told me to act surprised and so we headed out to the car where we found her stringing them up in the windows along with a bunch of Faroese flags. So I jumped in, fully not expecting them to pull a huge framed 3D map of the Faroes out of the boot. But they did. It was really cool. And as if that wasn't enough, they also gave me a whale tooth on a silver chain and shot glasses with puffins on them. It was really cool. And yes, so then we drove about town and eventually wound up at a bakery where Sunniva bought hot dog sauce to decorate the car with (and I bought cookies) - so 5 minutes later we were driving about in this car with 'Kelsy's 17th birthday' and 'Free hugs' and 'Kelsy 17 ár' written on it in mayonnaise. It was so funny. And yes, then they dropped me off at home, my parents and grandparents rang, and we had feskasupan. So the day turned out pretttty good.
And now I am going to bed - but first, photos!
P.S Cory met the Prime Minister - photo below!

2008-04-13T21:20:00.004Z

Well, what has happened in the Faroes this last week? Actually, something that can either be considered very amusing or very shocking happened at school on Friday. Here's the story:

On Thursday night, the 3rd grade (the equivalent to the New Zealand year 13) threw a huge party. They had planned a skulkidagur which is basically wagging day in English - they were just going to drink all night and then sleep all day. I don't know why they didn't just do it on Friday but apparently it's a tradition and they do it every year. So yeah, anyway, they got absolutely wasted that night and at 5AM were all dropped off at the school in buses, where they proceeded to have a party on the lawn complete with loud music blasted out of one of the upstairs windows. And when we all arrived at school (1st and 2nd grades) they were still there and still drinking. There were crates of beer everywhere and yeah, people drinking in the canteen and I had no idea why - I walked into school and became very very confused by these two drunk guys standing at the steps with a crate of Føroya Bjór telling everyone it was THEIR BEER. Haha. And I could hear yelling in the distance - I'd figured it was something to do with Hoydalar but I had no idea what until I walked into class and saw everybody standing at the windows marvelling at what was going down on the roadside. Which was that most of the 3rd grade of Hoydalar were standing drunk, hailing cars and making them drive them into school. And then they would jump out and run back up to the roadside. All my friends and teachers got stopped trying to get into school. And yeah, the school called the police and the police went to try and break them up (had serious issues as you may imagine). They had been throwing balloons at cars and when they ran out of balloons they threw dirt. they really held up the traffic, too, and all the buses that day were late by about 15 minutes. But yes, when the police got there they all decided to head down into school, where they came through our classrooms singing, doing the conga and STINKING of alcohol (they were still drinking and this was at about 9AM). The deputy principal cornered about 40 of them in our classroom and led them out again where a bunch of them went to sleep on the field and did all sorts of interesting things.

They made it into the newspapers and onto the radio, and I managed to procure some photos from the website of one of the newspapers, so here they are - photos of the chaos at Hoydalar on Friday, courtesy of Dimmalætting. And yes, nothing interesting has really happened otherwise.

2008-04-06T20:01:00.001Z

Well, another week is gone in the very, very short time I have left in this country. Yesterday, it was 12 weeks until i'm leaving (12 weeks and 5 days until I arrive back in New Zealand for you kiwis). Now, that's pretty scary. Yes. Very scary, indeed.
Uuuuh, so not overly much has gone on this week ... I was much, much too tired to go to band practice on Wednesday (go me) and I wrote my blog on Wednesday anyway (love that Faroese time) so yes ... Thursday until here. What have I done..?
A bunch of us decided to go road tripping on .. Thursday? Or Wednesday maybe. We just drove. To this place called Kirkubøur which is beautiful, a tiny village with a big, ruined church - we just went out there for a look, I'd seen it once before. That was really fun. We listened to Jethro Tull, courtesy of Mattias. Who spent the weekend in Denmark playing in the Steinway Competition against all the best pianists in Scandinavia. He's pretty incredible - I was lucky enough to go to a concert he gave on Tuesday night with the other guy, Ólof, who was also going into the competition. They're both amazingly good pianists. The concert was really small and the most unbelievable piano playing I'd ever seen. I think I was lucky to even have been told about it as I'd been on at him to tell me about his next concert for months.
Um, yes. What else has happened...? My host aunt had her birthday yesterday and I gave her a bottle of feijoa wine which they'll probably hate as it's so sweet but hey, it's the thought that counts, isn't it? And afterwards I caught the bus to Kaldbak, a funny little villagey place 10 minutes drive out of Havn where we had a Monty Python movie night at Sunniva's place. Then this morning at 11AM I attended a christening for some very distant relation of my host mum's. Jóhanna was made godmother of the baby boy.
After THAT we went home and I had a nap and then caught the bus into town to Muller's Pakkhús where I was playing a concert at 4PM with my orchestra, GHM. We played film tunes - Grease and Mary Poppins and all manner of other stuff I don't remember. Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life went down pretty well. The concert was biggish considering it hadn't been advertised at all and afterwards I headed to a cafe with my friend Christina where we sat and drank coffee, ate nachos and made up lives for the people who walked past the window. It was rather fun. Then I came home and here I am.
And now I'm going to go and do my Maths and French homework which is due on Tuesday. Bother.
In other news, it's getting quite light here now, they brought in daylight savings last weekend and even without that the daylight hours have been increasing a lot. I am rather looking forward to the almost-always-light summer. It will be lovely.
But yeah. Homework.
:) Kelsy
P.S Leave me some comments. Nobody does anymore!

2008-04-02T19:26:00.003Z

This is a late and probably very short blog as it just occurred to me that I haven't updated my diary (yup, I keep a diary too) in ages and I really should. While I have the time. Which for once I do, as band practice this evening was cancelled.
I'm just sitting here playing the piano and I remembered that I haven't blogged this week! Ack! Not that so much has happened, but it's the principal really, I guess.
So, 88 days left in the Faroes - I leave here on the 28th of June and get back to NZ on the 3rd of July (start planning the parties, people). It's really, really sad to consider that I'm going home after all this time. And it's amazing to consider how fast the time has gone. I've made amazing friends here who I'm going to miss terribly (*cough* NULL SJEY Y *cough*), I've learnt 2 new languages and a heap of stuff about the world (*cough* how to open a beer bottle with another beer bottle/one's teeth/a lighter/a phone *cough*). I WANT TO KEEP LEARNING! But I guess it's going to have to wait until ... 2012 or so when I can actually get back here. Darned university.
In other news, I still have at least 12 blogs to write before I'll be jetting off to Denmark and then Frankfurt and then Singapore and then New Zealand, so let's not put on the black clothes just yet.
Ah so I got back from Iceland to a huuuge snowstorm in the Faroes which was pretty lovely - about a foot of snow in Havn and just everywhere. Loooovely stuff. I do love snow. And it was colder here than it was in Iceland so that was a little backwards, I thought. It was really nice to be home, though, and to speak Faroese again.
I handed in my chemistry report on Friday, and my physics report on Monday, and now all my homework is done for the forseeable future though I'm sure to be given something massive in Maths soon. But ah, well. It keeps us occupied.
Soooooo, I'm going to head out and update that diary and keep organising stuff like what clothes I'll throw out before I leave here. Too much luggage ...
Kelsy
:)

2008-03-23T18:52:00.004Z

Well, here I am. Still in Iceland, but only until tomorrow! I guess you've seen the photos below. I will load more when I get time (and when I get my school computer account working!). But I am going to throw in this photo of me with an Icelandic horse, which is uber cute (the horse, not me. They're just little and furry and adorable).

But yes, still in Iceland and heading home tomorrow at 1.30PM. I'm looking forward to getting back to the Faroes but it will be horrible to leave Silja for the second time! Ah well, we'll just have to get her to New Zealand. Or me back here.

Anyways, so our week has been as follows:

Tuesday we went to the Golden Circle, which consists of Þingvellir (oldest parliament in the world), Gullfoss (the golden waterfall which is huuuuuge and not very golden, at least not in the middle of winter) and Geysir (if you can't guess what that one is, it's geysers). That was awesome but it's also a major stop on the tourist trail and we ran into the same people all the way round, guess we followed a tour bus. But yeah, there are a few photos in the post below from that and I shall post more in due course.

On Wednesday we did nooooothing. Silja read a book that she had to read for school and I .. slept the whole day. At 7.30 we headed to her dad's place where we were invited for dinner with the whole family and I got to meet all of Silja's step-siblings, which was nice. And dinner was really really good - lobster soup to start and pesto chicken salad as a main, followed by a very decadent chocolate cake which was absolutely delicious. It was the birthday of Friða, Silja's sister-in-law and I think that was the reason for the meal, though it may have partly been me also. Either way, the food was unreasonably good. Afterwards we all sat around talking - Icelandic people find the Faroe Islands HILARIOUS, so we had plenty to discuss. And we wound up watching music DVDs until the not so early hours of the morning, because Silja's dad has a great collection.

On Thursday we also did nothing - we had meant to head up North to visit Silja's nana but we decided against that because the weather was so incredibly bad.

So we went on Friday - the drive took us about 3 hours and we wound up in Valgerður's (Silja's mum's) hometown of Sauðárkrókur, which has about 2000 people and a fish factory. It's on the coast between two mountainous pensinsulas that jut out into the North Atlantic. In the bay between the two peninsulas you can see 2 small islands, and there's a local story about one of them that two trolls, husband and wife, were moving their cow across the bay when the sun rose and turned them into stone. The cow and the woman still stand, but the man has apparently fallen into the sea.

Silja's grandma was really, really sweet, even though she spoke no English and didn't understand much either, if any. I'm not entirely sure. But I understood most of what she said to me, which was probably because of the huge similarities between Faroese and Icelandic, and I wound up answering either with mimes or in a weird pidgin-Icelandic language. But yes, the North was really nice and I met a LOT of Silja's cousins. She has a lot of cousins. But yeah. Last night the Northern Lights came out really strongly, and Silja, one of her cousins and I went out of the town to see if we could catch them more clearly. I couldn't photograph them, but Silja could, and I will see if I can procure her photos. Afterwards we went to a party at her uncle's place.

We drove back today and got to Reykjavík at about 3PM, and it was good to be back, though the North was lovely and I intend to return! And yes, it's Easter Sunday so we are all eating chocolate and doing very well, and apparently we have turkey for dinner so that's something to look forward to.

Anyways, I'd better go and pack my suitcase if we're heading out in the morning.

Kelsy

2008-03-19T17:53:00.004Z

Silja looking snowboardy
The blue lagoon
Silja and I being sexy as usual
The beautiful view from Þingvellir
Where the tectonic plates are moving apart at Þingvellir
Silja standing on a rock at Reykjavík's only white beach (the sand is imported and the ocean is heated)
Leif Eriksson or however you spell it. In front of the massive cathedral thing anyway
Silja standing on the [very, very frozen] Reykjavík pond
Silja and I at Kolaportið, the awesome waterfront flea market
Me somewhere in Reykjavík, big shopping street anyway
Huge cathedral in central Reykjavík (note amazing weather)Pond in central Reykjavík, you can just see the frozen bit in the background

Silja and I at a concert on Friday night
Silja looking hot as always
Silja and I atop the Pearl, or Perlan

Beautiful view of the city and the mountains from Perlan

Perlan, massive building made mostly of water tanks (.?)

2008-03-17T21:22:00.002Z

Well hey hey, late again, but that's my culture now ... (in case I hadn't mentioned it before, everybody in the Faroe Islands is customarily late. As a rule.)

Um well, what has happened in the last week? Well, first things first, I got the week off school last week which was a total bonus except for the massive essay I had to write (for Faroese class but I got to write in English because even Faroese people can't write Faroese properly. Nice, huh?). But I only got 4 days while everyone else for 5 BECAUSE I was scheduled to fly out to Iceland at 11AM on Friday morning. And I did and hoorah, here I am in the 'land of the ice and snow, the midnight sun where the hot springs blow' to quote the trusty Led Zep.
And they have all these funny letters on the keyboard like þ and ð and ö and so excuse me if they pop randomly into my words, they're not meant to be there. Unless the words are Icelandic which is unlikely!

