Dark, darker, darkest

Now that I have been blogging about how much I love living in the Faroe Islands, it’s time for some complaints.

It’s winter. It’s rainy. It’s stormy. And it’s dark.

We only have little daylight, and the sun doesn’t appear, as it’s hiding behind the mountains surrounding my village. The sun rises at 8.53 AM and sets at 3.31PM, and it’s not even the darkest time of the year yet. One month to go, until it will go the “right way” again.

One good thing is that it rarely gets freezing cold here. One should think that the Northern latitude, that makes the winter dark and summers bright, also will have lots of snow and ice to offer. But nope. Fortunately, we’re located in the middle of the warm Gulf Stream, so the ocean keeps us warm.

But the ocean is also a threat at times. Our neighbouring village was smashed by waves, ripping off garage doors, flooding basements ect. And the wind that caused those waves also damaged houses.

I have repaired my basement door three times now. And I’ve tried to tell the sharp winds to leave that door alone! Now I repaired it again, and made improvements, so that even if a nuclear blast blew away our house, that door will still be standing there. Um. I don’t hope someone bomb our islands, but ya know what I mean!

In these dark times, I do have a lot of things I’m looking forward to. Christmas is one of them. A concert in Nurnberg, Germany is another. With a little help from my friends, I got a 5 row seat for the Roger Hodgson concert in Nurnberg March 2009!

Some may wonder: “thaaats a pretty darn long way from the Faroes, to attend a concert!” – it is. But not only Roger Hodgson’s fantastic concerts is dragging me there. Many of my dear friends I’ve got to know thanks to the Internet, is also attending, and my heart is filled with joy, because  I’m going to give them REAL hugs instead of those cyber-hugs! And finally, I’ve heard that it’s such a beautiful place.

I consider going there by train from Denmark (after a nauseating trip by ship from the Faroes) – it’s slow, but also cheaper, and I can take a look at Germany, a country just South of my home country, but haven’t had the opportunity to visit.

Until then, I’ll let winter be winter and look forward to a great experience in March.

Oh – just a few pictures from the recent storm. I still prefer the idyllic summer/autumn pictures though (photos by S. Magnussen)

Winter storm

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Finally home

I wrote in my latest post, that I was wishing a cool breeze so much, that I hardly couldn’t wait to get back home to the Faroes. And I was brought to a colder place by plane alright.. in Iceland!

Good old fog, my friend – you haven’t caused any problems in these islands for two months. Nope, you were patiently waiting for me to land there by plane, and so giving me a free vacation in Iceland. A good thing that Ialmost love flying more than anything else, so I enjoyed being in Iceland for a day. And by night, flying to Iceland in the sunset that was becoming sunrise at the same time was magical. Flying in those red and golden coloured clouds over an impressive sea-and landscape;…over the blue ocean, over green valleys and mountains and glaciers… it was so beautiful, that it gave me wet eyes!

Today we finally made it to the Faroes, and the happiness of being home also gave me wet eyes. Oh dear I am sentimental! But beautiful nature, happiness and a little adventure – is there a better combination in the world? Maybe, but not for me. So no wonder if emotions takes over once in awhile. 🙄

And by the way, one funny thing: on the bus on our way from the airport in Iceland to our hotel, a young girl was listening to music – she was listening to Roger Hodgson’s “Along came Mary”. What can I say other than that this girl has a very good taste in music? 😉 So I fell asleep with that song stuck in my head, and it has been playing in there today too – which reminded me of how time is flying. It’s almost two years ago that Roger performed in the Faroes – also after zig-zagging around the North Atlantic to reach those islands. But as we say in the Faroes: “if weather allows” – and I’m finally getting used to it.

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Yearning for a cool breeze

*Sigh* Vacation in Denmark – that’s nice! I like it there, but the last few days have been hot. Really, really hot! Already at 10 am, it reached 30C/86F, and around 12-1pm, it reached 33C/92F. I’m not used to this kind of heat, and I’ve already changed clothes two times today because of the sweat running down my arms, legs and face. Luckily, the town where my parents live, is located at a very nice beach.. it takes less than 5 minutes to walk from home to the beach, and my boyfriend and I have enjoyed it there – and we took a long swim yesterday. That was nice, but one has to get out of the water sooner or later, back into the sun.

