Back again!

So, the adventure is over. We are back in Copenhagen. Time for a very short status.

The kids were the reason for doing the trip. So that they could experience what it is like to live in another country, specifically the one that their father comes from and keeps talking about. Not seeing it as visitors but actually being part of, going to school, making friends, etc.. In this respect, the adventure has been a moderate success.

My daughter has been very happy with her class and the teachers and is a bit concerned about going back to the relative chaos of her school in Denmark. She has got a few good friends in the Faroes, but they didn't see each other that much after school.

My son entered a very problematic class in the Faroes. As one of his teachers put it: "It's a train with a lot of heavy wagons but no locomotive". Most of the boys shared none of his interests. They would rather fight, smoke cigarettes and stay away from school. He had to motivate the girls to play soccer with him in the breaks. The rumour has it that he was rather popular with the girls. He made friends with a few of the boys, though. Their preferred activities were a bit too adult to our taste: they would stay out until 1 a.m. in the weekends, just wandering around where the action was in Torshavn's night-life. One, maybe saner, interest that he started cultivating, was playing diabolo. He actually became quite proficient in it.

They both conclude that the stay has been rather boring. They were very happy that half an hour after they arrived home, they were surrounded with loads of friends. Immediately they were immersed in play. It was as if my son was suddenly a two or three years younger.

My wife had a rather nice time. Rather relaxed, working remotely from home, realising that it really makes a difference not having to spend an additional hour a day on transport and that it is quite pleasant to be able to concentrate on your work without all the quarrel, meetings, etc. that accompanies work in the present day.

I, myself had a really nice work during the stay. I will blog more on that later. What was rather stressful (actually very much indeed) was the situation with my parents. A lot of energy went into worries, hospital meetings, phone calls and consoling talks. My father finally got the diagnosis Alzheimer's Disease, so that is quite terminal: he has a limited number of years left and is only going to get worse. Currently he has difficulty with names and persons, mixing up his children with his siblings and my mother with his long deceased mother. It's tough to witness, although probably worse for us, his family, than for him: he is generally in a fine mood.

As a family, we have had a time where we have been unusually close, due to the kids staying more at home than they normally do. We have had a lot of talks, seen a lot of DVD's and played cards. We even started in a bridge club. Let's see if we'll continue with that in Denmark.

The intention of this blog was for it to be just a travel blog, as the name implies. So now would be the time to let it wither. However, I have the feeling that I will tie up a few knots before putting it to sleep. About my job, for instance. I'm starting on a new job here in Denmark on Monday, so I might feel like saying a word about that too. At the moment I am a bit divided on the subject of my own blogging future. Should I have more than one blog, one for each subject? Do I need to keep it as anonymous as I've kept it here? For the near future: stay tuned!

Starling conversation

I've always wondered whether birds' singing is a musical or artistic activity or is it actually a form of communication?

Most birds have a number of sounds that are used for warning or advertising some kind of emotional state: aggression, affection, etc. Many birds use sound - often singing - to mark their territory. The singing can be monotonous or - as is the case with for instance the blackbird - varied and pleasing for the human ear. Is there informational content in the singing or is it purely aesthetics, maybe as a selling point in the competition for sexual partners?

The blackbird's singing seems to have an aesthetics and territorial function. Its role in mating I know nothing about. With starlings it seems to be quite different. First of all, starlings are social beings, so territoriality is not of interest. The 'singing' is very varied, but contains so many noisy elements that humans rarely perceive of it as being pleasing, many not seeing it as singing at all.

If you listen to it carefully, though, it seems that a lot is going on. Actually it sounds like a communication is going on.

A week ago, that is, one morning between Christmas and new year, I was awake but still in bed in our rented house in the center of Torshavn. There was a little gathering of starlings outside the bedroom window. They were chatting along, some flying to and from the little 'meeting'. Starlings are great imitators and suddenly I heard the sound of first an oystercatcher and soon after a whimbrel. These two birds are common in the Faroes during summer but don't stay for the winter. I couldn't help but interpret the exchange as a conversation along these lines:

"Hey, haven't you noticed that the day has grown a little bit longer?"
"Yeah, soon it'll be spring and the other birds will be arriving."
"The oystercatchers."
"And later the whimbrels."
"I'm looking forward to it!"
"Me too!"
"Me too!"
...

The long rain

Ray Bradbury has a short story called The Long Rain about a group of astronauts walking in the constant rain on Venus. The rain literally drives them crazy, one at a time.