Um, yes. I am sitting here at Silja's house - for those of you who don't know Silja (and I pity you) she was my host sister back in NZ on AFS for a year (except I was only there for 6 months so I guess the other 5 don't really qualify) and I have finally made it up to Iceland to visit her. And, by finally, I mean 2,5 months after she made it back to Iceland. Haha. No rest for the wicked. But so far she seems to be handling me fine ... I have also met her mum, and her dad and her brother, all of whom I heard so much about in New Zealand so it's really cool to finally meet them. As Silja says, though, it's extremely weird to be together again on the other side of the world. It's like we are in the wrong country. But it's amazing and awesome and great all the same.

Uh, so yeah, I landed on Friday at about 12.30PM local time and headed to Silja's school with her where I went to her chemistry class (it was pretty fun if a little random) and met her friends. After that, we headed home and hung out for a while discussing stuff and the like. At 7PM(ish) her dad and stepmum picked us up and we went out for dinner with them to a pizza place where we got a really nice dinner of pizza (the waitress picked mine as I was incapable) and just discussed stuff ... I told a lot of stories that Silja had apparently neglected to tell them and yeah, 'twas a right laugh. Then we went to a concert which Silja's dad shouted, and it was fantastically great - if Icelandic and so pretty un-understandable. They had a fantastic sax guy. Look them up if you're bored - Sálin Hans Jón Míns is their name and they're really good even after they've played for 20 years. The concert was from 10PM until 12.30AM and as we went in we saw the Northern Lights, only for a minute or so but in green, pink and purple which was so extremely beautiful.
And yeah, afterwards we headed home to sleep!

On Saturday morning the plan was that Silja would get up, go to work, come back, pick me up and we'd head out Reykjavík sightseeing. Sadly she never made it out of the house before she fell asleep again and we wound up heading out at about 11ish and making a really shoddy job of the offices she was meant to clean before running off into Reykjavík to check everything out.
Reykjavík is beautiful and I love it. We went to a place called Perlan (the Pearl) which is a massive building built mainly out of water tanks that supply Reykjavík with water. There's a huge glass dome on top and a deck which you can walk around and see clear to the mountains on all sides. We were really lucky, as I flew in to the best weather Iceland had possibly ever seen - the bluest, clearest skies and not a wisp of cloud or breath of wind. It was beautiful and we could see all the way to this glacier way in the North. It was amazing.
Then we went to the only white beach in Reykjavík which is handmade and features snow and a pool of up-heated ocean, which is cool. Or warm. Silja and I found it pretty hilarious as it was about 5 degrees and we posed on the sunbeds they have there. They also have a volleyball net and all manner of beachy stuff - it's like they're really trying to turn it into Hawaii or something. It's very picturesque, but it's also very cold.
Following this we headed to a beautiful big church which is yeah ... massive and just pretty and can be seen from most places in Reykjavík. We headed in and looked around, there was a huuuuuuuuuge organ, and then we walked downtown, investigated the shops and the pond which was heavily frozen and which people were riding bicycles across (so we walked on it, just to say we did). And so we headed to Kolaportið which is the huge fleamarket on the waterfront. I scored some nice second hand clothes which Silja is now modifying and which are very cool. Eventually we headed home, and made a really interesting dinner, the recipe for which I am including below:
1. Overcook rice.
2. Put too much chili powder on the chicken.
3. Burn chili powder.
4. Find a random curry sauce a la internet recipe.
5. Take curry sauce recipe and put in every second ingredient.
6. Mix.
7. Eat.
That was risotto according to Silja and Kelsy.
The next day being yesterday we went snowboarding or rather Silja did and I spent the entire day sitting on my ass in the snow (what can I say, I have zero natural balance). Which was fun as the day was beautiful and there were lots of snowy holiday makers to watch including one guy who kept rocking up who was just as bad as we were. Or, I was. And it was really ironic as we waited two whole hours in a queue just to get the boards and boots (which are uncomfortable but hey). But yeah, it was pretty fun, especially when I bailed hard out on my back going up the lift! Seriously, I made it like 4m, I believe.
After we did that, we came home, got some hot chocolate, and then Silja and I headed out to the Blue Lagoon which is the most beautiful place in all the world (and very, very blue). Pictures and the like can be found on www.bluelagoon.com and yes, it's all very exciting. We sat in hot water and picked up mud with our feet and saunaed and spaed and all sorts of lovely geothermal things for a while. It was very, very nice. And warm. Except we had to run outside in the cold in bikinis before we got into the water, which was unpleasant. But yes, it's lovely and anyone who ever goes to Iceland HAS TO GO TO THE BLUE LAGOON because it is great.
Then we went home and had a really really good dinner involving lamb and baked potatoes (which I failed at having never had before). But yeah, we did OK!

Today we were going to go the Golden Circle (google it) but we never quite made it and we intend to go tomorrow. Early. Which means getting up at a normal time. Ouch. But yeah, today we wound up heading to the mall where I had Chinese food for the first time since I´d left New Zealand (and even seeing a mall was exciting as were the motorways we had to drive on to get there). And Silja bought pants and moisturiser and yes, it was fun. And I bought a hip flask with Iceland on it (..?).
And so we headed home and ate dinner which was leftovers of pretty much the entire weekend's food. And really good.

Anyways, that's a seriously long blog so I shall head off. Yay! And yeah, go to bed ...
Goodnight!

2008-03-09T19:07:00.002Z

I saw the Northern Lights for the first time last night. I was driving back from Kaldbak with my friends Sunniva and Christina - we'd been at Sunniva's place eating candy and watching Sweeney Todd. It was 4.30AM when we headed back and as we got in the car I was complaining that I hadn't seen the famous Aurora Borealis yet. Christina said that they came out every night, it was just that cloud prevented us from seeing them.
I was not impressed.
But anyway, halfway back to Havn, the cloud in the sky just kinda parted and I was looking to see if they were there. And there was this greenish light but it wasn't especially exciting looking and I figured I just had a very optimistic imagination.
As we drove into Tórshavn, though, it became obvious that the Lights were out in full force, bright and strong and right above us. The clouds disappeared over to the horizon somewhere and we all got out of the car and just stood watching them for about 15 minutes. Sunniva and Christina said that it was the strongest they'd ever seen them. And they were just like big pillars of green light that shimmer and move. And sometimes turn pink. It was really, really amazing.

But yeah, that's pretty much the most exciting happening of my week - apart from that it's just been school, really - something I DON'T have to deal with this week as we have a massive Faroese essay that we get the whole week for. And we do it at home. Yay! :) I had to translate my story out of Faroese first, though, but thankfully I finished doing that today. It's called Sorg (Sorrow) and is very pretty and poetic and I discovered a lot of very interesting Faroese words - they have words for everything, I swear.
For example:
leikapettini - broken pieces of crockery one finds on a beach.
Clever, huh? And their word for shingles is very good as well - helvitiseldur, which literally means hell's fire.
But yes, Faroese is just one of those very functional languages with words for ... yeah, everything.
Anyway, I think that's about all I had to report except that I am heading to Iceland in 5 days and I can't wait! It shall be wonderfully fun.
And so I'm off ...
Kelsy

2008-03-02T14:39:00.002Z

A long time ago, Stacey (the other New Zealander) and I, wrote an account of all the stupid, stupid things we've done and that have happened to us since we've been here in the Faroes. Because A LOT of stupid, stupid things happen to us. And we DO a lot of stupid, stupid things. We're just as flaky as each other.
And this week, nothing overly exciting has happened - I went out on Friday and last night, and had an AFS day yesterday where we made thingys out of wool. That's really all. O, and I had mock exams in maths and chemistry (and bio but I didn't go to it).
So, because nothing exciting has happened, I am going to put in the List Of Stupid Stuff Kelsy and Stacey have done - a.k.a SAK Moments. There are many.

SAK Moments
-Kelsy going out for coffee after purchasing a bucket of jam (1kg) and putting it in her handbag (they don't have free plastic bags here and I'm a struggling exchange student)
-The Russian vodka theory - poor exchange students + a really good moonlighting system = MONEY (costs about $75 for 500mL of Smirnoff here).
-Stacey and Kelsy going out for pizza plus badminton racket which Stacey then managed to hit Kelsy on the [bad] knee with. The best bit is we were meant to go to badminton but we went to Pizza 67 instead ...
-The flying lawnmower theory - how do people here cut the grass on their rooves? Do they mow it? And what happens if the roof is steep and they lose control? Do people get ... killed? maimed? by flying lawnmowers?! (Later we discovered they use sheep. Yes, sheep.)
-Kelsy's insane random bursts of laughter ... usually in public places and class. Or AFS meetings while everyone is sitting around the table in awkward silence. NOTE, NZ FRIENDS: This is always, ALWAYS a result of an in-joke I have remembered. Or a party moment.
-"Who's shaving their beard?" - Stacey, when my host sister informed us that she was going to cut her hair. Funniest bit was, she came back with a random lump shaved off, just above her ear ... why do I never have a camera handy??
-Us going whaling ... me wearing a jumper with New Zealand on it ... possibly a not-so-good plan, better, though, than Stacey's continuous yelling of 'KELSY'S IN GREENPEACE! LET'S KILL SOME WHALES!'
-Stealing posters from Steinatun(centre of town)/everywhere ...
-Me getting yelled at by drunken Faroese guys at a concert who then asked my host sister to ask if I was horny. Yay.
-Taking down all of the posters at our school in the dead of night, except for one row which we couldn't reach, so then everyone thought that the poster stealers really liked Høgni Reistrup ..
-The guy in the phone shop, Kall, chatting us up hard out. He even went so far as to say 'So ... how do you like the guys here?' (I was so shocked I actually said 'What?!' and he had the nerve to repeat himself, then told us his life story. Apparently he moved here from Columbia when he was 3 but if he went back wouldn't feel the heat because he's black. Stacey: 'Doesn't black attract the sun?' (Though she didn't actually say it, thank god))
-Stacey unceremoniously plonking her handbag in my newly purchased ice-cream. Apparently she still feels bad. Maybe she can buy me a new one, one day.
-The Rating system. 1-100 and only applicable for those with genders beginning with M. -10 points if you're short. I believe it was -20 for acne but good hair gives you an extra 10. Beware, when we stare this is what we're figuring out.
-'Did Neil die?!' Stacey, after watching The Matrix Revolutions. A little confused, seeing as the guy's called Neo ...
-Stacey successfully lit the table decorations on fire at the [somewhat swanky] AFS function to celebrate their 50th anniversary. While we were in hysterics, the girl across the table calmly picked them up and blew them out.
-Us applying the rating system to the waiters (all of whom presumably understood English) as they served dinner.
-Us attempting to apply the rating system to identical twins (but seriously, one is hotter than the other). Oh, and they were also waiters. Very confusing as one stopped me and attempted to talk to me - he was one of my tutors at the beginning of the year (he was the hot one, by the way). I stood there shellshocked for a bit at the fact that he a) remembered me at all and b) remembered my name and then said [best line ever], 'BUT THERE'S TWO OF YOU!'
-'My foot has a soul.' -Stacey, at language class, a wee bit confused (as usual).
-'Leggings look silly when you take off your boots and expose ankle socks and half a foot of leg. Pardon the pun ...' - Me. I wish I'd come up with that one conciously.
-We invented a different way to play Guess Who? or Hvem er Hvem? This involved asking questions and the person on the other end giving the opposite answers. It's quite interesting and you invariably wind up with the wrong people.
-After a party at my mate's place we walked home at 2AM, possibly earlier, though I wasn't overly keen. Stacey, feeling bad at making me walk 20 minutes home alone, turned up half an hour later, knocking on the window and going, 'Are you OK?'
-Meeting Jannick the Dane on the bus, who, delighted that I could speak [some, or very little] Danish, started ranting. In Danish. He then gave us an intriguing liquor that is apparently based on Fisherman's Friend - avoid.
-I rang Stacey up at 11.50PM one night, much to her dismay. I'd decided to plan our weekend. She thought I was having a crisis. Or something. Now every time I say, 'I had a revelation!' (I actually say it a lot, worryingly) Stacey goes, 'Wow. You didn't ring me at midnight this time. Dry, Stacey, dry.
-Stacey at arrivals camp, talking to the German girl who told Stacey that she hated English. It was really nice and aftwerwards I was informed that Stacey had had an urge to turn around and start loudly discussing Hitler. Social skills, ja?
-HUGIN.
-Went shopping in the first snow in Havn! And ate ice-cream. Once a kiwi, always a kiwi.
-Singing Loyal at the AFS function, Stacey, who had a cold, held the mic a little close but we did OK.
-Lisa deciding that Stacey and Ice were madly in love (Ice is the extremely antisocial fellow from Thailand - we didn't think he spoke English for a long time until we realised he just didn't speak English to girls).
-Me and my perfume shopping, as Stacey and Celeste followed me around looking bored.
-Joining the TenSing Gospel Choir and leaving after an hour when they started the bible readings. Not trying that one again ..
-AFS 'recreation day' in the little town of Tjørnuvík where I bailed hard out on my tailbone (don't run in stockings, guys) and pretty much mashed my back. This was all made better with a few panadol and dancing the entire night (I think we got home at 5.30AM).
-My painkillers which my host sister wrapped in tin foil for me and which I whipped out and took on the dance floor (the night after I wrecked my back in Tjørnuvík) much to the horror of many onlookers, who probably all think I'm a drug pusher, or at least a junkie...
-Stacey's classmate, Grímur, informing me that he 'frrrrrreakin' LOVES Stacey' over and over again at some random party.
-Stacey calling one of MY classmates at about 4AM, only to discover HE WAS ASLEEP.
-'MY HOVERCRAFT IS FULL OF EELS.' Stacey deciding I was insane after I sat on the train in Copenhagen reciting Monty Python to Cory who had never seen it.
-'So I got a myspace and I have this random friend called Tom ... I don't know who he is! But I sent him a message asking,' - Stacey
-Wool-stuff-making-day in Skáli - I turned around to look out the window at one point and spotted 4 guys in full chemical suits with oxygen tanks, gas masks, helmets and everything, happily walking around the village. Everyone was extremely confused except Stacey, who spent ages trying to make me think I imagined it.
-Meeting one of the waiters from the swanky AFS dinner (see above) at the New Years party I threw. Even better, he was OUR waiter, he remembered Stacey setting the table decorations alight, AND asked what he got in the rating system (yup, they heard us, alright).

