Wait, is the Faroe Islands really a country? Does it have U.N. membership? Do other nations have embassies there? I always thought of it as being part of Denmark.
Beating Malta is no big deal. I’m currently living in Malta and their level of football is not anything they can be proud of. Despite a population of over 350,000 it has played the Faroe Islands three times and lost all three 
Thanks, Nava, that is what I was saying.
Septima I was not attacking you. I was however being honest about my emotional reaction to it. Thanks for clearing up the facts for me.
Here’s some Faroes TV
It’s a country but not a state, like Scotland and Wales. It’s a part of Denmark but one with its own culture, language and laws.
with that, you must accept that there be armchair judges. first, “tiny” is smaller than “smaller”. second, saying Faeroe is smaller than the Isle of Man is like saying Russia is smaller than the United States; it’s more than twice the size of Isle of Man! 
[QUOTE=This_Just_In…]
What would you recommend a tourist do, say given 6-7 days to spend in the Faeroe Islands?
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Rent a car, and start by driving around and looking at the place. The landscape is beautiful, and you can drive almost everywhere these days. Then do some nature-based tours, such as the boat ride through the sea-caves, or a horseback-ride (they do this thing were they give tourist really docile horses, and take them out in the morning to see the sunrise over a pretty bit of mountain)
Go look at the medieval church ruins in Kirkjubø (the buss from Tórshavn is free) and remember to walk around the old part of the capitol (the bit with the cobblestones, and the houses with grassy roofs). If you’re not in the capitol, do whatever your host/hotel recommends.
Get some traditional food, and get someone to bring you to a chain-dance.
[QUOTE=spankthecrumpet]
How do you (i.e. faeroese) feel about the British occupation during the war? Is it discussed much?
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Ranging from “positive” to “necessary”. I mean, look at the alternative, and they were on their way to take us when the Brits beat them to it. Discussed in school, and my eldest uncle remembers it, so we get “war stories” sometimes, none of them horrible, and most of them funny.
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus]
Has the Faeroe Islands ever won a Euro or World Cup qualifying match?
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[QUOTE=Baron Greenback]
They famously beat Austria 1-0 in Euro qualifying. They’ve also won matches against San Marion, Malta and Luxembourg. I won’t mention the time Scotland only scraped a draw after being 2-0 down
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Austrian football fans get very sheepish around us We actually beat them twice.
There are 30 other places (at least depending on your definitions) of even smaller countries, did someone say Svalbard? 
I heard of the Faroe Islands a few years back when they beat Scotland at soccer. More recently in a history of the Atlantic.
You come from a lovely part of the world. Hopefully one day I will get to visit.
Harrumph. We got a draw! :mad:
Do you knit? Do you know many people who do?
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
Doid you guys ever have your own passports / currency / stamps? Do you have your own passports / currency / stamps now? Are you on the Euro?
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Own passports, although we can opt for danish ones if we want. We have danish currency, and use danish coins, but print our own notes. Technically, danish and faroese notes are both legal tender in both countries, but using faroese notes in Denmark is more bother than it’s worth. No Euro. We have our own stamps.
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
What are the Olympic categories that I could expect to see a Faeroe Islander do well on?
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Rowing, but I don’t think we’ve ever sent anyone.
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
In case I would ever want to pretend to be a Faeroe Islander, tell me something that only a Faeroe Islander would usually know about. Like something you would only find in a Faeroe Island store. Or some common feature of Faeroe Island life that is not found anywhere else.
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It would be hard to do without speaking the language. “Grindabo¨” is a common Shibboleth, but that’s no use to you. Let’s see…
- The correct way to eat dried fish is with both whale blubber and butter (and potatoes).
- Have really strong opinions on whether or not blood sausage can be eaten with sirup (either way is good, but you have to really believe the other side are spawn of the devil.)
- Umbrellas are for foreigners.
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
Does coming from the Faeroe Islands feel like this sometimes?
(From the same site, I use this one to keep those Scandinavian countries straight.)
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I love that comic! Yes, that’s pretty acurate, exept the danes pay us, not the other way round.
[QUOTE=ultrafilter]
What are the other languages that are commonly spoken?
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We speak Faroese among ourselves. Most people also speak Danish and English with varying degrees of fluency. Fourth or fifth languages are not uncommon.
Ok, that’s it for now, I have to go back to work. I’ll answer more when I get back tonight. Keep them coming!
How similar are Faroese and Danish?
