You are funny WinstonSmith. I was just telling you the story as I heard, I’ve never been in the Faeroe Islands nor will I ever be. Being from the tropics means that anything below 18 C is WAY too cold for me. Denmark is lovely in the summertime… and then I run back home as fast as I can.
Mighty Girl
Who only learnt the words havfrue and hej.
Aw bugger! You’re right. naita is right and I’m wrong. I have been humiliated, shamed, disgraced :mad:. Good thing I have sharpened my axe already.
I was back in the Faeroe Islands last summer, and I tell you there was a veritable heat wave. One day the temperature even reached a staggering 19 C. and people were stripping left and right. I saw one girl tanning in bikini, and on that day it was even just 17 C, I should have come back the day after when it was a sweltering 19 C – see how much clothes she would have had on then 
.
17 C?! Holy Cow! I get frostbite at that temperature!
Haha! I win. Next order of business, reconquering all lost Norwegian posessions, armed with a letter opener from the Space Needle. 
Just promise you won’t make us eat lutefisk
Lutefisk is good, trust me. 
I’m the most finicky person in the world, and I loathe fish, but good lutefisk has almost no fishy taste, and you’re allowed to drench it in bacon grease and crisp bits of bacon.
No, if you want evil fish dishes you have to go to Sweden (Surströmming) or Iceland (Hakarl).
Correct me if I am wrong… but wasn’t it the other way around. That is Norway been part of Denmark until they lost it to the Swedes who subsequently lost it to the Norweagians?
Sorry if I got the story wrong, but drinking at Nyhavn was far more important than visiting museums and learning about ancient history.
You are right.
Norway was part of Denmark utill it was handed over to sweden, I think in 1814 - however The Faeroe Islands where part of Norway and I assume that is the posessions that naita is about to take back
I fully understand that - I worked for a company in Nyhavn untill 2001, it’s a very nice place for a drink in the summer
A small Greenland tidbit…
The biggest state in USA currently is Alaska. Over the history of the country, it held territories that were bigger than Alaska before they were broken up like the Louisiana territory. The biggest territory of United States this century was also bigger than Alaska thought it was American only for a few years. During World War II, Germany was conquering most of Europe. Included within was the Kingdom of Denmark. Right before Denmark was to be taken over by Germany, Denmark decided to give Greenland to USA. Not to permanently hold it, but only for administration. The sovereignty was to remain under the Danish government in exile. The odd thing is that a similar situation also occurred during World War I, when Danish government actually chose to sell USA the Virgin Islands instead of holding on to them.
Cite: About halfway down
Why don’t you let them have it. And THEN you reclaim Norway back. That will learn’em something…
I waschecking out my friend’s Mercedes-Benz owner’s manual, and it seems there is a M-B dealer in Julianhaab, Greenland! Where would you drive a car to in Greenland? I doubt there are amny miles of paved roads!
I think a better plan would be to let them have it and let them keep it - that will learn’em something
The above was ofcouse in response to Mighty_Girl
From the CIA world Factbook linked by MEBuckner, above:
Highways:
total: 150 km
paved: 60 km
unpaved: 90 km
Nuuk is a town of around 12,000 people. They probably do not have a street railway, so cars are probably a good idea–especially to get out to the airport. I wouldn’t want to have to walk to the airport carrying luggage in their weather.
Some of the coastal areas are not ice-covered and are actually quite pleasant if you like boreal climates.
With regard to the history of Norway, the nation was independent from the time it was united by Harold Fairhair in 872 until 1381, when it was unified with Denmark and Sweden in the Kalmar Union – essentially a dynastic union of the three monarchies. Sweden withdrew from this in 1521-23 in a revolt led by Gustavus Vasa, but Norway remained a part of it, and Denmark came to regard it as an outlying part of Denmark, to be exploited rather than unified. For obvious reasons, this ticked off the Norwegians. In 1809, Sweden lost Finland to Russia, and this was ratified at the Congress of Vienna; to recompense Sweden for its alliance against Napoleon and punish Denmark for remaining his ally, Norway was transferred to Sweden in 1814. (There was a brief period of independence under a Danish crown prince, who conveniently died.) Despite Swedish efforts to preserve Norwegian autonomy, discord between the two nations grew until it declared independence in 1905.
As has been noted above, the former Norwegian outlying possessions such as the Faeroes, Iceland, and Greenland went to the Kalmar Union, and when Norway proper was transferred to Sweden, Denmark kept them (Jan Mayen and a few other Arctic islands being the exceptions).
Svalbard and Jan Mayen weren’t exceptions, they just weren’t ruled by anyone at the time. Norway gained sovereignty in 1920 of both.
And no, I wasn’t planning on taking possesion of Denmark. Just the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. It’s the Swedes who’ll be troublesome when I try to claim Jämtland, Härjedalen and Bohuslän. Oh, and I’m going for Iceland, the Orkneys, the Hebridies, Scotland, Ireland, the isle of Man, Newfoundland, Normandy, the Kola peninsula and Antarctica as well. Maybe some of the claims aren’t very sound, but I will prevail. All hail me, emperor of the north atlantic!
As other people have mentioned, the union with Denmark was completely dominated by them. When Denmark backed the wrong horse and was forced to give up Norway after the napoleonic wars, we made an attempt at independence before the Swedish king (a former general of Napoleons army by the way, since the Swedes ran out of decent royalty ;)) had time to move in. He was still busy elsewhere. We hammered together a constitution, finished on May 17th, which is Norway’s national holiday, and got us a prince from Denmark. The Swedes would have none of it and before the year was over there was a union. This time we got our own parliament, so it was less of a problem, we just had to share foreign policy and king with Sweden.
The dissolution of the union in 1905 happened peacefully in the end, but there was almost war, and King Oscar II of Sweden was always a bit miffed that we didn’t want him to be King of Sweden and Norway anymore.
I’ll shut up now.
Eh, what’s wrong with Norwegian rakfisk?