2008-02-24T17:29:00.003Z

Another blog, another week. I can't remember whether I blogged or not last week, so I'm guessing I should be on time with this week's installment.
So, what has happened? Not overly much, really. The other New Zealander had her birthday party last night and that was pretty epic - I made it home at 8 this morning. We do pretty well with parties here in the Faroes! Haha.
It's getting a lot warmer here now - or not so much warmer, but less cold. Indeed it hasn't been below zero for about two weeks which is interesting as it's still February, the coldest month of the year. Having said that, it snowed today. Not much, but some. It's pretty.
I haven't seen the Northern Lights - I was told that they don't actually come out so much, and then only in the coldest months of winter. My host parents say the cold will return so I live in hope that Aurora Borealis will come with it. I desperately want to see it. I suppose there's also a chance that when I go to Iceland to visit Silja in 19 days time I will see it there - even though Iceland is so close to the Faroes (only an hour and a half's flight) it is much colder there because the gulf stream surrounds the Faroes and keeps them relatively balmy. In comparison to Iceland, anyway.
Um yeah, I came home from Suðuroy last Friday and went straight into an insanely busy weekend - I arrived in Havn at 9AM (having left Suðuroy at 7AM ... ugh) and headed home to sleep and wrap a gift for Hanus, a guy in my class who had a party for his 18th birthday that night. At 4PM I headed off to Venjingarskúlin (it means practice school) where I stayed until 8PM playing funk music (I was a guest saxophonist). That was good fun - it was a proper funk convention with about 40 musicians and I was very lucky to be invited as it was generally for MGK, the division of the music school for people intending to go to London and study Conservatory. But yes, that was wonderfully fun and after that I headed home and then walked down to Hanus' place for the party. It was pretty fun. My friend Mattias who is a fantastic concert pianist sat and played at this hideous piano that hadn't been tuned in 20 years and then eventually I sat down and we both played jazz improvisation. And eventually I headed home at about 3ish.
The next day I was due at the funk convention at 10AM but I think I rocked up at about 11.30. We played all day - really just like a jam session, and very enjoyable. Our group had 3 really good songs - Let's Groove Tonight, Celebration and Diggin' On James Brown. We stayed there until 9pM that night. I studied French when we got home, as I had a test on Tuesday.
On Sunday we all met at 11AM and polished up our songs for the last time. We had lunch and so headed down to the performance hall to set up for the concert we were playing from 4-5PM - I was given a baritone saxophone to play which was tremendously fun as it is just about bigger than me and plays notes so low they make your eyes vibrate so you can't see straight. I had a solo as well which I had to play on alto and so I had to switch instruments halfway through one of our songs. The concert went really well - everyone seemed to like it, and a couple of my friends, Sunniva and Christina, were there so afterwards we all (Sunniva, Christina, Mattias, Karl Andrias and I) headed out to get dinner at a café in town. Afterwards we all wound up back at Mattias' place watching DVDs, and then channel surfing - to our amazement he had about 950 channels because his Dad is Russian and so had subscribed to pretty much every channel in Europe. Or something. And we found the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and none of them had seen it so I insisted we watch it. And we did. And I think they'll be scarred for life.

But yeah, that was last weekend. And yeah. I think that's all I have to report!
Kelsy

2008-02-11T21:45:00.000Z

Yo!
So here I am again, on a Monday night, and on Suðuroy. Where is that, you ask? Well, the snowy photos two blogs down are taken in the village of Sumba on Suðuroy, the southernmost island of the Faroes.
Why am I here? Mini-exchange for a week - I go to the Vágs Miðnámsskúlin and it's fun - I am in a class with my host sister Susan who is 16 (she has 3 sisters who are 18, 11ish and 7ish). The class are all girls and all very sweet and have all added me on myspace! Haha.
So yes, I've been here since Friday and I am here until Friday and I have found out that on Suðuroy they eat Weird Food. We had fish cheeks two nights ago, and fish soup the night before that, and tonight ræstan fisk (which is rotten fish which is then boiled, has been explained) and tomorrow night we are eating baby petrels. I am really looking forward to it as I am told baby petrels are delicious. One has to make a special bread to eat with it, apparently. So yes.
Yesterday my host family took me out driving and Suðuroy is really very beautiful - the weather yesterday was fantastic also, sun and blue skies of the sort one never sees in Tórshavn - my host grandad said it was because the gulf stream surrounds Suðuroy and so the other islands can be knee deep in snow while Suðuroy relaxes in balmy seven degree temperatures. It's lovely here - I live in a little village called Porkeri, 5 minutes drive from Vágs where the school is. I will put up air photos of Porkeri soon but not tonight - it's adorable though, there are sheep walking the streets. They live there in the winter and one must be careful driving.
But yes, I have many beautiful photos of the scenery here on Suðuroy which is unutterably lovely.
I get back to Havn on Friday and I am really looking forward to it for a number of reasons - I get to see my class again who I miss dreadfully (if I miss them so badly after 3 days how will I go when I LEAVE?) AND we have a class party on Friday night. And of course I get to see my host family again who were in Klaksvík this weekend. I miss them.
Anyhoo, I do believe that's about it. Everybody leave me comments. Good little fellows. I'm going to go watch Coyote Ugly with my host sisters. Woohoo!
Kelsy

2008-02-07T14:13:00.000Z

So I finished school early today and thought it would be a nice idea to upload some photos of my life and not just photos I have stolen from Faroese websites. I can't be bothered captioning them as I never know what order they're going to wind up in, but feel free to comment and ask if anyone or anything takes your interest. Ja, mostly from my friend's 18th birthday party, our class concert and the last day of school before Christmas (where I got painted). Enjoy!

2008-02-03T12:12:00.000Z

OK, so here are some photos I Maoried off the portal.fo site - the news site for the Faroes, has amazing photos if you know where to look. This is the village of Sumba on the island of Suðuroy - I haven't been to Sumba but I have been to Suðuroy and it has way better weather than the other islands for some reason - it's only 2 hours ferry ride away. There's also a really nice air photo of Havn I found on http://www.atlantic.fo/ (the airline site) - the massive boat you can see in the foreground is the Norrøna, the ferry that goes between the Faroes, Denmark, Scotland, Iceland, England, etc etc. And, after that (though I have no idea wat order these photos are going in) there are 3 beautiful photos of Mykines, the tourist island - 18 people live there but all the puffins do also and there are killer whales and things and it's just the most gorgeous place in the Faroes, though I haven't been there yet - I'm going in the summer when the boat starts going again. Yes OK the photos are going backwards. Mykines is first, then Havn, then Sumba. Enjoy, anyway!

2008-02-03T11:55:00.000Z

Hello, it's Sunday and therefore I blog. For once, I am blogging on Sunday. Yes.

Well, all the exciting stuff that's happened since FRIDAY when I last blogged ... no actually I don't think there is any. Ooh, but when I woke up yesterday morning there was 8 inches of beautiful powdery snow over everything and it was just gorgeous. It had snowed loads more over Friday night and yeah, just couldn't have been more beautiful. It's melting now because it's raining. Ugh.

Um, apart from that there's really just Føstulávints, this festival they have here to celebrate ... Lent, kinda, but it's way different because all that happens here is that they dress up like it's Halloween and go door to door and stuff. That's tomorrow night, and my class are throwing a party and it's going to be awesome fun. I am going as ... a hippy. Haha.

Anyhooooo, I think that's about it. Sad and short, huh? It's because it's only 2 days worth of news. I wasn't partying last night OR Friday night for possibly the first time since I got here. That's news! We were meant to party Friday night but then the party was postponed to tomorrow night so yeah. It's cool because we get Monday and Tuesday off school for Føstulávints. It's like, public holiday Halloween! Way more fun.
But yes, I'll be heading off now. Leave me some comments - I will get around to putting photos on this thing somewhen, I promise!

2008-02-01T14:02:00.000Z

Góðan dag!
Well. A lot has happened in the last week and I am uber late blogging AGAIN. Sorry about that, things have just been so insanely busy!
I hope New Zealand has great weather right now because we had a BLIZZARD last night. Yes, a blizzard. Winds got up to 80m/s and everything had to close and batten down the hatches etc etc. We woke up to a foot of snow stuck to the North wall of our house. But it was beautiful, and I'm going sledding tonight with a bunch of my friends because finally there's enough snow to do it!
Yeah so, on Friday I went, at 10.30AM, to the ferry terminal to meet my band and travel to the island of Suðuroy - in true Faroe fashion, every single one of them was late and I wound up on the boat alone standing in the deck 6 restaurant and desperately hoping I was meant to be there. A girl spotted me and started talking to me having recognised the AFS logo on my bag, and as it turned out, she had gone to Australia for a year (she had a terrible Aussie accent), worked on the ferry in the restaurant, and lived in the village of Porkeri on Suðuroy. I was very thankful for her as the band was stil AWOL ...
Eventually they all turned up, thank goodness, and we set up our little stage thing with amps and keyboards and all that for our first performance of the weekend. It was INSANE, because there had been a massively huge storm the night before and the sea was really, really rough. We played, though, after a rough start where we hit a particularly huge trough right on our first count-in. It was kind of, 'eitt ... tvey ... eitt tvey trý fýra WHOOOOOOA'. Our tenor saxophonist, Eirikur, got really, really seasick and everyone pitied him enormously as he had 3 very complicated solos to play. Poor fellow. The minute the set was over he was off like a shot ... I have never seen someone actually turn green but he did.
The boat was full of politicians - the ferry company had invited them all to Suðuroy for this reception which we were all meant to be play at also. We were sitting eating our lunch on the boat and we turned around and hello, here's Joannes Eiðesgaard, the prime minister of the Faroe Islands. Good grief.
Anyway, so we got off the boat and headed to the reception which was in the village of Tvøroyri where the AFS coordinator, Elisabeth is from. On Suðuroy they speak with a strong, strong accent - instead of vit (we) they say oker, and tit (you plural) is tiker. They say jeg instead of eg (that's Danish and means I) and lots of other strange things I can't remember. For me, Suðuroy Faroese is harder to understand which should be interesting as I am doing a mini exchange there for a week on the 10th. And, strangely enough, I'm staying with the family of the girl I met on the boat.
Anyway, at the reception we realised that the venue was way too small for the huge sound of a big band and so we played rhythm section only with our two vocalists. So the rest of us got to hang around, eat food, drink wine and mingle. Mingling is important here - they do it a lot. Anyhoo, while mingling, this Joannes Eiðesgaard fellow casually wandered up to me and said, 'Hello, I hear you're from New Zealand.' (Everyone knows everything and everyone here.) I guess he was expecting me to go 'Hello, I hear you're the løgmaður,' but I really did NOT know this and so I just chatted away for a while thinking he was a local politician or something. He wandered off to mingle with other people eventually and the girl I was with, Hannah, was like, 'Don't you know who that was?' I was a little shocked to find that I'd just met the prime minister and hadn't even realised. Oops.
After that we went to our little house at Hotel Øravík where we were staying - Øravík is really a hilarious place as all it has of note is the hotel. Gosh, it's funny. But we had an entire house which was fun - I stayed in a room with Hannah (from Greenland, plays the trumpet) and two twins, Óluva and Maria, who both play the trombone. Yes, it was quite interesting.
That night we set up our stage at the Stóra Pakkhús which was to be our third concert venue, and we practised a bit until a grumpy old man came and told us to shut up. So we went bowling instead, followed by dinner at Hotel Bakkin, which was in the town of Vágs (this is a common name in the Faroes. Vágs. Everything seems to be something-Vágs or Vágs-something. It's pronounced Vox). Then, at about 10, we headed back to our concert venue to finish setting up and relax a bit before we started playing. We played from 11PM-1AM (you have to do this here because the audience arrive so late) but then we got encored so many times we wound up playing until 2AM. We got back to the hotel at about quarter past and then sat around eating and playing cards until 4 or 5AM when we all made it into bed. We had to get up at 8AM to catch the ferry and then it was late leaving anyway, but we didn't mind.
The ride back to Havn was almost as rough as it was going over, but lucky me, I never seem to have this seasick thing. Sjúrður, my fellow alto saxophonist, did, and the poor kitchen ladies had to come and clean him up in the cafeteria. How embarassing for everyone involved ...
But yeah, we arrived back in Havn to snow and ice and general gorgeousness (it had also snowed overnight on Suðuroy) and I headed home for sleep.