I have heard of the Faeroe Islands because I did some basic reading about Faeroese knitting. When the little hooligans are slightly larger and don’t require such constant attention, I’d like to attempt a Faeroese shawl. Couldn’t have placed you on a map, though.
I don’t have any specific questions (I’m interested in your response to the earlier question about knitting), but I did want to say thanks for starting this. Very interesting!
ETA: Please excuse any embarrassing spelling problems. I did try, but I’m sure I did horrible things to the name of your country inadvertently.
[QUOTE=LavenderBlue]
Do you speak any languages besides English?
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I’m fluent in Faeroese, Norwegian, Danish and English. I understand Swedish, and can speak it badly. I can converse with Icelanders tolerably well, although alcohol helps. I’m told my German is hilarious.
Iceland is an hour or so away by plane on a good day. Norway is 1.5 hours away, Denmark a bit over 2.
The climate is temperate, which means it never gets very cold, and never very warm. On a good summer, we get a handful of weeks being comfortably cool wearing t-shirts and shorts, but never sweltering. In winter, it freezes and snows, but almost never more than 10-15 below freezing, and usually it hovers at barely below. -10 (Celsius) is “horribly cold”, +20 is “Can you believe how warm it is?”
I’ve never met anyone from Delaware, so that’s unusual enough for me 
[QUOTE=An Gadaí]
Would you recommend the Faroes for a holiday?
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I would, but it depends on the person. It won’t be a high-tempo holiday, and there won’t be all that much to do in terms om holiday “stuff”, i.e. no shopping or nightlife to speak of (we have enough for us, you understand, but nothing to impress foreigners.)
It’s a great place to go hiking. The landscape takes even my breath away on a regular basis, and I was born here. If you’re interested in Scandinavian medieval history or are a Saga nut, you should definitely come here in addition to Iceland. Knitters usually love it here too.
There are houses and cottages for rent on the smaller, empty or sparsely populated islands, which I’ll recommend to anyone who just wants a peaceful few days to rest and maybe explore on foot. The fishing is decent, too.
If you’re either a Marine Biologist, an Ornithologist or a diver, the Faeroe Islands are the closest you’ll get to paradise.
[QUOTE=installLSC]
What kind of media do you have? How many TV channels (both over the air and on cable) and radio stations do you have? Which newspapers and magazines do you get on the island, and how long does it take them to get there? Is the media wholly Danish or can you get other countries’ media?
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We have a local state-run TV-channel, and some fifty-odd newspapers. When I was a child, the country as a whole got that one channel, but capitol people got that one plus BBC, TV3 (a Danish/Norwegian/Swedish cooperation at the time. Regular entertainment/news channel. I got to watch TMNT cartoons in Swedish, for example.) Eurosport, and a fifth one I don’t remember. These days, with satellite TV and all that, we get the same stuff as the rest of Scandinavia. There are maybe 10 local radio stations, foreign radio depends on the weather, but we get Norwegian radio news fairly consistently (and British shipping news).
The shops carry mainly Danish import magazines and newspapers in addition to local stuff, which are not delayed as far as I know (we get them as soon as the Danes do, baring the odd transportation hiccup). We can subscribe to whatever we want from other countries, expensively, of course, and these can be delayed a few days. The library has newspapers and magazines from all the Nordic countries, as well several even more foreign ones (Le Monde, Pravda, New York Times etc.)
We have the internet, too.
[QUOTE=Captain Lance Murdoch]
Wait, is the Faroe Islands really a country? Does it have U.N. membership? Do other nations have embassies there? I always thought of it as being part of Denmark.
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We are a country, which forms part of a kingdom, hence the K in DK. And thank you, Nava. We have joint embassies with Denmark. I think we’re part of the DK U.N. membership, but since we have no military, it’s academic anyway.
[QUOTE=radar1974]
Beating Malta is no big deal. I’m currently living in Malta and their level of football is not anything they can be proud of. Despite a population of over 350,000 it has played the Faroe Islands three times and lost all three
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I’ve been to Malta. It felt huge, and crowded. I’d love to go again, it’s one of my favorite holidays. Such cool buildings and all that history wistful sigh.
[QUOTE=Nava]
Septima, I think that what jjimm meant by “annual event” is that, the way some media portray it, the whalehunting looks like it’s something that happens once a year; like “once a year, the only herd of pilot whales in the world goes by the Faroe Islands on the same date and the Faroese jump on boats and go into a berserker frenzy of whalekilling”. Sanfermines bullruns, seaside style and everybody has a sword (ok, a lance).