But tonight I’m going back to the Faroe Islands.. and I’m longing for it’s nicer climate. Nicer temperatures at least. Because the weather forecasts says FOG. Wich means I may be “lucky” to visit Iceland and Norway as well on my way home, because fog means they cannot land on the short runway between the mountains. Well, then at least I’ll have another North Atlantic adventure, and I’m not in a hurry anyway. But please.. I hope well get there in time tonight.

Oh, by the way – did I mention that I forgot, that I – in this kind of weather – needs to use a sunlotion SPF30? I used a SPF6.. so I’m being fried inside and outside so to speak. Well, I’m off to the kitchen, to have another litre of water. I can’t wait to get back home to that wonderful place in the North Atlantic, that I call my home.

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I’m home!

If just there was a way to describe how happy I am right now! – It’s impossible, because what does a person feel, when being away from home for a long time, and then going back home? And not only that – the sun is shining, it’s warm, and the mountains are green and beautiful.

I have really missed “my” islands. So I am so happy, that I could kiss every mountain and every hill!

I “took the long way home” (sorry, I can’t help it 😆 ) by ship, and I woke up at 4 am already, and instead of sleeping one more hour, I got up, and went out on the sun deck.. the sun was rising, and the weather was fantastic. And the sunlight turned everything golden! Usually, the ocean is blue – I call it “when does ocean stop and sky begin?-blue”. This morning, it was “when does ocean stop and sky begin-golden!” And in the horizon, the green islands rised up of the ocean, reaching the golden sky. And the closer we got, the happier I was.

My boyfriend picked me up, and after driving around a bit, we went for a long walk, hand in hand. Ah. That’s life! And now, my boyfriend is at work, while I’m sitting here at a library in Thorshavn, wondering if I should take a bus the rest of my way home, or if I should just wait and drive with him back home.

It’s already 11 am (well almost), and I think I’ll just hang out here at the library and drive with my boyfriend back home around 4 pm. Maybe I’ll spend the time taking another long walk – I have to get back in shape for long hikes in the mountains, and I do feel that’s it’s awhile ago – I already have sore muscels 😆

 Oh dear. I could ramble on about my happiness, but I’ll stop for now, and just enjoy that I am home again 😀

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Sunny days and sunburnt skin

First, I have one question that anyone with an IQ higher than 15 should be able to answer:
– What happens, when you stay outside under the burning sun, just wearing shorts and a t-shirt, without sun lotion on the skin, after you have spent several month in “darkness” (dark time of the year and after having the skin covered with clothes)?

Apperantly I’m not smart enough to answer that, since I have to learn it instead of using brain capacity on it. So now my skin is red, and it hurts. It really hurts. I even have small yellow blisters on my right cheek.

So now there’s nothing else for me to do than to stay inside and recover.

The strange thing is, that I’ve never done this before – it happens to many people, who wants this “sexy suntan” – they spend countless hours stretched out in their bikinies at high noon, trying to tan their bodies, because they think they look so much better. The skin cancer boom can’t surprise anyone 😦

In my case, I was actually just sitting outside with a friend for a couple of hours, and first then I came to think of sun lotion. And it’s not good for my skin – because my skin is really light. Almost pale. I use to say, that if I wear black shorts, people will have to wear sunglasses to protect their eyes from being blinded 😆

What do I want to say with this blog anyway? Other than: enjoy the sun, but remember to take care of yourself – you really don’t want to be sunburnt. It hurts, it’s stupid and very unhealthy.

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The perfect flower

What I saw when I stepped out my door today, was fantastic. The smell of flowers, the sound of singing birds – and not a cloud on the sky. And it is warm. So warm that I had to go inside again, and leave my jacket there, so I went outside just wearing a t-shirt for the first time this year. It difficult to get used to, as the last months, since September, we have had to wear woolen sweaters, jackets, scarfs, gloves and raincoats. So no wind, 20C/68F and sunny weather feels incredibly hot.

My uncle is married to a lovely woman from Guatemala, and they moved to Denmark two years ago. I once asked her, if it’s hard to live here with the dark winters and cold weather. “No” she said. Because in Guatemala, they don’t have the spring, and they don’t have the long summer days with their bright nights. The winter in Denmark is a bit rough, but she has her family, her husband, her kids – she doesn’t think much about the winter. “But” she said, the spring is fantastic..