On Saturday night I went to my friend Olga's place for a girls' night involving a bunch of girls from my class. I made ANZAC cookies and took them in a tin and today Olga did the cutest thing - she gave it back to me filled with waffles. Haha. She's one of the people you just want to hug. The Faroes are full of these types of people.
Yeah so anyway, I got there and we ordered pizza and such, and sat eating and taking stupid photos of each other (as you do) and reviewing all the photos that have been taken of our class so far - we actually have our entire back wall in homeroom devoted to photos of our many escapades and it is getting fuller and more hilarious every day. Free period? Double lunch break? Print some photos. We even have a tally of how many times each person has appeared on the wall. It's awesomely cool.
Then we watched Pearl Harbor. Of course. And then we had tea and coffee and cake and cookies and then we headed home. It was very fun. Very cute.

School this week has been much as school generally is except our classes have been slightly more fun - on Wednesday we made a hot air balloon in physics and then cooked livers in biology (most disgusting thing I have ever watched ever in my life). We had a test in French on Tuesday and I was amazed today when I got top of the class! Three 11 scores, which is the second highest you can get and I don't think 13 was possible on this test. So yes, I pretty much rock at multilinguality. Multilingualism? Multilingualness???? Something along those lines.

Anyway, I do believe that's about all I have to report. Which is good as this is a long blog.
Leave me some comments, people!
Kelsy

2008-01-24T14:03:00.000Z

Hey guys, sorry I haven't blogged yet this week - it's going to be short, too, as I really have to walk home and organise myself to go to the island of Suðuroy tomorrow with my band...
Not very keen on the walking thing at the moment, though, as we have a SNOWSTORM. Yup, snow!
It's beautifully white outside and I love it.
Ah yeah so this week ... what has happened?
WELL, the Faroes had their election and this uber republican party, Tjóðveldi won. This is massive as they're strongly for severance of the connection with Denmark - so the Faroes may just be independent by the time I leave.
Hmm yeah that was on Saturday night and I was at my host aunt Sára's place where her husband Pall, who thinks I'm hilarious because I'm from New Zealand, brought out a bottle of Montana wine in my honour. I was so confused. You can't buy it here. I think he had it imported from Denmark.
On Friday night I had a really insane party to attend and no doubt you will all eventually see the photos - my friend Jeffri's 18th in this funny little village called Miðvágur. We came back on the bus at about 9AM the next morning, just as the sun rose (we didn't sleep. Don't be ridiculous. This is the Faroes) to see Havn under a fresh blanket of snow. It was the most beautiful morning I have ever seen. I did have fun trying to get into our house, though, as the uphill driveway was hideously slippery.
But yeah...not much else has been happening. School, you know ...
Anyways, must go and brave the snowstorm!
Kelsy
:)

2008-01-13T15:26:00.000Z

Well hey. Blog. Again. Sunday. Woohoo!
Ah, so yeah. What has happened this week?
Well, school started again, which feels sincerely weird. It should be the summer holidays, but here I am starting a new term at school. We went back on Monday and it has been pretty much school since with a twist - I can now understand what goes on. All of it. It's a really nice feeling but now I have to do the work and that ISN'T a nice feeling. I'm still coming top of maths, english and chemistry though so that's a bonus.
I had a letter published in the NZ Herald a few days back. It was really strange because I didn't think they would publish it. I just wrote it in on a whim, considering that my situation was pretty unique. So that was fun.
I'm going on a mini exchange on the 4th of February for a week which sounds fun. I think I am going to Sørvágur where my contact person lives, to work in a kindergarten. I am quite looking forward to it.
I had a class party last night which was wonderfully fun. It was quite interesting though, walking downtown afterwards, as it was about -2 degrees and the roads were covered in ice. We also decided to go for a walk at about 2AM and just slid around a bit before wandering down to the national soccer field. Yeah, it was a fun night.
Next weekend I have a class party on Vágar, another island in the West. It is very odd to have a class party there as usually we walk into town once we're done partying in someone's house to go to the clubs or whatever. There are no clubs on Vágar which would make things fun. We can't get home until the interisland bus leaves at 8AM the next morning. So yes, it will be extremely entertaining, I imagine.
I am going to another island the weekend after next with my big band - we have been invited to play at something involving the election which is ... somewhen. And so we are going to Suðuroy, the southernmost of the Faroe Islands. It takes about 2 hours to get there by ferry and we are playing onboard as well as 2 concerts on the island. We stay there overnight and then come back the next day. That will be nice as I haven't been to Suðuroy yet, but I have a host aunt there.
But yeah, anyway, I think that's about all I have to report except for some travel arrangements - I am going to Iceland in March for Easter, Silja may well be coming here for a weekend next month, and in April my friend Cory, who is from Christchurch and on exchange in Denmark, is coming up for my birthday and to come to school with me for a few weeks! So that will be wonderfully, wonderfully fun. I am really looking forward to seeing them both, and showing off the Faroes!
Anyway, I'm going to head out. Or not out, it's blowing a gale and snowing, but I have maths homework which I guess should be done ...
Yeah, síggjast!

2008-01-06T22:10:00.000Z

Well, happy 2008! Um, what has happened this week? I really can't think of anything particularly special except for NEW YEARS'! That was an epic night - I made it to bed at 9PM on the 1st of January. Ouch!!

But yes, it's a big family thing here and I was at home for the bells, where we all drank lots of champagne and watched everyone elses' fireworks. My host family had held a big dinner that night with my host dad's two sisters and their families and my host mum's sister from Klaksvík. My host grandad was also there, so we were about 20 people all up and it was lots of fun. My host cousin, Jón Petur, informed me that I simply had to watch the 90th birthday, which is a British comedy clip that has been on Faroese television on New Year's Eve since the '70s when it was made. It involves the line, 'Same procedure as last year, James,' which all Faroese people use. ALL OF THEM! I was very, very confused until I watched it last Sunday.

After midnight everyone made speeches in Faroese and it was all very fun, I trod on some poor dog's ear, I think the dog belonged to my host cousin Kristian but not entirely sure. And then I was driven up to my friend's place at Berjabrekka where I had finally found a venue for my class New Years' party (How is it that I always wind up organising New Years'?). There weren't so many from our class there, mainly because the dude I got to invite everyone invited selectively, but everyone brought other people so we had a nice little group there. It was a great party and everyone had loads of fun which is always great. However, having started a wee bit late we never made it into town which was a shame, but we did decide to party until the sun rose, which was at about 10AM. And then we made breakfast and sat around whinging about how it was raining and so going home wouldn't be an awful lot of fun as we all had to walk. I think I left at about 1PM. But yeah, wonderful fun.

Anyway, so that was my New Years' ... what else has happened this week? Not much ... yeah no really nothing at all. I spent last night watching movies with 2 of my friends. We watched Amélie, which is in French, and we watched it with Danish subtitles. I don't know if I understood the French, the Danish, or was just remembering it from having watched it with English titles, but I got it.

Mm, yeah ... Stacey and I went shopping on the 2nd or the 3rd or something ... but that's quite usual really.

There is a man on TV trying out coffins. He's speaking Danish so I'm not entirely sure why.

School goes back tomorrow - it feels unutterably strange, this whole 2 weeks of Christmas holidays thing. I clicked a little while ago that I get no summer holidays for 2 years because of this exchange. Darn. But ah, well. School fills time and it's not like I do an awful lot of work anyway! I'm not impressed though, my first class of the term is PHYSICS. An entire hour and a half of it. Not good. But hey, we get by. Hmm yeah I am chucking in a few photos from New Years'. Don't worry, people don't usually smoke cigars here - it's just a tradition for all the guys to do it at New Years'. Weird, I agree.

Mm, anyway, I think that is about it. It's really cold here at the moment. We went walking in this Velbastaður place today. I wore two pairs of socks, jeans, 2 shirts, 2 jumpers, a jacket, a scarf, a hat and gloves and I was still cold. Ugh. View was nice, though. Always is.

Anyways, yeah ... hope everybody had a GREAT New Years', and I will see you all in 6 months or so.

Lots of love, Kelsy :)

2007-12-31T13:59:00.001Z

Happy New Year’s, everybody – it’s technically New Year’s Day back home, but 12.45PM on New Year’s Eve here. Which means that while I prepare for my host family’s New Year’s dinner, you guys are preparing for the Warkworth Rodeo. And I do believe that this is the first year of my life I HAVEN’T been, excluding, obviously, the first couple of years when I was simply too young. Weird, isn’t it.
It’s a little worrying that my class still haven’t found a venue for their New Year’s party that isn’t Sandoy (another island, bit difficult to walk into town from there) or Streymnes (only slightly better. May as well be on another island). I do hope they find one because this is the land of partying and I need to bring in the NewYear in style. I’m sure they will ... this is, after all, also the land of the last minute and anyone who has been here or known Faroese people will most probably agree.
I live in hope.

Yeah so anyway, what has gone on this week? CHRISTMAS!
We were in Klaksvík for Christmas, late as I think I mentioned in my last post because of a huge storm that prevented us from driving there. We made it though, the next day, which was fine as Faroese Christmas doesn’t begin officially until 6PM on Christmas Eve. So we had dinner first at my host aunt’s place – duck and New Zealand lamb with reyðkal (red cabbage with vinegar and sugar – best thing EVER) and potatoes and other stuff I seriously can’t remember but there was a lot of it. And then we opened the gifts. My host family got me the most beautiful brooch – pure Faroese silver, big and intricately designed. It’s one of those they use on the national costumes, and as it turns out they all have names – mine is called Vár, or Spring.
And my host aunt Sára knitted me a Faroese scarf with the Faroese knitting pattern and Faroese wool. It’s beautiful. I had been considering buying one so now I’m rather glad I didn’t.
On Christmas Day we went back to my host grandad’s for ræstkjøt (rotted boiled meat with salt). That was nice as the entire Klaksvík family came.
On Boxing Day we had a kind of family reunion with my host dad’s family which was extremely cool as I got to meet all of my host cousins from Suðuroy and those I hadn’t met in Klaksvík. It was rather fun. We ate smoked Greenlandic fish and pork and duck and lots of other delicious things. Everyone left at about 8PM after a massive dessert and Jóhanna and I headed out to visit some people at about 10. You see, it’s a tradition here that on boxing day you have to stay out until the sun comes up. Which, quite frankly, is ridiculous as this is the middle of Faroese winter and the sun doesn’t come up until 10.30AM. Makes for a fun night, though.
On the 27th, we were invited to tour the biggest trawler in the North Atlantic, and also the newest – the Skálaberg. Beautiful boat – they had a gym and a sauna and all sorts of lounges and things on board. It’s only 2 years old – the 5th generation of Skálabergs. And then we went back to my host cousin Jóhan’s place where we met his wife and baby (very cute – was sleeping outside when we arrived. They do that here, bundle them up warm and put them in a sheltered place and they don’t get disturbed). And then we had ris a la mange, the dessert most Faroese people have for Christmas, and this other thing that Jóhan’s wife brought out which was more or less pavlova! But super pavlova. With icecream on top and chocolate and almonds in. It was delicious. And I have the recipe.

