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!