Lately I've the same feeling. It has rained every single day for over a month. Some days constantly, other days with dry moments in between the showers. People say that it has been the rainiest autumn ever in the Faroe Islands.

As if to rub alt into the wound, the nights have often been clear and moonlit. We've even had some northern light. I'm in for at trade with just a little sunshine once in a while. Or at least a couple of days without rain.

Starling cemetery

I had been told about it, but didn't really believe it. Supposedly, all the starlings of Torshavn gathered in the old cemetery every night and then flew to Nolsoy to picnic.

The last couple of months, I've passed the old cemetery on my way to and from work. In the morning there are hardly any birds there at all, although there are plenty of trees, which usually attracts the little flyers. In the evening, the place is packed with them. One evening last week when I passed the cemetery, the trees were almost covered with starlings, all facing the same direction and singing loudly. Just as I passed under one of the higher trees, there was a sudden silence. Just half a second. And then they were aloft. All of them. Tens of thousands, probably. The time was 18:20.

First, they flew in direction of Torshavns central square, Vagli. Or maybe it was Hotel Hafnia or Amtmanshavin, it was hard to judge from a distance. Then they turned right, and headed straight to Nolsoy, the picturesque island facing Torshavn.

They do it every evening this time of the year. I don't know, however, whether they return later in the night or they spend the night in Nolsoy. As the days shorten, the time of the gathering - and the following departure - is getting earlier: a couple of weeks ago, the birds were still in the trees at 18:30, now the cemetery is deserted at 18:10.

I have to find out when the first birds come to the cemetery in the evening. It seems that it takes some time before they decide to take off. The days when I pass the cemetery early, they seem to be playing around, flying to and from neighbouring house roofs, for instance, while flocks of ten to a hundred starlings keep arriving from all directions. Right before take-off, they are all sitting in the top branches of the trees. All are singing but nobody moves. Beaks facing Nolsoy. Then the sudden silence and take-off. I didn't hear any cry, but someone must have given the signal: GO!

I've seen larger flocks of starlings in Denmark, where they call these gatherings 'sort sol' (black sun), because the birds are able to cover the sky in their sheer quantity. However, there, the phenomenon can be explained with the starlings gathering before flying south for the winter. The Faroese starlings don't fly south, so why do they do this? For the company, getting that kick that humans pursue in soccer stadiums? Mating is out of the question: we are in October. I guess it is their biological watch that tells them that it's about to be flying time, although they haven't been abroad for generations. The rest of the year, they allegedly don't gather like this.

I would like to post a photograph here, but it's hard to capture the situation, so here is one of Ole Wich's impressive starling pictures:

Grind - epilogue

Not everybody made it to the 'notes' session and the following cutting up of the whales. A guy I used to know lived on Nólsoy, the island right opposite Tórshavn. He had participated in the killing and had returned home to get some rest before going back to Tórshavn. However, he never showed up. Later, he was found floating in the ocean. As far as I know, they never found his boat.

I attended to the first part of his funeral: from the hospital's chapel to the ferry that would take the coffin to his home village. The chapel was filled to the brim with people wanting to say goodbye. Quite a few of us had to stand outside. There were loudspeakers making sure that noone missed the priest's words. And what words! He had found some passage in Isaiah, that more than insinuated that this was one of the worst sinners that we were gathered around. The only times he mentioned the deceased's name was when he needed some random figure to support his preaching. Not one word on the life of the guy who was the reason for all of us showing up and had provided the priest with an audience. The family was crying as if the priest had been whipping them, and he provided them with no word of consolation. How cruel can you be? And totally off target: this was actually a nice guy that had left the world. I have never understood wsulphurhor is the preferred element for those trying to sell the gospel to others. I won't have any priest abusing my party the day I leave this world! Family: remember!

Grind!

Got an email around lunch time yesterday: there is a grind ('i' as in 'tin', meaning a flock of pilot whales) right outside Torshavn, where I am staying. The mail was sent to everyone at the job, so we discussed whether it could be a hoax. After all it was so foggy outside, that you could just as well have said that a flying saucer had landed in the parking lot. I decided to take a chance on this one: after all it has been maybe 15 years since I saw a whale-killing.

There were a few people on the beach. The mood was one of relaxation and attention. Men in rubber boots, long knives, specially crafted hooks and rope. Children playing on the beach, a lot of whom had left school half-way through the day, knowing that they would be forgiven: after all, a whale-killing is considered an important event. Every now and then a boat was leaving the harbour, occasionally one returned as well. Everyone casting glances in the direction of the horizon. Or rather where they thought the horizon ought to be. It was very foggy!