I’ve long had the suspicion that what happens once a year is the visit of one of those reporters.
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[QUOTE=jjim]
Thanks, Nava, that is what I was saying.
Septima I was not attacking you. I was however being honest about my emotional reaction to it. Thanks for clearing up the facts for me.
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I didn’t feel attacked, it’s a fair thing to bring up. I went back and read what I wrote, and I sound like such a defensive grouch. I really didn’t mean that!
The fact is, they are animals. We kill them and eat them. There really isn’t much else to it.
Just like you have an emotional reaction to the pictures, I’m a bit worn down by uninformed people who attack me and my country with wild stories. You did not sound uninformed, or aggressive, and I was way too short with you. I’m sorry. Please ask for any more details or whatever else you want.
[QUOTE=BeaMyra]
Here’s some Faroes TV
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That’s the national daily news program. Thanks for the link.
[QUOTE=shijinn]
with that, you must accept that there be armchair judges. first, “tiny” is smaller than “smaller”. second, saying Faeroe is smaller than the Isle of Man is like saying Russia is smaller than the United States; it’s more than twice the size of Isle of Man!
[/QUOTE]
Nope, “smaller” is smaller than whatever you were talking about before anyone said smaller. “Tiny” is smaller than “Small”, but “smaller” is relative. So there.
I was going by population. A nation is its people, and all that. I didn’t think of space at all. Although if the Isle of Man has twice as many people on half the space, they must have really good bunk beds.
But yeah, I suppose it’s more accurate to say the Faroes are the smaller nation (population), while the Isle of Man is the smaller country (space). Better?
[QUOTE=BeaMyra]
There are 30 other places (at least depending on your definitions) of even smaller countries, did someone say Svalbard?
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If someone posts from Svalbard, it’ll make my day. “Ask the scientist on Svalbard” would be a really cool thread.
[QUOTE=Sattua]
Do you knit? Do you know many people who do?
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Yes, I do knit, and I have a Faroese Shawl on my needles now. All Faroese women knit, although that’s becoming less true with time. In older generations, the men knit too (most don’t do it actively, but they know how.). We are only a generation or two away from a time when all clothes were home-made, even shoes.
The reddish brown found only in Faroese sheep is my favorite color.
[QUOTE=ultrafilter]
How similar are Faroese and Danish?
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They’re close, but not like Danish and Norwegian. More like French and Spanish, maybe?
Most words have similar origins, but the grammar and sound is different.
[QUOTE=StuffLikeThatThere]
ETA: Please excuse any embarrassing spelling problems. I did try, but I’m sure I did horrible things to the name of your country inadvertently.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, I just noticed I’ve been doing it myself. The spellchecker insist on “Faeroe”, which is technically correct, but “Faroe” is better. We say “Føroyar”.
When you start on your shawl, you may experience a somewhat dauntingly slow pace at first, since it is edge-up, not neck-down. Don’t be discouraged, just keep at it, there will be fewer and fewer stitches as you go, instead of the other way around. The second half will go by so fast, you won’t notice it, I promise.
There, I think that’s everyone. Please say so if I forgot you, I didn’t mean it.
What is the best Gay bar in the Faeroe Islands?
Do the majority of young people (18-29) stay there, or do they move to other countries?
Who are/were the most famous people from the Faeroe Islands?
You mention how long it takes to fly to places, are there regular ferries to some of these places for quick, inexpensive weekend trips?
Any special food/drinks that can only (mostly only) be found there? (Other than McWhale sandwiches…)
How religious are the Faroese?
Thanks for the thread!
That’s how my mother knits shawls, starting from the wider edge. It’s not how everybody knits shawls? I just got rid of an assumption I didn’t know I had!
yelling offscreen Hey Mom, your shawls are half-Faroese!
I close my eyes and that sounds middle eastern to me.
[QUOTE=]
What is the best Gay bar in the Faeroe Islands?
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Sircus, but it’s only gay every once in a while.
Almost all leave for several years, as most educations can only be taken wholly or partially abroad. About 1 in 4 don’t come back (but several of those who do bring back foreign spouses, so it evens out).
You’ll have to give me some definition of famous first.
Not really. There is a slow (36 h.) and expensive ferry from Denmark. I think there is something from Aberdeen, but I know nothing more about that. I don’t think weekend trips are doable, but you can add a few days on the Faroes to a general trip around the Atlantic region.
There is no such thing a whale sandwich
Try the soup made from half-cures mutton, the stuffed puffin, or several varieties of seafood.