Hi everybody around the globe!!!

I haven't sent you any mail for a long time. Well in Germany, there
is nothing special to write about at the moment. I'm just comming
back from my trip to the Faroe islands. Anybody knows where you
can find these 18 islands forming this independant nation?

Perhaps people interested in football have already heared of this
nation, because they are usually playing in the European
qualification groups for a World our European Championship. And
once they even won against our neighbours from Austria 1:0,
although they have only 44000 inhabitants, but more than 88000
sheeps!!! You will find these islands at around 62°N / 02°W, that
means halfway between Scotland and Iceland.

I really like these islands for their nature and the absence of tourist,
because I had to calm down a bit, if you work at a bussy airport
like Frankfurt. I couldn't see loads of screaming people anylonger
and this place was the right location to go. Going to Faroe Islands
doesn't means that it is a really calm place, due to the millions of
birds living there. I have never seen so many birds on a single
place. It looked a bit like the "Loveparade" in Berlin: Totally
overcrowded especially by puffins. These birds fly like in a cartoon:
Bevor they land they reduce their speed and stay for a second or
so vertically in the air before they fall down to earth. Due to the fact
that the islands have only one city of 14000 inhabitants the daily
life looks different to ours in the industrialized countries. Most of
the islands are very remote and only reached by helicopter or ferry
(it is too mountainous to build up airports!). So people can order
boxes of beer by mail. The postman delivered the beerbox on our
departure to the ferry and the box was really full of stamps!
Because of the (often) bad weather and the absence of ports the
remote islands have heliports. It looks a bit strange when a
helicopter lands between old wooden houses and their turf covered
roofes (like meadow on the roof). Well and there is some strange
food as well: Whale and puffins you don't find on lots of menus
around the world. The pilot whales they are hunting  are not
endangered and the hunt is legalized by the International Whale
Commission!) But however I stuck to ordinary food!

The public transport is very well organized by a hub system,
because you often have to change between buses and ferries to
get around. The buses don't carry passengers only but also food
supplies for remote village shops. The topography of the islands is
for a visitor like me superb: The rocks are rising up to 800m (2400
ft.) out of the sea and you find the highest sea cliffs in Europe with
752m on one of these islands. The view from above is really
incredible. You don't find any tree on any of the islands (too windy,
to salty, to many sheeps!). But the whole surface is covered with
grass, grass and grass. The green landscape in combinations
withe the blue sea and the deep lying white clouds results in a
wonderfull picture. This amazing nature is not so romantic for the
locals however. Untill 30 years ago, roads were nearly nonexistant,
because they couldn't been built into the steep cliffs. Furtunately
the construction of tunnels became popular and nowadays almost
every village has a connection to the rest of the word by tunnel.
One of the islands is now called the "flute" because 4 tunnels of
approx 6km length altogether were constructed on a total length of
10km. And you find even a crossroad in one of the tunnels (with the
priority for the car comming from your right!). One of the biggest
problems like on most islands is the rubbish. So the governement
tries to avoid rubbish, and therefore cans are prohibited. This would
be a good example for our countries to improve the situation of our
environment as well. For the small islands the ferries are also the
rubbish collectors. It is really a difficult game to place all the big
dustbins onto the ferry while the boat goes up and down 1 or 2
meters with every wave due to the lack of ports. The weather can
be very rough in this corner of the globe. But if you have bad
weather the conditions will probably change one or two hours later.
Normally I had up to 3 seasons in one whole day: November fog,
April shower and May sunshine and temperatures between 5°C and
25°C changed every few hours. So the most importants dangers
are hypothermia (due to the cold wind) and sunburn because the
sun shined (theoretically) from 4 am. in the morning till 11:30 pm.
in the evening.

These islands are officially an independent nation within the
Kingdom of Denmark. However they don't belong to the European
Union. The currency is a funny example to save costs: The
(cheaply made)bills are their own (Føroyar Kronur) but the (more
exepsively made) coins are danish ones! With this currency you
can pay however in the whole Kingdom of Denmark (Greenland
included). And the official langue: No not Danish but Faroese,
which is similar to old Norvegian or Icelandic. Sending a postcard
is really a luxus due to the high cost of sending one (approx 1€!).
But in which country the postman has to on foot over a steep
mountain to deliver and collect mail from a remote village in a 2
hours walk one-way? For a scandinavian country the price aren't so
high as I feared before arrival. Only with alcohol they still have their
problems. Untill 1991 there was nearly a status of prohibion on
these islands. To buy a bottle of beer you had to put your name on
a list and a week after you were allowed to buy your bottle or so.
Today everything is quite "easier". While I was on the islands I
have never seen any shop selling regular beer. The best you could
buy was light beer with 2,8% vol.!!! But better then nothing I said to
myself, and finally I understood, why all the passengers ordered so
much beer on the flight to the Faroes. Finally I got my beer in a
licenced restaurant for 4€ per 0,33l bottle!

But I didn't escape from Germany to go drinking in the Faroes, but
to go hiking and to enjoy the pure nature. And this was for free and
felt not under the prohibition. Hiking in the Faroes is much more
difficult than in other parts of the word due to the absence of
pathes. Most of the time you have chosen a mountain to climb and
then you had to climb up the steep "wall of grass" directly.
Sometimes you could use the small pathes made by the sheeps.
But sheeps don't seem to climb up mountains so these tracks
were of limited use for a hiker. But most of the time this kind of
hiking was funny and not so boaring as following a marked trail like
in other parts of the world. Sometimes however when the weather
was really bad and you could only see a few meters due to the fog,
the map was of big help and some routes were marked by cairns
by the locals before the new tunnels and roads were built.

I hope you have similar storries to tell. I'm looking forward hearing
from you!!!