Hello everybody!
First off Merry Christmas and a Happy New year! I hope you all here in the Faroes, and back home had enjoyed the holidays!
It has now been 5 months since I left the states, and it seems to me that the more I hate how fast everything is flying by the faster it seems to go. So I have now stopped worrying so much about how much time/days I have left in my new favorite country and just enjoy what I have/ am going to experience. recently I have just celebrated the holidays here in the Faroes, I loved every second of it just as much as I enjoy the Holidays back in Oregon.
Christmas back home would consists of the usual Christmas decorating and watching ABC family 25 days of Christmas Specials that the TV channel podcast every year. And once Christmas eve came around, we would all gather at my Grandmothers and enjoy a very delicious meal of more food then one person should actually eat, and then continue on eating even more when dessert came around! Then towards the end of the night we would all get to open one or more gifts from each other then all go home and get a good nights sleep and wait for Santa to bring the rest of the presents for Christmas day. Although I'm pretty sure that neither the children or parents get much sleep that night, for the young kids are all too excited to sleep or either trying to wait out Santa to catch a glimpse at him, while the Parents are trying to wait out their kids till they finally realize that they actually do have to go to sleep in order for "Santa Claus" to come, and the parents would then set up the Christmas presents under the tree. And then the magical Christmas morning when you get the surprise of seeing gifts under the tree, and crumbs left on the plate of Santa's cookies.
Well in the Faroes Christmas is celebrated for three days. The 24, 25, and the 26th. On the 24th I spent the day helping prepare for Christmas dinner and cleaning the house and also watching the sound of the music with my host sister till came time for dinner, at the house was my host mom, sister, and Grandparents from both sides of the family ( my Host dad was unfortunately not able to spend the holidays at home because he was away for work). For dinner we had salads, tons of potatoes and Duck ( which I had never had before) everything for Christmas dinner tasted great. Then after dinner and after doing dishes we got to open ALL of the presents that night, which is something that I not use to, but I was totally down with opening all my presents that night rather then having to wait till morning. I had gotten lovely gifts from my host family and and ten tons of american candy and snacks from home ( at my request for them of course). Then My host sister and I played some board games with the grandparents and then after a little while of that we finally had dessert which is called rís a la Mande which is kinda like rice pudding with cranberry sauce in it, But there was a little catch hidden in dessert. There was one peanut in one of the bowls and the person who gets the nut wins a an extra gift! And then the night came to an end around midnight when everyone went home and got some sleep. On the 25 we all slept in and had a lazy day and just relaxing. On the 26th we went to another village on the island for a family dinner, and then left to get ready for later that night. The 26th is known as the party night where all the young people go out all night enjoy the last day of the Christmas celebration!
Although Christmas was very enjoyable, I loved spending New years here! here in Torshavn everyone lights fireworks at midnight and the whole town is covered in the lights of different colors of fireworks, and everyone is cheering and kissing each other on the cheek, and saying cheers to the new year! It seems a bit insane that I had started 2014 in Oregon and now I'm spending the very beginning of 2015 in a whole new country. Around this time last year, I had just found that I had been accepted to Rotary and began deciding what country I would go to. My top three choices were Denmark, Switzerland, and Belgium, I had absolutely no idea that the Faroes had even existed or that it was even even an option to end up in. But I'm sure glad that I had ended up here, I couldn't imagine a better exchange year in any other country, I feel so lucky to have met all the people that I have here and have the friends that I have. Looking back to when I had deiced to go out and see another country for a year, I didn't have any expectations of what it would be like or where I would end up, I just knew that I wanted to go, and now, half way through my exchange I know that I never want to leave.
I wish you all a late Merry Christmas and a Happy new year, I hope you all had enjoyed yourself as much as I did.
And below are some pictures of Christmas, and some from winter break.
-Allie
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Hello everyone! In about mid October I traveled to the most northern village here on the islands called Viðareiði, to visit my friend Marike ( another exchange student who is from Germany). Viðareiði has the population of about 400 and has more sheep then residence. Its very small but very beautiful I really enjoyed my time there. I also got the chance to watch the sheep killing for the winter food. That wasn't too pretty, but still interesting see. Halloween wasn't as busy at it usually is. Halloween is not celebrated in the islands, but there are some people that carve pumpkins and do some Halloween/fall festive decorations. On Halloween day I had helped my class carve pumpkins and I had made them all chocolate chip cookies that they all enjoyed very much. That's all for now!
