Far Faroe way
Day 2:
on the second day I woke up around 7am, still tired, and glanced out the window and it looks beautiful. The sun is rising, gold light illuminating the landscape. I thought to myself it is going to be a nice day. But I laid back down for a few more winks of sleep and actually get up around 9am. I showered, dressed, ate some oatmeal and then a group of us head downtown to explore the "city".
By this time the nice sun I saw at 7 had decided to hide behind some white clouds. It is beginning to rain when we decide to go to this Gallerí Jinx café. We all get hot drinks and something to eat for breakfast. Most of us got the breakfast sandwich which is a crusty bun with butter, jam, cheese, and ham. I have started to love having cheese and jam sandwiches (inspired by my norwegian friend Sverre, he said that it is only good with red jams but I tried it with apricot jam and it was still fine. I also tried peanut butter, jam and cheese, would have been really good but I was eating it on a whole wheat tortilla I made and it was quite dry and floury and was starting to taste like harðfisk by the end of the sandwich). Adrian bought an actual breakfast with the tiniest sausages, some kind of pancakes, eggs, bacon and the same sandwhich thing the rest of us had.
When we were done eating, it had stopped raining or snowing or hailing, whatever it was doing, and we continue on our exploration. We stop by a knitting store (Faroe Islands are as well known for their sheep and wool as Iceland) and browse around. Mathieu and Gunnar were modelling the stylish wool tuques for us. In the place there were a variety of styles of wool jackets, sweaters, skirts, slippers, mittens, tuques, all which were organical coloured so all were brown, beige or black. They were quite beautiful, but quite expensive and I didn't know when I would wear it so I didn't buy anything, but we would end up at this store several times through out or trip.
After wool shop we finally start exploring the streets. Tórshavn is quite hilly so we were walking up and down these steep elevations throughout the day. I think my calves had a good work out from the weekend. The streets are more windy than in Iceland, and some are cobbled. The houses are somewhat similar but as I said before there were a lot more turf roofed houses. There was also more nature it felt here than in Reykjavik (well relative for its size). There were trees, and mossy stone walls, grass, and lets not forget the sheep. One house in the middle of town had 3 sheep in its backyard. One major difference we noticed is in Tórshavn there were a lot more dogs. We kept stopping to pet the cute dogs tied outside. In Reykjavík you see cats more frequently. I think I only saw one or two cats the whole trip in the Faroes.
Then we went to the mall to find some food. The mall was quite small, probably smaller than Conestoga Mall, though, as Adrian described it, it look like a type of mall you would see in a dream. The outside was blue cast-iron with yellow stairs spiralling down, kind of looking like a childrens playground. Inside it was marble with stairs spirally up to the main level, high ceiling with a large sky-light, glass divider between the mall and the foodcourt. We found another knitting store and more yarn was purchased. On the ground floor was a kind of grocery/convenient store, so we load up on food to last the rest of the weekend. The store even had cheddar (Irish cheddar) so I bought some. I hadn't had cheddar in so long, well maybe one or two bites throughout the year from people bringing it back from North America, but when I ate some it wasn't as magnificant as I remembered, but perhaps it was only mild cheddar, not the fort kind. It will be weird to go back home and cheddar being the norm again and gouda a rarety. I wonder if gouda would even taste the same back home?
While at the mall we end up running into the other half of our group of people. We discuss for a bit what we were going to do today and our big plans for tomorrow.. perhaps bus ride, perhaps helicopter ride, perhaps some hiking. We'd decide later. So my original group and I continue on our way, this time heading towards the Nordic House. It is much larger than the one here in Iceland. On the outside there is a zig-zag stone stairway up, metal sheep and all the nordic flags up at half mass (not quite sure what happened but heard some kids were killed in a town somewhere in the Faroes). Inside the nordic house it was quite pretty, some artwork was up for display, but there really wasn't much to do in the place. There were two auditoriums, perhaps for movies, concerts or conferences.
After a bit of a rest, our backs were killing from the weight of our food, we head out towards the art gallery. Gunnar takes us through a short-cut which ended up being a bog and Fionnuala got her feet soaked. But it did end up being quite faster, and on the way we ran into Leif and Roisin, also heading to the gallery. This one Faroesean artists was on display, nickname Mikines after the island Mykines. He painted mostly scenery from the island where he grew up, but also several paintings on death. Most of his family had died from tuberculosis or the war, so much sadness in his life. A lot of the artwork was really beautiful but some, mostly of other artists, were kind of plain or boring.
After this, I was quite tired and my back was sore from the groceries, so me and Marin decide to trek back up the hill to our hostel. On the way we walked through this forest in the centre of town. Marin commented how fake the forest looked, considering the trees didn't look native and like Iceland, there are very few trees there. But it was quite beautiful and nice to be among trees again. There was even a little pond with many ducks and swan, though one swan seemed quite threatening so we kept going. We dragged ourselves up the hill and finally made it to our hostel and crashed.
Later in the evening, Mathieu and I made spaghetti together but he had the bright idea to add sardines to the sauce. So it ended up being a very fishy meal. He even admitted it had been a bad idea. After our meal we all had a cup or two of coffee (really bad idea, tossed and turned most of the night) and planned out Sunday (which I will talk about in the next post, considering most of our plans didn't turn out how we thought).
on the second day I woke up around 7am, still tired, and glanced out the window and it looks beautiful. The sun is rising, gold light illuminating the landscape. I thought to myself it is going to be a nice day. But I laid back down for a few more winks of sleep and actually get up around 9am. I showered, dressed, ate some oatmeal and then a group of us head downtown to explore the "city".