Yeah, so that was my Christmas – we came back to Havn that night and on the 29th I went to my friend Ronja’s 18th ... epic night, got home at 6AM but that included time spent in town, somehow we wound up in the clubs. Enjoyable night.

Anyway, I think that’s it for this week – hope Christmas in NZ was equally enjoyable, sure it was! And enjoy New Year’s – I bet you’re all partying in 2008 as I write this.

2007-12-24T08:15:00.000Z

Góðan morgun, ein gleðilig jól og eitt gott nýggjár!
The above says: ‘Good morning, merry christmas and happy new years!’ in Faroese. Woohoo!
Well, I didn’t blog yesterday – know why? It’s Christmas. Or, it was the 23rd of December. And we had lots to do – I had to pack my suitcase for Klaksvík and get ready for the Opening Presents Session (ie wrap stuff) and here’s the clincher: make 42 Christmas mince pies.
I’m PROUD of my 42 mince pies because I made them totally from scratch – the mince AND the pastry. That’s some serious good efforts right there, especially as the mince involved suet. Never again. Ugh!
We were meant to go to Klaksvík yesterday which was why everything was such a rush. In the end, though, we didn’t, as a huge storm broke yesterday morning which would have made driving very, very difficult. The storm did calm in the end but by then it was too late to head out and so here I am on the morning of the 24th, stil in Tórshavn.
Morning. I hate that word. Morning. It’s 7.46AM on the 24th of December and I wish it wasn’t. The whole wakeful thing this early in the holidays ain’t good. And why am I awake? Because thanks, parents, New Zealand called me at 6.30AM. OUCH! Darned time difference. For future reference, anybody who ever feels like calling me which is really nobody but however, New Zealand is 13 hours ahead of the Faroe Islands.
But yes, anyway, here I am trying to think of something to do with myself as I really stand no chance of getting back to sleep now, even though I only made it to bed at... 2AM. Damn. So I figured I would write a blog seeing as one is overdue anyway. And so here I am. I shall tell you about Christmas in the Faroe Islands, 2007.

First BIG IMPORTANT THING: Snow. There isn’t much of it this morning but there’s a tiny bit. Which makes me happy as I can now say we had snow at Christmas. And Klaksvík is more Northern anyway so hopefully there will be more there! I live in hope. But yes, sometimes it snows at Christmas but it hasn’t for 5 years so it’s way overdue.
Second important thing: Tradition here demands that families with small children dance around the Christmas tree. I thought this was the cutest thing I had ever heard of and was very determined to dance around the Christmas tree and so, though my host aunt and uncle’s Christmas tree normally resides in the corner of the room, they have moved it into the middle so we can ‘dansa rundt jólatræið’. I am very much looking forward to it.
Third important thing: Present opening takes place on Christmas Eve in the evening. Which means that strangely enough I will be opening my presents at the same time as you guys in New Zealand.

Ah, bother. I think it’s raining. The little snow there is is fully going to wash away, darned Faroe weather. But ah well.

Um, so my last week. WELL. School finished on Thursday and we had a really hilarious day just sitting around and eating leftover candy from my Christmas concert. Which went really well and we made lots of money from it, even though I sang. We had a few invasions of small children onto the stage but we did OK. Anyway, last day of school we ate leftover candy and used leftover face paint to decorate ourselves. It was extremely entertaining – all our classes were cancelled except for English, and even then the teacher brought tea, coffee, carrot cake and a movie and we just sat and relaxed for an hour and a half. And yeah, then most of the class left and a bunch of us just sat around relaxing, watching youtube, etc etc. It was a great day.

Anyway, I am very, very tired and I have a long day ahead so I am heading back to bed.
Love you all, merry Christmas!

2007-12-17T12:19:00.000Z

Darn, a day late.
This is going to be a quick blog as today is proving to be one of the busiest days of my life, no actually, this past week in general. You see, I am performing in two concerts this evening for small children and we started practising on Thursday. Seriously. So it's a little hectic - though awesomely fun. I've never ever considered spending so much time intensively with any of my classes (excluding camps and such) but here it just WORKS. So well - everyone gets along and everything runs perfectly. Or it would if anyone knew what on earth we were doing ...
So here it goes: my weekend. And this is an extreme example, not all of them are so intense, but well ... most.
Thursday: practice for concert from 1.30PM until 8PM.
Friday: practice for concert from 8AM until 10AM and then again from 1.30PM until 7PM. 11PM go to a metal concert at a bar in town, then hit the clubs. Get home at 7AM.
Saturday: Sleep until 11AM. Get up, go to the theatre (2PM until 5PM), have dinner, leave to go to formal birthday party for my friend Lilja at 7PM. Stay for 45 minutes, go to concert at 8PM until 11PM. 12PM: Go back to Lilja's for the REAL party. Stay there until 4AM, then head into town to go clubbing. Get home at (seriously) 10AM.
Sunday: Sleep until 11.30AM, get up, start practise at 12PM until 6PM, go home, have dinner, head back to school for practise from 7PM until midnight.
Monday: Get up at 5AM, head to school for practise starting 7AM until 10AM. More practise from 11.30AM until 12.

Yeah so that's where we are now - it is 12.25PM on Monday and I am just about to head home to get some throat things to make me sing like an angel and get changed into my LBD and leggings and heels to look all important and nice. And I shall be singing Can You Feel The Love Tonight for 200 small children. Twice - concerts tonight from 3.30-5.30PM and then 6-8PM. I am also playing the keyboard in the band. Rah!

Um, yeah. Stuff has happened in the last week but for the life of me I cannot remember it ... I'm sure it will come to me eventually ... ooh, I've started wearing silk pants. I randomly bought two pairs a few weeks back for like $7.50 each (30kr, awesome sale) and I have decided I never want to wear other pants as long as I live, these things are great.

We had ræstkjøt for dinner last night - half dried (well, really rotted) meat that has been boiled. You have no idea how good that stuff is. I love it. Favourite Faroese food, though ræstan fisk is also really good. Can't decide.

Ooh, and Christmas is in ONE WEEK! I can't wait - I am counting down the days and my friends keep having to correct me because I add a day. Keep forgetting they celebrate on the 24th here. I actually cannot wait!

Anyway, I am heading out - may be able to get a few hours sleep before I get ready.
Much love to all who read and more love to all who comment,
Kelsy

2007-12-11T09:16:00.000Z

Hey, it’s The Girl With Too Much To Do again ...
It’s Monday evening and I am way too tired to be sitting in front of a computer but I really must get this blog published and I shall do so tomorrow morning. My Sunday blog will arrive on Tuesday evening in New Zealand.
So yeah. How did you like the last one? And the photos ... I put in photos, didn’t I? I can’t remember ...
But yes, I was way way way too busy yesterday to blog – you see, I went on tour with my orchestra. We played in an old people’s home first, then we went to the tiny, tiny town of Kaldbak where my friend Sunniva lives, then we went to Argir, a sort-of suburb of Havn, then we went to Norðradalur, probably one of the smallest villages I have ever seen – it had 4 houses. But Syðradalur, that one is smaller – it has 2 houses. The Syðradalur people came to our performance at Norðradalur, though, along with many, many people from other surrounding villages. The point of the tour was that we were accompanying the lighting of the town Christmas trees in all of these places – every town has a Christmas tree here, but it does make me laugh as they are so obviously imported – the trees that grow here don’t grow so big, and the ones they use as town trees are fairly large (and outside) and very lit up. They’re beautiful. The one in Havn is particularly impressive but I suppose one would hope that of the capital Christmas tree. Anyway, it really harks back to the times when Warkworth had a town Christmas tree and we used to all sit in MS Engineering and watch it getting lit.

Hmm, so what else has been going down here in the Faroes? Well, I am preparing to mail the Christmas Package tomorrow – it has 13 days until Christmas Eve, 12 and a half including time difference, so I desperately hope it makes it on time! Speaking of Christmas Packages, many thanks to everyone who included stuff in mine – everything is fantastic and all the presents look very exciting – of course I haven’t opened anything yet but my host family’s gifts are all wrapped and stowed in my closet waiting to be taken to Klaksvík for the host family Christmas. I can’t wait! Ooh, but Mum did send them a lovely book on Warkworth which they couldn’t help but open and they love it – each member of the family is taking turns to read it and no doubt we will take it to Klaksvík to show the extended host family. It was fun, too, for me to see all the beaches and such.

Beaches seem very, very far away right now – one would be mad to swim here in the winter. It sat on about 0 degrees today and just below at some points. Very, very cold, but oddly enough it doesn’t seem so bad. It all depends on where in the world you are, I have concluded – if the temperature reached 0 degrees in New Zealand, we would all be dying of hypothermia, but here in the Faroe Islands one can leave the house in open shoes and without a scarf. It just ... doesn’t seem so chilly. Though, having said that, there was no snow today and also no wind. The wind makes a huge difference as it comes from the North usually. But I am hoping for snow soon. They have predicted rain this week but if the temperature sits on zero, it will become snow. I live in hope!

Yeah so ... I have been in the Faroes over four months. Which means I have less than seven left. It’s Christmas, for goodness’ sake ... New Years’ is equally soon. When I first arrived I could never have considered Christmas here, in the cold. And having been here so long. It’s scary how fast this exchange is going. The weeks are, honestly, like days, because there is always something to do. Orchestra practice, then orchestra hugnakvølds (cosy evenings – that’s hard to translate because we just don’t do it), big band practices – two of those, concerts, so many concerts ... I have another now – we are playing Christmas morning in the Havnarkirkja (Havn Church) but I shan’t be here for that because I will be in Klaksvík. Then there’s everything my class organise – this weekend it looks like we’re going to the island of Sandoy for a very long class party (3 days! These people like to party...). And we bowl. And go to the movies and out to dinner and all sorts. And then I have my Faroese evening classes – two of those a week. And choir practice on Thursdays. I never seem to be at home. And when I am I’m always doing homework and practicing the piano (for another concert) and wrapping Christmas presents and doing goodness knows what else, but there’s almost always something. Yes, I can see this exchange going extremely quickly.

I’m currently very proud of my class as we won a big, prestigious prize. A month or so back I think I mentioned Verkætlan, the project we did (we got two days off school for it). Well, this year my school ran Verkætlan as a competition and the winners were announced on Friday night at a school kvøldseta (same as hugnakvøld and equally untranslatable). My host mum was determined that I go for some reason, though she wouldn’t tell me why and when they began announcing the winners of Verkætlan 2007 I began to get suspicious – was this what she meant? So I was looking around for anybody at all in my class and I was seriously, the only one. Sure enough, 07Y were announced as winning first for Verkætlan for our project, ‘Grønur Skúlin’ (The Green School) and I had to go up and accept the prize. But that was OK – we won 2500kr, which is equal, more or less, to NZ$625. A little bit more than the interhouse prizes of $20 worth of hot chips at Mahu! But yeah, none of us expected it so this morning we celebrated by doing very little in physics. Though I also do very little in physics so it didn’t really worry me much.

Finally, I got my first report on Friday, and guess what – I passed everything! Physics was a very close call but I got 10 on chemistry – the marking scheme is very odd but 11 is more or less the highest mark. 12 doesn’t exist, 13 does but they don’t give it out unless it’s Nobel-prize-winning stuff. I was amazed with my chemistry mark as I generally sleep in class but I suppose the teacher liked the reports I’ve handed in! And I got 11 in English, naturally. And yeah, passed everything, gosh I was amazed. My final mark was 8.5 which is actually pretty good and better than a lot of the people in my class got. So I was extremely happy with that. I also got the second highest mark on my Maths test but I think I mentioned that. THAT was impressive as it was written in Danish – thanks, Silja, for helping me with my Danish, it is doing me many, many favours as all the schoolwork is written in it!
But yes, anyone thinking of going on AFS and scared of failing stuff, disregard everything they say about school. I didn’t expect to pass anything, let alone in my first four months, and I am one of the top students in my class. Beat the system!