-Allie Hallo!!! Hope you are all well, I realized that it's been some time since I last posted on here! It has now been about 50 days since the day I left sweet green Oregon for the even more sweeter and greener Faroe Islands. Life here is becoming even more normal as the days go on, things are less strange, and I am now use to the weird school schedule that I have and the weekends are left with just having fun with friends. I haven't done anything extremely new, I have now figured out how the buses work (which is always a good thing). I'm still getting use to how the town is built and finding my way around on the streets ( thank god it's not that big of a city, or I'd be lost a lot) but for the most part it only takes about 15-20mins at the most to walk anywhere in the city. I visited Klasvik with some friends of mine for a day, it is the second biggest town on the Islands and it takes about 45 minuets by car, but way longer if you take the bus. which is what we all did, we left right after school on a Friday and just spent the rest of the day there swimming, shopping, and eating. It was incredibly stormy while we were there, it was crazy windy, rainy, and at one point we were walking through hail, but besides the fact that the weather was terrible it was still a very fun day spent with lovely friends. I've hit that time period in your exchange year when homesickness is most likely to hit you, but luckily for me that has not been the case. I'm having way too much fun here to even think about missing home. But of course there are some certain things that I miss, like getting Dutch bros in the morning before school, and some of my favorite junk foods that I love to snack on, but that's pretty much it. And of course I miss my family and friends but to the extent of getting homesick. Fall has definitely hit the Faroe Islands and I'm excited for winter to come, hopefully I'll get the chance of seeing some northern lights while I'm here. Sorry for the short update, but its been awhile and I thought that I should at least write a little something! and some pictures below just from hanging out with friends and giving you all some more glimpse at the islands beauty, sorry for the poor quality. By for now, Allie. 3 weeks have gone by now, and I can't believe it! these past 3 weeks have gone by way to fast for me, and I know the whole year will go by in a flash, so for every day that I am here I treasure it and soak it all up as much as possible. Since school has started I haven't done anything much, I am now over the culture shock of the Islands and have now grown accustom to it. Which feels weird, I now feel apart of two different cultures ( the American Culture and the Faroese culture) although I still have much to experience with the Faroese culture. Ever since I have told my friends and host family that I don't eat fish, they love to make me try it! which isn't exactly a bad thing sometimes I like the fish that they make me try sometimes it's not my favorite. The newest seafood that I have had is wale! some of my friends here made me try what I would think to be like dried wale ( I'm actually not sure what it was they just told me that it was wale) and I don't exactly know how to describe the taste, but it was surely something that I have never tasted before, they also made Faroese cookies for me to try, and they are absolutely delicious and highly addictive. Then just a couple of days ago my host family cooked wale and served it with potatoes and the whole plate covered in gravy, lets just say I really enjoyed the potatoes! School is going well, I really enjoy my class mates, they are very helpful with always letting me know on whats going on class since my Faroese is very much lacking, But improving none of the less. They are a great group of people to be around and always kind. class photoThis last weekend I went to Gjogv a little village about an hour away for a AFS intro camp, even though I'm not an AFS student here on the faroese they invited the rotary students to join them because we didn't have an intro camp. It was a lot of fun to go and I met some exchange students from Germany, Belgium and, Latvia. we all became great friends over the weekend. Gjogv is also a very cute and beautiful village. on my way to Gjogv.as an update for this week, I have discovered that they have thrift stores here! which makes shopping here way easier since everything in the mall is outrageously expensive! so a quick shout out to Selma and Elsabet for showing me the thrift shops:) Today and yesterday I came down with a really bad sore throat and head ache, but nothing that some warm teas and soups can't fix. and as requested by some a while ago here are some photos of the house and some other random pictures taken around the city and friends and of the islands. That's all for now!