By this time the nice sun I saw at 7 had decided to hide behind some white clouds. It is beginning to rain when we decide to go to this Gallerí Jinx café. We all get hot drinks and something to eat for breakfast. Most of us got the breakfast sandwich which is a crusty bun with butter, jam, cheese, and ham. I have started to love having cheese and jam sandwiches (inspired by my norwegian friend Sverre, he said that it is only good with red jams but I tried it with apricot jam and it was still fine. I also tried peanut butter, jam and cheese, would have been really good but I was eating it on a whole wheat tortilla I made and it was quite dry and floury and was starting to taste like harðfisk by the end of the sandwich). Adrian bought an actual breakfast with the tiniest sausages, some kind of pancakes, eggs, bacon and the same sandwhich thing the rest of us had.
When we were done eating, it had stopped raining or snowing or hailing, whatever it was doing, and we continue on our exploration. We stop by a knitting store (Faroe Islands are as well known for their sheep and wool as Iceland) and browse around. Mathieu and Gunnar were modelling the stylish wool tuques for us. In the place there were a variety of styles of wool jackets, sweaters, skirts, slippers, mittens, tuques, all which were organical coloured so all were brown, beige or black. They were quite beautiful, but quite expensive and I didn't know when I would wear it so I didn't buy anything, but we would end up at this store several times through out or trip.
After wool shop we finally start exploring the streets. Tórshavn is quite hilly so we were walking up and down these steep elevations throughout the day. I think my calves had a good work out from the weekend. The streets are more windy than in Iceland, and some are cobbled. The houses are somewhat similar but as I said before there were a lot more turf roofed houses. There was also more nature it felt here than in Reykjavik (well relative for its size). There were trees, and mossy stone walls, grass, and lets not forget the sheep. One house in the middle of town had 3 sheep in its backyard. One major difference we noticed is in Tórshavn there were a lot more dogs. We kept stopping to pet the cute dogs tied outside. In Reykjavík you see cats more frequently. I think I only saw one or two cats the whole trip in the Faroes.
Then we went to the mall to find some food. The mall was quite small, probably smaller than Conestoga Mall, though, as Adrian described it, it look like a type of mall you would see in a dream. The outside was blue cast-iron with yellow stairs spiralling down, kind of looking like a childrens playground. Inside it was marble with stairs spirally up to the main level, high ceiling with a large sky-light, glass divider between the mall and the foodcourt. We found another knitting store and more yarn was purchased. On the ground floor was a kind of grocery/convenient store, so we load up on food to last the rest of the weekend. The store even had cheddar (Irish cheddar) so I bought some. I hadn't had cheddar in so long, well maybe one or two bites throughout the year from people bringing it back from North America, but when I ate some it wasn't as magnificant as I remembered, but perhaps it was only mild cheddar, not the fort kind. It will be weird to go back home and cheddar being the norm again and gouda a rarety. I wonder if gouda would even taste the same back home?
While at the mall we end up running into the other half of our group of people. We discuss for a bit what we were going to do today and our big plans for tomorrow.. perhaps bus ride, perhaps helicopter ride, perhaps some hiking. We'd decide later. So my original group and I continue on our way, this time heading towards the Nordic House. It is much larger than the one here in Iceland. On the outside there is a zig-zag stone stairway up, metal sheep and all the nordic flags up at half mass (not quite sure what happened but heard some kids were killed in a town somewhere in the Faroes). Inside the nordic house it was quite pretty, some artwork was up for display, but there really wasn't much to do in the place. There were two auditoriums, perhaps for movies, concerts or conferences.
After a bit of a rest, our backs were killing from the weight of our food, we head out towards the art gallery. Gunnar takes us through a short-cut which ended up being a bog and Fionnuala got her feet soaked. But it did end up being quite faster, and on the way we ran into Leif and Roisin, also heading to the gallery. This one Faroesean artists was on display, nickname Mikines after the island Mykines. He painted mostly scenery from the island where he grew up, but also several paintings on death. Most of his family had died from tuberculosis or the war, so much sadness in his life. A lot of the artwork was really beautiful but some, mostly of other artists, were kind of plain or boring.
After this, I was quite tired and my back was sore from the groceries, so me and Marin decide to trek back up the hill to our hostel. On the way we walked through this forest in the centre of town. Marin commented how fake the forest looked, considering the trees didn't look native and like Iceland, there are very few trees there. But it was quite beautiful and nice to be among trees again. There was even a little pond with many ducks and swan, though one swan seemed quite threatening so we kept going. We dragged ourselves up the hill and finally made it to our hostel and crashed.
Later in the evening, Mathieu and I made spaghetti together but he had the bright idea to add sardines to the sauce. So it ended up being a very fishy meal. He even admitted it had been a bad idea. After our meal we all had a cup or two of coffee (really bad idea, tossed and turned most of the night) and planned out Sunday (which I will talk about in the next post, considering most of our plans didn't turn out how we thought).
posted by Kelly @ 9:37 AM
1 Comments:
At 4:16 PM,
Anonymous said…
Fish spaghetti! Madness!
Sounds like you had a good time at the Faroe islands so far!
On to the next chapter!
L, J
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