Week 24 - The Faroe Islands

After a whirlwind day in Edinburgh after our red eye flight, Anne and I decided to take it easy on Monday and not go back into the city. Our trip was starting that afternoon so that was a good decision.

After eating a quick breakfast in our room, we headed to the shopping center across the tracks, which had a Tesco and an Aldi. It's always fun to check out grocery stores in other countries but Aldi was particularly fun. Their aisle of shame was huge compared to US Aldis (2.5 aisles of stuff!) and we managed to find a few treats to take to the Faroes. We had to be out of the hotel room at noon so we just went to the airport early, hanging out at Starbuck's and knitting until we met up with our group. After a quick flight, we checked into the hotel, where we found we were in single rooms. Mine was tiny with a twin bed but Anne's was a double. While I wasn't happy to be rooming alone, I got used to it and didn't need to use ear plugs. We had a welcome dinner but we were at several tables and there were no introductions so it was up to us to fine our peeps, which we did. Sue and Celine became our besties for the trip.

Monday started with a walking tour of the town, which was like nothing I'd ever seen before. There were lots of houses with grass growing on their rooves and the government buildings were tiny - one ministry was a single room. When Anne and I went exploring for lunch options, we went into what I thought was a yarn shop but it was actually a charity shop. We scored a bunch of fun yarn for next to nothing. Thrift score even in another country - nice. We had our first workshop in the afternoon, knitting Faroese slippers with Faorese yarn. It was fun but the slippers weren't anything I'd be finishing. We had dinner at a fun nordic sandwich shop with big open faced sandwiches piled high with veggies.

The next day was knitting workshops all day - slippers in the morning and pattern design in the afternoon. Having given up on my slippers, I knitted socks in the morning and thought the afternoon would be boring. I believe I said "3 hours of pattern design? Shoot me now!" But it was super fun and I absolutely loved it. After we had ramen for supper, I immediately started knitting the design in a pair of scrappy socks I'd started. Fabulous!

We had an optional birding boat tour booked for the next afternoon but had some fun shopping for yarn that morning. The town of Torshavn (pronouced tor-shown) was small enough that we could walk all over. Then it was onto the birding trip, which was amazing. They took the boat into channels through the 1000 foot cliffs (yes, that tall) that looked barely wide enough to get into. It was my favorite part of the trip. The touristy stuff that is.

The next day was an all day tour that went hither and yon - a museum, a wool factory, churches, etc. One of the funkiest things was going through the under water tunnels between the islands. There was even a roundabout where 2 tunnels intersected. And during one of the stops, while everyone else went down to the shore, I happily took off my shoes and waded in a stream. Bliss! By the end of the tour, it was raining so the tea and cake stop was welcome before the long drive back to town. The tour guide was froggy, saying she was getting over a cold. We had the bus driver drop us off at the mall that had another yarn shop and then we walked back to the hotel, with more yarn, of course.

The next day was another optional tour - a trip to the closest island to the capital, Nolsoy. Katrina, our designer, had lived there for 14 years so she was our guide. It was a 20 minute ferry ride south of Torshavn so people actually commute from there. It was a tiny little town and we got to walk around before having lunch at a woman's house. She made us traditional Faroese food and it was all delicious. I had taken pictures of her veggie beds when we walked around in the morning so spent some time talking gardening with her. Not much grows there (it was 52 degrees for the high the whole time were were there and that was high summer weather) so she had lots of cold frames and row covers. It was a lovely day and some of our group even stayed there when we left, opting for a later ferry so they could hike a bit.

Sunday was our last full day and it was all knitting with Katrina. We were making a little Faroese shawl, which has a distinctive shape so it sits on your shoulder. We were on the top floor of the hotel so got to watch the start of the Faroe Islands marathon, which had people in from all over the world. We met a woman from NYC at breakfast at the hotel. There was lots of coughing and nose blowing as we knitted the day away. After a farewell dinner in the hotel, we went back to our rooms to pack. 

It was hard to believe the trip was already over. It had been a whirlwind but I loved every minute of it. The landscape was other worldly and the cool weather was perfect. We met wonderful people who I hope to keep in touch with and we'd had some knitting fun in the workshops. I wasn't looking forward to the long trip home but it's always worth it to see somewhere new and different.