After an hour I decided to take a break from my perfect watch-post and tried to locate some known face in the crowd. Found an old school-mate that was leaving the area. He's a great pianist and I asked him give me a lesson: I've thought for a while that I needed some input to advance my forays into Bach's keyboard music. He told me that the grind was kind of stuck a bit north of Torshavn. It had a tendency to dive, so the boats had difficulty driving it anywhere. I decided to go and have a look. The fog was lifting, so I might get a good view.

When I came to Hoyvik, I saw it. Or rather, I saw the 50-100 boats surrounding the grind. A lot of cars were parked like mine along the normally desolate country road. All on the same business as myself. Some with binoculars. Everyone cursing the fog. After a short while, it seemed like the boats were moving southwards. Instantly, the roadside was deserted again.

I drove home - a bit too fast, I must admit - to see if my family was there and would like to be part of the event. Two minutes later, we had put some warm clothes and headed towards Sandageri, the beach south of Torshavn where they normally try to drive the grinds in. My wife, my son and I.


Now the place was crowded! And the boats were coming in, filling up most of the horizon. We just made it! The crowd, now counting hundreds of people, was withdrawing from the beach and forming a line of quiet menace some 50 metres up the hill.


Now the goal is not to disturb the whales. From the landside. From the seaside, the men in the boats are making as much noise as they can, shouting and revving the boat engines in order to drive the flock of whales forward. They don't show of much, the whales: a few black bodies jumping up from time to time right in front of the boats. I've been told that for each whale that you can see in the surface, there are nine below. Do the counting yourself in the next photo!


When everything is successful, the grind advances with great speed onto the beach, making the killing swift and easy. Often, however, the land crowd is to eager and starts to run to the beach too early. This is what happened now, and the whales were scared and tried to turn around.




Of course, it was too late to escape, but on the other hand it meant more work with dragging them ashore. This is what the hooks and ropes are for.


When the whales are under control on the beach, they have their throat cut. It takes less than half a minute. After about 5 minutes, the bulk of whales were dead, leaving a few stray individuals that needed to be taken care of specifically. The official sources said that the killing took 10 minutes. I would add a couple of minutes to that, but no more.


During these minutes, the sea changes colour to red: there is a lot of blood in a whale! Nice background for photographs. I go hunting for a motive to frame in with some nice red background. The kids are gathering courage and climb on top of the dead whales. Some boats have started pulling out the dead whales. They are brought to a place where it is easier to cut them up. Participants are queuing for registration, so that they eventually can get their share of the meat and fat from the whales.


At home my daughter is frustrated over missing out the event. I promise to take her to see the dead whales. When we arrive, they are pulling the whales out of the water and organizing them on a pier. Officials are measuring and numbering the whales. Each whale gets an Arabic identification number cut into the cheek and a roman number on the wing, stating an estimate of the amount of the meat and fat in 'sjinn', where one sjinn is 50 kg meat + 25 kg fat. We see whales ranging from 1 to 22 - or rather I to XXII - sjinn.

When all the whales are numbered and measured, the officials retreat to do the complicated calculations and distribution of the participants' shares. This results in the 'notes', one for each participant, divided into those on the beach, those in the boats, the boats themselves get a portion as well. A special share is the finder's whale: the person who first saw - and announced - the grind, gets a whale for himself. Non-participants can sign up for a portion as well, but I don't think they get anything unless the grind is big enough, as in this case: there were killed 178 whales, comprising a total of 1591 sjinn, divided into 2124 parts. That gives roughly 50 kg meat and fat to each. Actually quite a bit of food.

The notes were handed out at 2 A.M.. The mayor - dressed in a sweater like the crowd, not his normal black suit, this was noted - read the names of participants aloud and handed out the notes. The only jokes that outshone those about Santa Claus where the ones starring God in a Faroese sweater.


Immediately after receiving the notes, the men went out on the pier to locate their whale. For a 10 sjinn whale, there would be 17 parts. The cutting up and sharing of that whale would be up to that group. Some were more civilized than others in that process - alcohol was in some cases a influencing factor.

I went by the pier in the morning on my way to work. Everything was cut up. Only a couple of persons were still cutting some for themselves. Trucks were carrying away the remains: heads, skeletons, intestines and tails. The show was coming to an end.