Anyway, I am going to head off and do my French homework (je t’aime la langue Française, elle est belle!). O joy!
Love, Kelsy

2007-12-05T11:43:00.000Z

2007-12-05T11:36:00.001Z

Hi everybody!
(Hi, Doctor Nick!)

Well. Here I am writing a blog on a ... Tuesday evening (just had to check that one out) but this one won’t be posted until Wednesday morning/afternoon (if we’re lucky) and so it should be online on Wednesday night New Zealand time. So, tomorrow night. Or tonight, if we’re speaking Nzish.

Sorry I’m late again, I just keep running out of time! It’s an issue. I have more and more on these days. Especially concerts, I don’t know where they all come from! Though it could have something to do with the fact that I have just joined yet another band – GHM, a big, pretentious, prestigious orchestra here in the Faroe Islands. It’s run by the music school (as are my other two bands) and involves every instrument playable with the mouth. Odd way to explain but so it goes. But yes, I do have rather a crazed itinerary for the next month ... on Sunday the 9th (the coming Sunday – that rules out the next blog being on time) I am touring with GHM to three neighbouring towns around Tórshavn – it’s called Jólatræ (the Christmas Tree Tour) and involves playing outside. It snows lots now so I’m not looking forward to it so much but we do get a tour bus so that shall be fun! On the 17th of December I have another concert, this time with my class, who are fundraising for their trip next year to Turkey. The concert is for small children and so far I am in a choir, singing a solo, playing solo piano, saxaphone, and in a band. So that should be fun ... I don’t really mind, the alternative was face painting. Then, on the 19th, I have this crazy, crazy concert – we’re performing on the Jólaskip or Christmas ship (this is with GHM, the aforementioned orchestra that I have just joined). The Jólaskip is a Faroese tradition and every city has one (every town, rather) and they light them up with Christmas lights and get bands on them playing Christmas carols and then you can row out to them in your little dinghies and wander around for a bit – drink gløgg (mulled wine) and eat holukøkur (literally holy cakes but more or less just deep fried pancake dough served with jam and icing sugar). Ooh, and on Saturday (forgot this one – bother) I am singing with my school choir at some flash function the school is throwing in aid of Verkætlan which I do believe I explained in my last blog. Possibly the one before. But yes, our Verkætlan was a competition and so the winners will be announced on Saturday. And we are also singing.
And I performed two concerts last Tuesday night, though I had only intended to play one. Both of my big bands were performing in the Miðlahúsinum, which is a tiny, tiny venue in the centre of town. I only knew that the non-professional band was playing and so brought my music only for that one, but when the professional band arrived straight afterwards and asked politely where exactly I thought I was going, I wound up playing with them as well. It was, of course, a huge honour as I am the youngest in the band and quite possibly the least trained – all the musicians in it are incredibly good.. That concert especially was amazing – the music that band plays is so tight and just fantastic. They are touring next summer, and I do cross my fingers that they do it before I leave, so that I can go with them, because they’re either going to Iceland or Greenland (Silja, if we come to Iceland, you are so coming to watch).
So yes, that’s my concert schedule for December – I have a suspicion that the big bands have more dates planned for the Christmas break. I must start getting photos of these things!

On Saturday night was my school’s Christmas ball – the ball here does not mean the same thing as it does at home, mind. Ball is Faroese for party. And this was one big party – and superhero themed! I went as Pippi Longstockings and the plaits especially went down rather well as Stacey and I had wired them up. I had mismatched socks and everything, and a great 60s cocktail dress with polkadots that I bought for 35kr ($8.75) in a second hand shop. But yes, everyone dressed up and it was a great night – I have a few photos from my class pre-party which I may put up at some stage. If I have a free class sometime (hopefully tomorrow, as I have biology, physics and Faroese – officially the worst day possible).

Hmm ... what else has happened since I last blogged? Well, Stacey is in Edinburgh, though she hasn’t been for long and won’t be for much longer – she went on a cruise to Scotland with her host family where they actually spend more time on the boat than in Scotland. It’s crazy – they seriously get 20 hours in Edinburgh. The whole affair is geared towards shopping and takes about 90 hours. But when I got home from evening school tonight, my host parents informed me with amusement that Stacey’s host mum, Turid, had rung them in a total and utter panic – Stacey has Lost Her Passport and may well be stuck in Edinburgh for a while if they can’t straighten the matter out. I await news of developments eagerly as it is so a Stacey-ish thing to do – at the [rather swanky] AFS 50th anniversary a month or so back, she successfully lit the table decorations on fire, much to my amusement ... while Stacey was yelling at me for laughing and trying desperately to find water, the girl across the table quietly picked the burning leafy things up and blew them out. Haha.

Ooh, on Saturday we had the Lighting Of The Town Christmas Tree. Very important and thousands of people go to it ... seriously, there were three thousand there to see it lit on the weekend. They lowered a Santa from a crane and he lit the tree. Being a Santa in the Faroe Islands is officially not the world’s most desirable job ... I’m intrigued as to where they got the tree, personally, as there aren’t any here and what few do grow in people’s gardens don’t grow anywhere near as big as this monster. So definitely an import. Odd, really. But yes, we went to watch the lighting and then went into a bar and drank gløgg and ate holukøkur. Gløgg is intriguing stuff, really ... mulled wine served hot with raisins and almonds and a lot of ginger. Delicious, to tell the truth.

Anyway, it’s way past my bedtime so I am going to load this onto my flashcard and hit the sack.
Love you all,
Kelsy

P.S You guessed it – please comment. Question: does anyone from AFS North Shore read this? I’m sure I put the address in my last email ...

2007-11-26T12:27:00.000Z

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)

2007-11-26T12:12:00.000Z

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

2007-11-19T22:21:00.001Z

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!

2007-11-16T12:27:00.000Z

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

2007-11-14T19:04:00.000Z

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

2007-11-05T21:00:00.000Z

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.

2007-11-03T17:41:00.000Z

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

2007-10-28T12:38:00.000Z

The following is somewhat amusing - it is a class at my school with 3 sets of twins. Identical twins. Now, there are 24 people in each class, which means one quarter of this class are twins. Scary stuff.
http://www.hoydalar.fo/myndasavn/?savn=38&mynd=18

Hmm OK, so THIS WEEK IN FAROE LIFE ...
Not overly much has happened, to be quite honest. Though last night I attended the 50th anniversary of AFS Føroyar which was good fun. I also set all of the 124 placings for it and decorated the tables. And played the piano as entertainment. But yeah, it was good fun. I met a lot of people who were returnees and going on exchange and one or two people who were actually going to New Zealand and all very excited about it. So that was really cool. Then they brought out a live band and we left at about 2AM. Oh, and 2 of the sets of twins in the photo above were waiting/waitressing. It was really funny - the guy set had to wear different ties so that everyone could tell them apart and one of the girl ones was wearing her hair up. It was still very confusing.
But yes, all very fun.
Daylight savings started here today so it will now be dark until about 10AM every morning. Very weird. School again tomorrow and I'm still not used to walking to school in the dark but I'll get over it, I'm sure. What's going to be very strange is walking home in the dark too - apparently that is coming soon but it's what they try to avoid as much as possible with the daylight savings (which seems silly in the Faroes as it gets so dark anyway and then it's light all night in the summer - why do they need it?!).
I met up with my contact person again last night, who has invited me to stay at her house next weekend on Vágar, another island which is really cute - it's where the airport is. So that will be fun. I look forward to it.
Anyhoo, I'd better head off. I've somehow been roped into helping with the clean-up from the AFS party last night ...
Kelsy

2007-10-24T16:20:00.000Z

So I finally get around to blogging this week. It’s Wednesday and I’m sorry but it’s the first chance I’ve had to really do this thing. And my last blog received no comments so if this one suffers the same fate, I will start blogging once monthly. Or 3-monthly.

So yeah, what’s happened since I last blogged?
Well, in the Heystferia or Autumn holiday, we went to Skælingur, a tiny, tiny little village about 45 minutes drive away. It had about 9 houses, I think, and a slaughterhouse. We stayed in a house belonging to the host parents of a girl who was staying in Klaksvík, which was beautiful, and set right beside a huge waterfall. Skælingur itself was beautiful too, set between the mountains and the sea, and the entire village was built on the cliffs as there are really very few beaches here. The landscape was truly epic. Except for the sheep – there were lots of those, and they just roamed free. But there were less as we left because it was sheep killing season and though we were offered the chance to ‘fara á fjall’ or go up the mountain (it’s their way of saying mustering), we declined. Though Lisa from Austria went to her host family’s little sheep killing ceremony and killed AND flayed a couple of sheep. Very brave, I thought.

We were in Skælingur for 3 days and then came home, and on my first night home my host family called (they’d been in Klaksvík) and said I was being picked up in 45 minutes to go to my aunt Ása’s for dinner. I learnt a while ago that Ása makes fantastic soup but doesn’t speak much English. But she’s lovely and so are her family. And on this particular occasion, we ate ræstjøt for dinner. Now, I believe I’ve mentioned ræstan fisk before, and ræstjøt is the same, but with lamb. It’s made through a rotting process, literally, and it smells dreadful. Even worse, the smell is on your clothes for days – you cannot get it out. But ræstjøt, like ræstan fisk, is very delicious once you get over the smell – it just tastes like very strong lamb (it is boiled before you eat it). And it’s fantastic with lots of salt, as my host cousin Bjarni helpfully pointed out. They eat it with soup. Which is also really good.
Oh, and my host parents brought my host grandad back from Klaksvík with them. He speaks no English so we have some very amusing Faroese conversations. And very simple Faroese conversations. But it’s nice.
And on Saturday, Magnus and I went table shopping, and now I have a large, glass, round table in my room which is extremely handy. I really must put up some photos of the house somewhen. It’s a lovely house, really it is.

Hmm, so that was my Heystferia (only lasts a week). Now I’m back at school which is rather fun – I won at bingo in French yesterday – I’m quite good at French, funnily enough. And my class are organising more class parties and outings and alsorts so this term looks to be good fun. One thing which is making me feel a little odd, though, is the fact that for the last 3 days, I’ve walked to school in the dark. It’s VERY dark here, and for longer and longer. By Christmas, it won’t get light. So that’s very interesting. The sun rises at about 9AM at the moment. But the days are getting shorter very quickly, and it presents a stark contrast to the 5 hours of darkness a day when I arrived!
But no snow in Tórshavn yet. Infact, it’s about 10 degrees, which is considered very warm for October (nearly November. Eek!). But I still live in hope of a white Christmas.

Another important development is that I have acquired a Faroese troyggjar, or jumper. It’s very warm, pure wool and handmade, and they have special silver buttons that are very Faroese, that go down the shoulder. It’s beautiful and VERY traditional. I shall put up photos somewhen.
Oh, and I’ve started Faroese lessons at evening school but they’re very basic and so a little boring. But yeah, that’s about it so I’ll head to dinner now as we are having ræstan fisk! (yum. Believe it or not).
Kelsy

2007-10-14T13:55:00.000Z

Well hey, guys – I’m back and it’s Sunday (no way. I’m on a roll ...) and well, not too much has really happened this week except that it’s now HEYSTFERIA which looks like hysteria but means Autumn holidays. We only get a week but that’s OK, considering the term lasted only 8 weeks.

School finished on Friday – I got a good deal in that I finished at 11.30AM and then the AFS girls (Stacey, Lisa and I plus Katharina and Celeste who live in other towns) started planning our holidays. We are using a house belonging to Katharina’s host parents in a tiny town called Skælling, seriously tiny – I think there are four houses, and maybe five at the most. It’s very small, anyway. So we’re meeting there tomorrow – Skælling is about 45 minutes drive from Tórshavn – and we shall watch movies, paint our nails and just generally talk about everything that’s happened so far on our exchanges. We don’t see Katharina and Celeste very often as they go to the other school (yes, there are only two high schools in the Faroe Islands) so I’m really looking forward to talking to them again. We’re staying in Skælling for about four days.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to go to a soccer game at the local stadium – it was a pretty big game as the Faroe Islands were playing France. Everyone was pretty enthusiastic (and there were 10 very loud people supporting France) which was kinda fun as everyone knew the Faroes were going to get thrashed. One of my customers back at New World asked once where I was going, and I was astounded that he knew where the Faroes were, and well, that they even existed, until he said that it was only because of their amazingly bad soccer team. Well, yeah. He was right. France beat us 6-0 and the Faroe Islanders were happy with that because let’s face it, it could have been so much worse. The funniest thing happened during the game, though – everyone was yelling in Faroese (“Kom sá, Føroyingar”, “Kom NÚ!”) and then suddenly I heard this very very strong Scottish accent yelling, “GO HOME AND EAT CHEESE” at the French supporters, which made me laugh. A lot. So that was fun, if a little depressing.