Which led us to talking about God, as she is a strong believer – “look at the first flowers in the spring. So perfect, so pure, and so beautiful. Only a God can create a world like this! And that is only the beginning – then everything is blooming, and birds starts singing.” She is right. I took this picture few weeks ago – and watching those small flowers and a bee, just made me so happy.

And it leads me to another thing about the spring that I love. The beech. You can almost say, that the beech is a tree, that every Dane loves – because its first, light green leaves tells us that finally, the winter is over. The beech is even mentioned in Denmark’s national hymn:
 “There is a lovely land, with beeches green about her, encircled by the sea”

And of course, I was also out taking a picture of those beautiful trees:

And my uncle’s wife is right – it is a miracle every year!

Of course, I’m in Denmark these days, but I will soon be back to the Faroe Islands. The climate there are rougher, wetter more windy – but it has its beauty as well. All the small lambs playing around the mountainsides, the buttercups, and millions of birds. 3.5 millions birds actually – and only 48.000 people. And the spring there means that I can go hiking, fishing, sailing and all that again. I can’t wait to go back there to the middle of the wide ocean.

Even though I have enjoyed the beautiful springtime in Denmark, I thank God, that I soon will be home again. I can’t wait to see views like these again! *sigh* 😀

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And now to something completely different..

My latest post was rather serious, and I’m not too comfortable with sharing my life like that – so back to some youtube-videos! 😆 Even though this video isn’t really funny… well it is because noone was injured… I post it because it somehow shows what my mind has been like recently! As a windmill/turbine in a storm. But hopefully, my mind is stronger than this one, and it’s not going to shatter like that.

This took place on a field in Denmark, and after this happened I realised how small my home country is.. they talked about it for several minutes in the news. And I wondered if this is “breaking news” in Denmark? Geez, I live in a peaceful corner of the world! And a very “green” part of the world – I’m sure this thing powered 10.000 homes in its last seconds 😆

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Wade in the water…

I had fun figuring out how Windows Vista’s “Power Director” works, so I’ve put this video together, with clips from the bad weather we had a week ago… added Eva Cassidy’s version of “Wade in the Water”…

Weather anyone? Ok heeeere we go again 😆

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The perfect storm..

Somehow I’m glad I’m in Denmark these days. There was a storm in the Faroes yesterday, that was the worst for a very long time. The Faroese people say the worst storm they remember, was back in 1988, but that one yesterday was even worse. Houses were destroyed.. which says everything, because Faroese houses are built to stand hurricanes.. waves had lifted boats out of harbours and tossed them around, huge parts of the country had no electricity (including our house for 14 hours).. and to make it even worse, this was a snow storm. My boyfriend said he couldn’t find his car! That is very, very unusual for the Faroe Islands… they know of “snow”, but not that much. Guess this was a test of what the Faroe Islands would look like, if the warm Gulf Stream changed.

But one thing annoyed me.. the wind speeds wasn’t unusual for a Faroese winter storm. The wind speeds were at 60 m/s or 135 mph, and we’ve seen that before, without lifting an eyebrow. But my boyfriend said, “well, this has something to do with what corner of the world the wind comes from…added all the snow of course”. So if this had been a typical west-wind-storm, it wouldn’t had caused so much damage.

The good thing about all this mess… now we can talk about weather for a looong time 😆 King of all topics!

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Almost spring..

I must say that one bad thing about living up north, is the long, cold and dark winters – I’ve never thought much about it, but for some reason, this winter has been tough. Maybe it’s because that I’m used to the winter in Denmark – it’s dark, and I’m used to that – but the Faroese winter is even darker. And there are these winter storms, with wind speeds at 134 mph ( 60 m/s) as we had few weeks ago. And all the rain… yuck.

But today I saw something that made my spirit laugh.. the snowdrops! When they are here, we now that winter is almost over, and the light is returning. It’s the same magic every year. They’re a bit early this year, but we’ve had a mild winter – guess that explains it.

Maybe it sounds silly – but this flower reminds me every year, that brighter and warmer times are coming. Soon I’ll be walking down the streets with an ice cream in one hand, and my boyfriend’s hand in my other hand 😉 Thank you for this little reminder, dear snowdrop.

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