So, what to think about all this? Pity for the whales? Sure, as you would pity any other animal that you kill for eating. Contempt or rejection? Only a vegetarian can defend such an attitude. The idea that you must not kill wild animals? If you are a carnivore but still care about the well-being of animals, you cannot meaningfully take the logical consequence and state that "you may only kill and eat animals that have been imprisoned all their lives". The 178 pilot whales that were killed yesterday all had had a life in freedom and had suffered from no man-inflicted pain until the last minutes of their lives. I'd rather be sorry the next time I eat pork chops than tonight when my sister served me the first meal from yesterdays grind.

I think the reason that many people react against Faroese whale-killing is largely emotional. First of all, there is a lot of blood, and that makes us uneasy, including me. The fact that it takes place in the open - there are hundreds of cameras like mine in play each time there is a whale-killing. Then there is the legitimate concern arising from the fact that some kinds of whale have been threatened with extinction - the only thing is that few whale species are endangered today and the pilot whale never was. And finally the humanizing of whales in films such as Free Willy and the popularity of dolphin shows. Many people think that whales - and in particular dolphins - are intelligent beings, maybe even more intelligent than people. New research shows that species like mice and many birds are able to respond more intelligently and creatively to stimuli in their environment.

Time flies

Time for some update. It has been almost a month since we arrived. So much to tell, so little time.

The house is nice. And big. The living room has more furniture in it than the one at home. Nevertheless it is so huge, that we could easily fit in a table-tennis table, a pool table, a table-football table and still have a dancefloor for 20 people in the corner! Actually it feels a bit empty, to tell the truth. We could use some more stuff. To make it less empty hangar-like. We've had to borrow a lot of things, especially for the kitchen: cutlery, pots and pans, etc., etc..


My father has been living with us most of the time. It's confusing for him. He keeps wandering from one house to the other: ours, my sister's and his own, which is empty most of the time. He doesn't like to be alone at home. My mother is still at the hospital, although lately her situation has improved a lot. She's started to come home in the weekends. A step in the right direction, although the weekends become rather stressful for the two old people - they tend to raise each other's level of stress.

I started working the day after arriving. I've spent most of the time on getting acquainted with the technology that I will be working with: M$ Visual Studio .NET for developing in C#. Enemy territory indeed for someone in love with Java and religiously anti-monopoly like me! I haven't changed my mind a bit, but I must say that the package is appealing. They really have created a framework and a toolset that is appealing for developing web-based solutions. Damn! And it is hard not to be grateful for the documentation and tons of splendid tutorial videos. I have started on some proper work lately, though, and realized - again - that the cool wizard-like tools have a dark side as well: it's hard to get at the code behind the visual representation. Inevitably, on real-life projects you need to do something beyond the one-size-fits-all problems that the wizard can solve in five seconds.





A picture can lie better than a thousand words.


The weather? Look at these photos. What do you think? And by the way: I'm sitting on the balcony and writing these words, enjoying the sun and wishing for a display with more contrast. It's really true! You thought that it was all rain and fog, that we had to stay indoors every day and eventually catch a cold? Well, look at the pictures!

Airports are boring - (Saturday aug. 5)

Did you know that? They really are. It dawns on you when you have spent six hours waiting.

Normally I see airports as busy places and my physical state is one of tension and high blood pressure when I'm there. Today is different. Today is just about killing time. There is nothing you can do but wait, occasionally checking the departure table, going to the restroom or getting something to eat.

Sitting in the cafeteria, I realize that I am part of a funny little ecosystem, with different groups of people fulfilling different roles, depending on others in funny ways. One role is obviously the one that I am playing: killing time, eating and drinking. I am dependent on the cafeteria staff, that they feed me and clean up after me. They are dependent on me - otherwise they would make no money. They are depending on each other: the chef, the guy at the counter and the waitress collaborate in intricate ways. But the others playing the same role as me, they don't need each other. From my point of view, they are just in the way, as they compete for the same resources as myself: the clerk's attention, a clean table, a more comfortable chair, some silence. My role can be subdivided into those who are rushing to catch a plane and us that are just waiting for something to happen. Super- and sub-tension. We lazy bastards are like wasps in late summer: expendable and annoying, only pursuing pleasure and comfort for ourselves.