Anyway, I’m going to go and finish packing for Skælling now – I made an awful lot of afghans for us and Lisa is making an Austrian chocolate cake (mmmm), so I think I may come back obese. But ah well.
Kelsy

2007-10-07T19:27:00.000Z

It’s Sunday here in the Faroes, though Monday morning in New Zealand, and I do believe it’s time for the weekly blog.
This week has been a week of music, movies and very odd food.

I may have mentioned the fact that I have been given a saxaphone for the entire year, rent free. This is thanks to a very nice fellow at the tónleikaskulanum or music school, who teaches saxaphone. He has also been kind enough to put me in two big bands (saxaphones, trumpets and trombones) – one of which is a training band and one of which is a professional band. I am, as one may imagine, extremely grateful.
I had my first band practice on Wednesday, and I LOVED it. The first band was good fun – some of the songs I had actually played in New Zealand so I knew them. I knew a few people in the band as well, so that was useful, and though I had no neckstrap, I have been given one also for the entire year I shall be here. It all worked out rather nicely!
The second band involved some of the teachers at the music school and there was no conductor – we were all given music and then we just sat down and played. It was really fantastic – they were all very good musicians but thankfully I could keep up with them, and some of those songs the Mahu jazz band had played as well – Good News, anybody?! And the entire practice wound up being more like a jam session with music – very, very enjoyable.

When I arrived home from band practice, I realised that something smelled fishy. Very fishy. Infact, I could smell it from outside my house. And it smelled of rotten fish. It was unpleasant. The smell was even more intense as I got inside and I soon realised that what I was experiencing was the pungent odour of ræstan fiskur. Ræstan fiskur is half-dried fish which is then boiled, and served with stuff called garnatolg, which is matured sheep’s tallow melted on the stove into a kind of sauce. The whole dish smells rank, but it tastes surprisingly delicious, and I have decided I quite like ræstan fiskur, which defies everything all other visitors to this place have thought. The smell usually puts people off, but once you try the fish it is delicious, and the sauce is also very, very good, as long as you don’t think of what’s in it. My host mum, Kristinbjørg, refused to tell me until I had tried it, and would only say that it was ‘made of sheep’.
So there’s some of the strange Faroese food for you – it’s weird, yes, but oh, so delicious.

On Thursday, Stacey and I headed into town to get tickets to a concert, Crystal Waters, which was last night. That was very fun – we have discovered that there is an ice cream shop in the mall which sells extremely large ice creams extremely cheap, and we always wind up getting ice cream.
Then, when I got home, Lisa (from Austria) rang me and invited me to her house to watch movies and eat cake and popcorn (we do this quite a lot). So we watched Dirty Dancing, which Stacey had borrowed from the town library, and then Lisa, a very good manicurist, did our nails. It was rather enjoyable.

On Friday night, Stacey and I, plus a bunch of people from my class and a bunch of people from her class met up at a place called the Posthúskjallurinum, or the post house basement, for a concert. The concert was in aid of a thing called Dagsværk, which is next week and involves working for a day in the local business of your choice. They pay you anything they can afford over 300kr and the money goes to Bolivia. It seems cool. But anyway, we had this concert which was fantastic – mainly jazz but finishing with a rock band which is huge here and very good performers. See photos in the post below – one of my friends performed, Karin, and she proved to me an absolutely fantastic jazz singer, as did her dad, who accompanied her on the keyboard. Every day I am still more impressed by the musical prowess of this strange little place.

Yesterday I wound up at Stacey’s for the afternoon, watching Girl With the Pearl Earring (weeeeird movie but rather good), so that was quite good, though I had to get back earlyish for my host cousin’s 22nd birthday party. Birthday parties here are a very big deal and they usually involve the whole family. So you get to meet everyone – they’re really a fantastic opportunity for exchange students to meet and get to know the extended host family. THIS birthday party also had extremely good food – frikadellir (kind of mince balls which are GREAT and typical of Denmark and the Faroes) and the best soup I have ever tasted. I have asked for the recipe and will be emailing it home once I translate it into English!
Then Stacey and I and my friend Lilja (who is the daughter of the AFS coordinator here in the Faroes) hit the town again, this time for the major concert of Crystal Waters, which was held in the handball hall just out of town (and about 10 minutes walk from where I live). It started at 11PM and finished at 4AM and there was a lot of dancing to be done. It was fantastic, and I loved it, though I was lucky to be let in as they were checking IDs and we were supposed to be 17 – I quickly figured out that my friend Hanus was on one of the gate booths and he let me in. Must thank him for that one tomorrow!

And then, today, Stacey and Lisa turned up at my house (they literally knocked on my window, it was creepy – though they do it a lot so I’m getting used to it!) and we went to try and talk to Lisa’s contaktperson – we are organising an AFS group holiday to another town this Heystferie (autumn holidays). Most of our host parents have houses in other villages, and so we will probably go to Gjógv (my host parents have a home there, though it was built in the late 1800s and has no central heating – scary stuff), Fuglafirðir (Lisa’s host parents have a slightly more modern house there), or another town on the island of Eysturoy where Katharina’s host parents have a house. It should be fun – we will probably go for 3 or 4 days and just explore – there are a lot of very cute little villages around that provide excellent holiday spots (though excellent holiday spots here are generally very, very cold, one must understand).
And then we went back to Lisa’s and watched Grease, which is always fun, even if it does have Danish subtitles!

Anyway, that’s my week and now I shall go and do my physics homework which is due in tomorrow.
Kelsy

2007-10-06T12:31:00.000Z

New photos from a concert I attended last night - 'twas awesome, had front row seats and one of my friends performed. But somehow I managed to get the mic thrown at me and almost got taken out by the neck of the bass twice... ah well, 'twas a good night.

2007-09-30T13:34:00.001Z

This week, Kelsy is actually going to blog on Sunday. Now, isn’t that incredible?
It’s 2PM on a Sunday afternoon and I just realised that I’ve got time, for once, to do what I promise every week. This week, I shall blog On Time.

So what’s happened this week in the Faroes?
Well, for a start it’s getting colder pretty quickly. These days you’re lucky if the temperature reaches nine dregrees. It doesn’t happen often. Downtown, there’s one of those electronic billboards that tells you the time and the temperature, and it always seems to say six or seven. Yeah, it’s cold, but I don’t mind.
About three weeks ago, I woke one morning to see the mountains in the distance covered in the first dump of snow for the winter. I’ve never lived anywhere you can see snow from your window, so this was a big thing. But the next day it was gone and it hasn’t happened since.
It was very early, everyone said, and that means that maybe winter will come early to Tórshavn, that MAYBE I will get a white Christmas. I hope so. My host family spends Christmas in the North, anyway, in Klaksvík, which is picture perfect and looks like something from a postcard. I’m sure it will be even more beautiful in the winter, covered with snow. It’s colder in Klaksvík, so I live in hope of snow on Christmas day.
But yeah, you do NOT go outside without a jacket, or at least a thick jumper and a scarf, unless you’re keen for frostbite. Even on days when the sun is out, the sky is blue, and it looks as if it should be a wonderfully warm day, I can see my breath when I walk to and from school. It’s a cold little country, this, and people keep telling me that sometimes in summer it reaches twenty degrees. I have a suspicion this happens about once every ten years ...
Having said all this, I love the weather here. Yes, it’s cold, it’s windy and for the most part it’s grey, but the air is crisp and clear and breathing feels much healthier than it ever did at home. And on days when it’s overcast, grey and threatening rain, that’s the time I love it the most. I don’t know why – maybe because it reminds me of New Zealand weather. But I enjoy it.

I went to Klaksvík last weekend, with my host family. That was nice – it was for my host-grandfather’s birthday and there were scores of people who had heard all about me but not met me. (I swear, everyone in this country knows me these days. Wherever I go, there are people saying ‘Hey – you’re Kelsy from New Zealand?!’) And so I had lots of host third cousins once removed and the like introducing themselves and everyone seems to know someone who has been to New Zealand, come from New Zealand, holidayed in New Zealand, worked in New Zealand, been on exchange in New Zealand. The Faroe Islanders have a strange idea that I come from a place very similar to this. It’s because New Zealand is, like the Islands, physically isolated from the rest of the world. They sometimes seem a little disappointed when I explain that that’s really the only similarity. I think the 4.15million difference in the population is what does it.

Yeah, there really aren’t that many similarities between New Zealand and the Faroe Islands – I’ve been waiting for the culture shock and the homesickness but it hasn’t happened, which surprises me as everything seems so different. There are a lot of new impressions. Well, everything is new. I think the biggest difference for me is how amazingly kind and generous the people are – all of them, and how welcoming and accepting they are of me, a foreigner who barely speaks their language.
New Zealand, though we are loath to admit it, has an increasingly large racism issue, and yet we remain one of the most multicultural countries in the world. This is something I find very difficult to understand, especially as I have come here now, to a place where foreigners are not only accepted, but almost revered. I have been asked to speak in several places, I am invited to every party and function that takes place, people go out of their way to translate for me when I don’t understand. They’re so amazingly helpful, and it’s all because I’m not from this place. The other exchange students are having the same experience – people here are amazed by us, by the fact that we made it up here, and so they treat us more kindly than any people we have ever come across before.
I think this is also partially affected by the incredibly strict immigration laws here. The Faroes are a very, very small community and they take steps to ensure that the community remains primarily Faroese. As a result, in order to move to the Faroe Islands, one has to first secure a job, or enrol in a school, and then make payment to the Faroese government, either in the way of money, or by promising to give up a percentage of income for the first five years that one resides here.
There aren’t many foreigners in the Faroe Islands because of this, and those that there are mainly come from Denmark. There are a few from Norway. And so, we from New Zealand, are a great novelty.
What astounds me the most, though, is that people welcome us readily into their homes. My host aunt, who I have never met, has invited me to stay in the upcoming holidays on the Southern island of Suðuroy, where she lives. My contaktperson, Leila, has invited me to the Western island of Vágar, where she lives, and promises to take me to the beautiful island of Mykines, a spot frequented by the few tourists that know this place. In the supermarket I met a man who is married to a woman from New Zealand, and we am invited to their house for dinner one night – they live in a very small farming village about an hour out of Tórshavn. Another family that knows my host parents has a branch of their family living in Wellington, and they also have invited me for a meal at their home, regardless of the fact that they speak hardly any English themselves. I think that shall wait until my Faroese is better.

Anyway, this is a very long blog, so I shall leave now to do my physics and French homework, once I have translated it out of Danish!
Kelsy

2007-09-25T21:13:00.000Z

Photos for you, because Ruthie requested them!-
Enjoy.
Sadly I have no idea what order they're in as blogger likes to rearrange things spontaneously but I shall try and if they seem a bit odd then I'm sorry, blame the silly internet.
1 - The view of Eysturoy over the bay of Old Hoyvík.
2 - Nólsoy over the bay of Old Hoyvík (background) and Hoyvík's Hólmur, the little island in front.
3 - A stonehewn meat-drying house in Old Hoyvík.
4 - Old Hoyvík - technically it's an open-air museum but it is proposed that the president, the Løgmaður, shall live there in the near future. They do have modern houses there too, though ... 2 I think.
5 - Stacey, the other New Zealander (we keep each other sane because we're both nuts).
6 - A really cute motorbike I found in Tórshavn one day while wandering with Stacey. The flag on the right is the Faroese flag but I can't figure out what the red and green one is. Not Scandinavian anyway. Anybody know?
7 - Grass rooves about 10 minutes walk from my house. They're so cute. I'll never get over them.
8 - A truly beautiful sunrise ... you don't get to SEE these often as it rains a lot but when you do see them, they're fantastic.
9 - Mattias, an un-naturally good pianist in my class, at the first class partay of the year.
10 - Hanus, dancing (also in my class - he's unique).
11 - Christina, Hjørdis and Billa. I actually think they ALL model ...
12 - Tór and Hallur, singing to Hurt by Johnny Cash. The best thing about this is that they never say a word normally. Gotta love class parties!