School has started now, and it feels way to early, I'm use to starting school in early/mid September, so starting in August was a first for me. On Monday I took the bus with some of the other neighborhood girls and we all went to school together, we arrived at the school a little before 10 am, school was late for us that day because it was an introduction day for all the first years, but on a normal basis school starts at 8:00 am. One thing that's a huge difference between my new school here, and my high school back home is the fashion. Here on the Islands its black on black on black, there isn't much individuality in the clothing (not saying that there isn't any at all) but to me it all looks the same. Vs being in the states its all about standing out in what you wear and you basically wear the clothes of how you want to be portrayed as a person, or just wear what ever you feel like, not just because everyone else is wearing it.
I'm not even going to try and explain my school schedule because I'm still trying to figure it out my self. But basically you have the same classmates in all the classes you go to, it's just high school or middle school but instead of having different people in your class you have the same people, and the schedule changes like every week or something like that. Another thing that I have come to learn about this school, is its traditions. One tradition that I have become extremely aware of is that for the first two weeks the upperclassmen splash water on the first years!! They walk around with water bottles and dump water on you, they also drop water balloons from the second story windows as your walking to building to building, of course its all fun and games but I have a feeling this whole "water" thing will get old real fast. They also made us 'Chain Dance' it was interesting and cool to experience a dance that has stuck around for so long, even though everyone told me it was lame to do, I could tell that they all secretly like it and have pride in the dance, it would be hard not to. School is pretty fun and relaxing for now, I Think this whole first week is just filled with fun activities to do with your class to get to know one another. on another note, I'v been invited to speak on the Torshavn radio and talk about what its like to be an exchange student here! so that's exciting, I guess! but for the most part my life here is growing more and more everyday, and soon I will be taking Faroese lessons so I can actually understand a little more when ever people speak it! Well that's all for now -Allie Hey everyone!
So six days in and I'm starting to get over the jet-lag, and everything has been great, I went to my first Rotary meeting to be introduced to the club and I met the other girl from the states that will be an exchange student here in the Faroes just like me. The meeting went a lot differently then the meetings that are held back home, but it was cool, the meeting started out with singing a traditional Faroese song ( at least that's what I thought it was) It sounded very Nordic, and then lunch was served. I knew that it was something fish related, by the smell. and for anyone who knows me, knows that I don't eat fish, so when they set the dish in front of me, I was right, it was fish. It ended up being shark actually, which I found kind of ironic because its shark week and its my favorite animal. But I ate it anyway and it didn't taste too bad!! and then there were some presentations that I didn't understand because they were all in Faroese, but sooner or later I will have to give a presentation to them as well. ( but not in Faroese I don't think). My Host Dad and sister took me to some very old churches! the first one was built around 1300, it was going to be the largest cathedral of its time but the people didn't want to pay the taxes for it so it was uncomplicated. Other church is a church that they still use today and it was built somewhere in 1200 . Right next to both churches was the oldest wooden house on the islands, the house is still owned by the same family as it originated from and they still live in it, they are on there 17th generation of family members and the house is 900 years old. On Thursday I was invited out by four girls that live around the neighborhood and they showed me pretty much the whole town! They are all going to the same school as me and they are in the same grade! They made a cake and bought some snacks for a picnic in a park that had a waterfall, we ate there and then went to an old prison that had a grass roof and everything, it was a historical artifact and it was surrounded by old canons that were used to protect the island from any pirates or intruders, we climb to the top of the roof, talked, and ate the rest of the cake, we walked around town all day and then we went back to my house and they taught me how to play partners ( a little different version of the game 'sorry') and we all hang out for awhile and then everyone went home around 1:00 am. and Now today I'm just relaxing at the house, Tomorrow I am going on a hike! and then on Monday I start school! more pictures on the 'picture' page. -Allie So far I'am in love with the islands already, everyone one knows everyone here and I love it, you don't really get that with bigger cities and its a nice change, as far as weather goes I would compare it the Oregon coast but colder, the air smells like the ocean and everything is laid back and relaxing. I'll be posting pictures of the islands from when I got there, it was really cool the night I arrived i caught the sun set and then saw the full moon above the fog covered mountains. much love, Allie.
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