Where Vikings Row
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: This is our last weekend in Klaksvik. At this point, more than five people in a space feels like a crowd. On Monday we’ll head to Copenhagen, population 1.4 million. I’ll probably have to hide under the bed—so many people!
Where Vikings Row
A few things we’ve observed during our time here:
Before we arrived, our airbnb host messaged to say that she had left the key in the lock. When we got to the apartment, sure enough, the key was outside, sticking out of the unlocked door. The first couple of times we went out, we had trouble working the lock, so we’ve not bothered since then. I do lock it from the inside at night, just so I can sleep, but I’m sure that’s unnecessary.
A few days after we got here, though, a woman walked into our apartment, looking for Daniel somebody-or-other. I was in the kitchen, and I heard a knock, and by the time I’d taken three steps into the living room, she was inside. It was a little startling, but also not. Maybe in this town of unlocked doors and bad weather, you just automatically step inside when you need to talk to someone.
Our little town, population 5000, has four yarn stores. FOUR. People here knit—in their cars, in the cafe, at the beach.
The weather is incredibly changeable, and we’ve had a lot of rain and clouds, but this is high summer, and on the days when the sun comes out, people embrace it. We saw people sunbathing next door one day—I checked the weather app on my phone, and at that moment it was 58 degrees. I’ve seen children playing (unsupervised) in streams, families picnicking on the beach, and a man driving a convertible with the top down.
Another thing about summer in the far north, of course, is long days and short nights—I saw someone waterskiiing at 10pm. We’ve also had a child playing just outside our open window at 10:45 pm. It was broad daylight, so why not?
The buildings are all kind of over-warm, to my mind, because apparently everyone runs the heat year-round. The day we arrived, I turned off all our radiators. Lee says it’s just me—apparently he thinks it’s chilly in our apartment. The woman in the pharmacy basically said the same thing, when I was sweating and stripping off my scarf and jacket; she leaned over the counter and said, as if she was letting me in on a state secret, “You’re in the Faroes. You’re not supposed to be hot.”
One day while I was on the treadmill at the gym (yes, I signed up for a month membership at the local gym, because rain), I watched a bride and groom and many guests arriving at a wedding party across the street. A surprising number (including the groom) were wearing traditional clothing, which for men means a red vest with shiny buttons, knickers, and hand-knit socks. The women’s outfits all seemed to include … aprons. A lot of the guests seemed to be carrying bakery boxes. Also, I would say a majority stopped for a smoke before they entered the event, which you just don’t see very much these days.
The national sport is a type of team rowing, in boats that curve up at the ends and look a bit like Viking boats. They go out in all kinds of weather, and in many villages, the boathouse is the newest, most modern-looking building. In one village, the children’s playground was next to a little stream running down to the sea, and it included a tiny dock with tiny boats, complete with exuberant children wearing tiny wetsuits.
Most of the people we’ve seen working in shops and restaurants are women and girls, with the occasional teen-aged boy (we assume the men are out on the fishing boats). Because it’s summer, there’s a lot of home maintenance going on, and a lot of that is being done by women too. Women wielding power tools: they’re kind of bad-ass.
I love to peruse the supplements and vitamins in pharmacies; every country seems to have a different set of concerns that they treat with over-the-counter products. I always find those products incredibly interesting. Here the big thing seems to be fiber supplements. Unsurprising, really, given the lack of fresh produce.
Everyone uses plastic bags at the grocery store; they pay for each one, but I have seen no evidence of reuse.
Related: I have also seen no evidence of recycling. Lee says he’s seen the garbage being loaded onto a barge; I am intensely curious about where it goes. The air and the water are incredibly clean—what do they do with the garbage?
There are many, many turf-roofed houses. In other words, the roof is covered with grass, which right now, in summer, is quite tall. I have so many questions.
So that’s what I’m going to do on our last weekend in the Faroe Islands—try to get my questions answered! That’s the best part of traveling, to my mind: coming to understand things that I don’t understand.
Take care,
Lisa
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