2007-09-24T20:04:00.000Z

So I figure I've been in this country over seven weeks and I still haven't really told you anything about the country itself. Except for a few things when I first arrived, and before I came, you still know very little about the essence of this strange little country.
Strange to you, but not to me any more. I can understand their customs now, they make sense to me. I've lived amongst these people for a while and I get what they do because everything comes with a reason.
Being an isolated little country in the middle of the North Atlantic, the Faroe Islands had to learn to be self-sufficient a long, long time ago. And so they farmed the wild, wiry sheep that they brought from Norway in 800AD and grew potatoes, because that was all they COULD grow in the shallow, infertile soil. And they dried the lamb because it was too tough to cook otherwise, and they kept it outside in the cold - no need for a refrigerator. They caught fish - there was an abundancy of that, and they hunted whales when they came into the bay.
Today, they eat the same food and it's delicious, I must say. Though I shall be well and truly over potatoes when I get back to New Zealand.
It's funny how they cook, sometimes - they love the skins of both meat and vegetables, even though they don't eat them. Fish and potatoes are often cooked with the skins on, because that way they absorb the nutrients better. It's healthier. And then you peel the potatoes and/or fish on your plate.
The food is very, very good, though. lots of herbs, spices, meat. There are lots of salads now, though apparently there never used to be. And it's good.
They still eat a lot of dried lamb and fish, and grind (whale meat) when they can get it. Dried lamb and fish is delicious, but I haven't tried grind yet. I'll let you know on that one.
The people are the kindest I have ever met. My class make me word lists of Faroese, they teach me every day. My host family are fantastic - they help me with everything and I feel like a real part of the family. As if letting me live in their home for a year wasn't enough. And even people on the street are absolutely happy to help you if you ask for directions or anything. They all speak English, some, at least, and if not they will point you in the direction of someone who does.
The weather is very, very cold. Sitting on maybe seven or eight degrees most days, but that's OK. The air is amazingly clear and on a good day, the sky is incredibly blue. At night, you can see the Northern Lights, but not properly yet. That will come in the winter. The wind is gale force most days, too, but nothing for the Faroese. And the rain isn't as I expected. Their torrential is my drizzle. And they have no electrical storms. But it's all made up for by the fog.
If you can imagine torrential fog, this is it. You can't see your feet when you walk in it - thats how thick it is.
The houses are beautiful - sooo colourful, and some of them have rooves of grass. The gardens are lovely and from most houses in Tórshavn, you can see the sea. Tórshavn central is especially gorgeous, cobbled streets and houses very, very characteristic of the old Faroe designs. I'll put photos up when I can.
And there are always ships on the harbour. It's so fantastically beautiful.

My week has been good - school again, and I'm back at it now, though in a few weeks I get a week-long Autumn break. I like school here, though. It's very social.
I had my host grandad's birthday on the weekend in Klaksvík and that was fun - also had an AFS thing in a little town called Gøta where I finally got to see the other AFSers, Celeste and Katharina again (they live in Klaksvík and Toftir, both about an hour and a half's drive from Havn). So that was good.

Anyway, I must head off to bed as I have school in the morning, but I shall leave you with this thought:
the word høna in Faroese means both chicken and stapler, and the word for staple is egg - so when you staple something, the stapler lays an egg. Genius.

Goðanátt, Kelsy
P.S Comments, guys, comments ...

2007-09-17T11:45:00.000Z

Goðan dag!
The funny looking letter in the word above is called ed. Really! It's quite interesting, the ed, because in Faroese, you don't pronounce it.
So goðan is pronounced gowonn.
The g on dag इसं't pronounced either, so you wind up with 'go-wonn-dah' which means good day in Faroese. It's a more formal hello.

My Faroese is, thankfully, becoming a lot better very quickly. I can mostly understand what goes on around me which is the most fantastic feeling, but I'm still extremely grateful to my friends when they translate the stuff they think I'm not getting, because quite often they think right.
Speaking Faroese is significantly more difficult - their grammar is very hard and while it's easy to distinguish the idea of a word from the main sound of it, it's harder to figure out which of 3 to 6 forms to use in conversation. There are male, female and common genders, and then there's past tense, present tense, future, and then there's definite or indefinite. It's hard. Trust me. When I understand things, I rarely understand entire sentences, but a few words in them, and the use of the word ikki always infers not or no, so I get the general idea.
Ikki, by the way, is pronounced 'itchy' and always cracks me up, because people often use it as a question, and sometimes when a teacher has said something that seems strange the entire class sits there going 'Itchy?' and I can't help but laugh.
There are some funny translations like that. Dot in Faroese is prikk, and in chemistry, we do prikk diagrams (they're called Lewis Dot in New Zealand). I was actually in hysterics when our teacher first started talking about those.
But yes, this is a fantastic language - it's very pretty, much more so than Danish which has lots of funny sounds and is spoken from the back of one's throat. Faroese sounds almost like English and indeed sometimes when I'm just about to fall asleep in assembly, my brain Englifies phrases and I hear very strange things in English that the speaker has not said. This, as one would imagine, can be hilarious.

I'm late posting again ... I'm terrible for this, aren't I? But I went to a football match last night (Klaksvík vs. Argir and Klaksvík lost) and then to a really great concert which featured an acapella gospel choir. It was amazing, there was this one guy (who I discovered this morning has sung with a girl in my class, she has their albums so I can borrow them and copy them, yay!) who was so abnormally good it wasn't funny. He had a fantastically pure voice. Everyone in this country can sing, but he was the best I'd heard yet.
And on Saturday, Stacey (the other kiwi. I can't remember whether I've introduced Stacey) and I sat around and ate pizza and watched The Return of the King (LOTR) which made us think that New Zealand was very beautiful and no wonder people asked us so many questions about Lord of the Rings.
Because they do. I'm heartily sick of the Lord of the Rings, though to be fair, most people probably wouldn't have heard of New Zealand if they didn't exist. Oh, dear. Sheep and LOTR. That's it, really. Oh, and sharks. They love to hear about sharks. And they're always impressed by weta and eels as well.

On Friday night, we had my host dad's birthday party. He very much liked his present, which was a tie with little kiwis on it and a tie pin of the silver fern. New Zealand represent!
I also got to stand up and give a speech about NZ which was fun because there were lots of questions and I was even asked to demonstrate how New Zealanders shear sheep - they can't understand how we do it so fast, but having said that, sheep in the Faroes are shorn with scissors and it takes about 20 minutes per animal.
Wouldn't exactly be practical in New Zealand.

Anyway, Stacey and I are now going to mission it into Tórshavn to get ourselves library cards (I finished school at 12PM today. Good deal, I think!)
Farvæl, Kelsy!

P.S Comment away guys ... acknowledgements, remember?!

2007-09-09T20:32:00.001Z

Hey guys, I'm back. Because it's Sunday and I've decided that for once, I am going to blog On Time.
Gosh, I am good.

It's intriguing being on exchange in the Faroe Islands, because somehow, I am becoming Fit. Yes, Fit. Me! I put it down to the really vicious P.E lessons we have once a week which are actually insanely fun because they play heavy metal while we do press-ups and sit-ups and play crazy games that I can never understand. And the hill I walk up every day after school which is insanely steep and very large - it basically goes straight up a cliff, which our school is built under (my school, by the way, is in the most beautiful setting. There's a lot of forest around it, cultivated of course, and to get to school everyday, I walk through it along these cute little paths. And there's a river with waterfalls! It's gorgeous). And well, you're just compelled to be fit here. Walking is beautiful, there are fantastically pretty landscapes up in the mountains if you walk 15 or 20 minutes. The views are incredible. So yeah, I'm becoming Fit. Weird, huh? I think I'm taking up badminton next week, intriguingly. And on Saturday, I'm doing a Fun Run ... never would have gone near one of those in New Zealand, but however.
This can only be a good thing, right?

Yeah, so I've discovered that going to the Studentaskúli in Hoyvík is a little hard out when it comes to the social side of things. Last night, I attended a class party which was overly hilarious and generally fantastic and thankfully, about 2 minutes walk from my house. They party all night here, though, and I arrived home at about 5AM. Ouch.
And we went out for dinner beforehand ... and then on Monday and Tuesday night we went bowling, and on the Thursday before that, we went to see a movie ... yeah, they're uber social and they seem to like to invite me, which is fantastic. We all get along really well.
And AFS is social, too! On Friday night Lisa (from Austria) and Stacey (the other New Zealander) and I sat around at Lisa's and watched movies - but for the most part we discussed our exchanges so far. Everyone is having a fantastic time, so I have come to the conclusion that the Faroes are just a good place to be.

AFS assured us all that culture shock and homesickness would hit us soon in the exchange with a vengeance. But I've been here over a month and haven't had either, so mayhap it just won't happen. I hope not. I don't want anything to ruin my exchange.

But yes, everything is doing fantastically well, and I can understand a lot now, so yeah ... I'm having more fun than you could ever fathom.

Do comment! I'm always glad of your opinions. Just click, acknowledgements, right under this.
Kelsy

2007-09-05T20:25:00.000Z

UPDATE ON COMMENTING:

ANYBODY CAN NOW COMMENT. JUST CLICK ON 'ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS' AT THE BOTTOM OF EACH BLOG, AND YOU CAN COMMENT WITHOUT A BLOGGER ACCOUNT.

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR NAMES, THOUGH, SO I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

SO NOW YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE!

THANKS, KELSY

2007-09-03T13:38:00.000Z

Well HELLO, first blog of September.
It's the 3rd today, and it's insane to think that I haven't seen New Zealand for over a month.
I'm really starting to feel like This is The Place I'm Supposed To Be, and that's big. It's really fantastic.

Today is one of the beautiful Faroese days you get when there's no wind, rain or fog, and the sun shines and it's warm, not hot, but at least warm, and the sea is flat and calm and only a little darker than the sky. The islands themselves are the greenest thing I think I've ever seen.
It's weird, though, living here in Hoyvík, because I have a view straight out over the ocean. It's beautiful, but a little overwhelming. When I look at the horizon, I see no islands. Just a straight line between ocean and sky (sjógvur og luft) and nothing beyond. My idea of the sea has always been the Gulf Harbour, where islands dot the horizon in every direction. It doesn't seem so spacious. But here, the nothingness, the knowledge that these tiny islands are the only thing for thousands of kilometres in all directions, is a little strange. And difficult to get used to. The landbound horizons are also strange, for a different reason. There are no trees. They just don't exist here, except in some gardens, where people cultivate them and protect them from the animals that wander free around the villages and roads.

Yeah, this is different from New Zealand.

My school is also very different, as I explained a few posts ag, but I can get used to that as well. Everyone is so kind. One girl translated an entire period's biology notes for me, from Danish into Faroese AND English, then gave me a list of all the words that weren't universal, and what they meant. And they just do this for me. Because they can. No matter what class I'm in, or who I sit with, the person next to me is always willing to translate.
Today, my class went into town, because we had 2.5hrs free as our English (Enskt) class was cancelled. So everyone wandered around in the mall for a while, and then we headed back.
Our art class was good fun - we got put out, so to speak, to draw nature. I drew a leaf. Sadly, I can't draw, so I put a little label on it with an arrow, that says leaf. And another, in Faroese - blað, and another in Danish (blad), because that's the language my teacher speaks.
So that was fun. I finished school at about 1.30PM, but for the previous hour and a half, we had just sat in the sun and discussed .. everything. It's really gratifying when people start to speak English, because there's nobody else they could be talking to but you, and it makes you realise that yes, they want to include you.

And now, because the sun is still shining beautifully, I may go for a walk into Old Hoyvík, which is a very cute little village just across the road.
Kelsy

P.S Do leave comments!

2007-08-27T19:58:00.000Z

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.

2007-08-20T14:10:00.000Z

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

2007-08-20T12:09:00.000Z

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.

2007-08-19T22:08:00.000Z

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).

2007-08-17T23:20:00.000Z

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

2007-08-13T22:02:00.000Z

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)

2007-08-07T23:00:00.000Z

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!

2007-07-28T22:07:00.000Z

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.

2007-07-22T04:11:00.001Z

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!

2007-07-16T10:27:00.000Z

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!

2007-07-08T07:37:00.000Z

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!