Actually it's only the staff that experience some kind of normality in the airport. For the rest of us, it's an extraordinary experience, no matter that we may have passed through the same airport hundreds of times before. It's just a time-consuming and annoying step on our journey from one place to another. And this perception shows in the way that we behave in the airport. As we would rather not be here, we start behaving like everything is a bit unreal. Like this is not a part of life. How come I see no people kissing or hear no jokes? Do we need a sense of normality for such endeavor? I was in the queue in the cafeteria. An Italian group had just ordered their two slices of Pizza Margherita each, when the chef whispers at me "Those Italians always expect you to understand what they say in their own tongue". I hadn't heard the conversation - after all I was busy pretending not being there - but it struck me that this was really extraordinary. Someone behaving in a friendly and truly human way. Like you would talk to your colleague at work. Or your neighbour at home.


00:06. A couple of hours ago, the rumour started to spread: the fog was going to lift. Two planes have left for the Faroes. Ours is estimated to leave at 01:00. The kids are exhausted. We have been trying out several alternatives regarding comfort: either the chairs are uncomfortable or there is a draft or too much noise or too much light. Morpheus just took control of my daughter, nevertheless. She is sitting in a truly creative posture with her mouth open.



00:45. We are informed that the plane doesn't leave in quarter of an hour anyway, but we are going to spend the rest of the night in a hotel nearby. The staff starts sending passengers off in taxis. After five minutes, the airline company stops them. "An airplane has landed on the Faroes and will return for you." Confusion and irritation with the passengers as well as the airport staff. We have waited for 12 hours now. Are they going to make us stay awake for another 3-4 hours? There are a few children - it has already been a long, rough day and it is 3-5 hours past their normal bedtime. What about those who have left the airport already? Five minutes later the orders change again: we are going to the hotel. No information on if or when the plane will leave tomorrow: "You will be informed".

06:00. The wake-up call. That means we got a little over four hours sleep. Are we in a hurry? Is there breakfast? We choose to expect the worst. Hurry to get some cold water in the face and in the arm-pit. Lesson learned: always keep your toothbrush and a deodorant in your hand baggage. There turns out to be breakfast and busses are leaving around seven.

I don't know. Why do I have the feeling that it is the first time this happens to the airline company. Why do they give the impression of being unable to anticipate anything? Why is the level and quality of information so low? Actually this is something that happens a lot. It's very common that there is fog in the Faroes and the planes can't land. They should be a lot better at handling this situation. Not to scare anyone from traveling to the Faroes. Of the say 100 times that I've traveled to the Faroes, something like this has only happened 3 times. To me. But for a professional airline organisation, this is nothing extraordinary. They should be able to prove themselves as professionals in a more convincing way.

The trip was fine, although the landing was a little rough. Next step: the bus ride to Tórshavn. Normally there has been a bus waiting when you exit from the customs. Now there was a sign stating that the bus would leave in half an hour. The bus arrived and people started entering. It was raining and the bus driver was selling tickets with one hand and half a brain while using the other hand/half brain on some interesting business on the mobile phone. When half of the passengers had entered, wet as rats, he suddenly remembered that he should have been to the neighbouring village Sørvágur before coming to the airport. So the passengers were kicked out, so that he could return half an hour later, having brought noone, neither from the airport to Sørvágur nor vice versa. But properly delayed he was indeed. This country has a lot to learn when it comes to service.

Delayed!

No queue at the check-in counter! Have we ever been that lucky before!? The clerk says we have ten kilos over-weight. We have to go to the airline's office and pay.

"We don't want to deal with overweight today, under these circumstances.", the airline lady tells us. We are grateful. But, hey! What circumstances? It turns out that the flight is mega-delayed. There is fog in the Faroes. No plane has landed nor taken off there today. Four planes are regularly attempting to land. One is currently circling over Vágar Airport. As for our plane: it'll have to first land on the Faroes, then load and return to Copenhagen before it's our turn. At the very best, it means three hours delay. Probably we won't get anywhere today.

So, when there is no queue at the check-in counter: be suspicious!

Limbo

Strange feeling. We had packed everything and left the house. In the taxi on the way to the airport, I was overwhelmed by the the feeling that this departure was different. All right: as usual when I'm travelling, I'm leaving something behind. But this one is different. I lack the sense of a home base. What's home and what's out? Up or down? We are leaving a place that is going to be someone elses home for the months to come. And the destination is someone elses home that is going to be ours for a long time. Emotionally there is this dimension that all of a sudden is devoid of gravity. Wonder if I felt the same way when I left my parents home - and the Faroes - twenty-three years ago.