Letters from the Faroe Islands
August 27, 2025. 6:30am Local Time
Tórshavn
It is the first sunrise I've actually seen here. It might be the only sunrise. Already, I feel the benefit of light, which seems rare here. Or, perhaps, this is the jetlag finally wearing off. Yesterday, time seemed immaterial. Today, it already seems too quick.
Yesterday was a lesson in the surreal, the tourist, and the far-too-real. My morning walk to move the car, something I am excited to repeat after writing this, was serene and peaceful. I love walking through a city as it awakens, and there's a sleepy contentment to early-morning Tórshavn that I deeply appreciate. A seaside city is still a seaside city, and the same patterns I've witnessed in Portsmouth, Portland, and Savannah repeat here.
Our day began with coffee and, for me, a croissant in the cafe around the corner. Austin attempted to order a hot chocolate with whiskey, but was rebuffed for state law. His regular hot chocolate, he said, was good. For the rain, we drove from the city center out to the Nordic House. What cool and inspiring architecture, and what a spirit of a place. The multi-use artistic area coupled with the idea of all these countries with a shared cultural past united into a single space gives me chills. That the space is so sweeping, inventive, and utterly Nordic helps, too. No time for the National Gallery, though I hope to get there before we leave for Vestmanna today.
We went full tourist and explored the supermarket, intending to locate cigars and/or cider for Austin. We found the latter, and numerous other trinkets from whole mackerel, Cool American Doritos, dangerous-looking energy drinks, and wines I only dream of dnigng in America (though drastically more expensive). From there, lunch at a local steakhouse chain (Austin had a burger, I a "Favorite Steak" with fries and bearnaise). This country knows how to make fries, I will give them that. Then home for a quick nap, and out shopping. I have acquired the sweaters I was seeking, and Austin bought a sheepskin. I expect these to be the largest purchases of the trip, barring a couple of meals and/or if we find more alcohol we like.
The meals themselves are rapidly becoming... if not an obstacle, then a frustration. A self-professed gourmand and a self-professed lover of burgers and chicken explore a Nordic country. Maybe it's a setup for a bad joke, but it is also our reality. Reconciling what I perceive as simple food with another's varied interpretation of the same term is its own unique challenge—daunting as lamb and salmon on a menu can be. My glass of 2016 Rioja nevertheless served to help navigate the challenge, as did Austin's correct and incorrect cocktails.
Now, the surrealism. That meal did involve my first poor experience in the Faroe Islands. Missed twice by the host, unwatered and un-breaded, and with either a green or uncaring server (or else I should think all the servers there were uniquely inexperienced). The blind and the blind, as it were. After, an attempted consolation meal at an Irish pub where the bartender inquired for reservations and appeared in a state of debilitating anxiety that there should actually be guests standing in front of him. Face in his hands, gasps for breath, fully ready to leave us to our fates. He could also have been a sarcastic ass. We, of course, wanted no part of either reality and wandered on to a different pub. There, we rapidly realized we weren't welcome. What is there to do in that situation but rip two shots of Faroese bitter and ride off into the... mist. Or, at least, to a local fast-food chain where Austin got his burger. We ate and drank, watched YouTube, and went to sleep.
Also on our wanderings, we went to a local beach in an attempt to collect souvenir rocks. Little did we know, laughing off the surprising crowds, that our selected beach doubled as a Faroese whale bay. We arrived through that throng of people, adults to schoolchildren coming off busses, and walked down to the surprisingly scarlet water. The entire bay, red with blood. Austin was the first to notice the body of a whale being dragged behind a boat. The beach became haunted then, and as I tried to reason through my unease with numerous internal and external validations, I couldn't help but to reflect upon how near life and death are in this place.
Some of my justifications felt valid—the comparison of the horrors of whaling to those of factory farming. How disgusted would the Faroese be with the idea of animals in pens so crowded they cannot walk properly (granted, I think their salmon might express concern over cognitive dissonance were this so)? Moreover, the hunt seemed a town event—a field trip for students and a spectacle for the adults. To witness such a killing firsthand, if even from a distance, is no small moment in one's life. It must be formative, and if so an ever-present memento mori doubling-down on the reality of a country which owes so much to the surrounding sea.
What food we have found, by the by, remains good. The quality is undeniable, even if the selection and preparation can, at times, feel spartan. We tried some local wind-dried lamb, which is at once an acquired taste—sweet and sour with definite notes of ferment and a texture practically begging for a slug of wine or spirit—and a somewhat ominous foreshadow of the final expected meal of the trip. Considering we are to eat almost exclusively dried, salted, fermented things for upwards of seven courses, I am curious for our stamina and whether I will feel more satisfied or guilty. But what is this trip if not a challenge, and what could be more challenging than a meal like that?
I am about to walk and move our car again. After, waking Austin and preparing to check out. I hope to find time for the National Gallery. Then, fishing in Vestmanna (which Austin may or may not join), and we go out to our cottage in Sørvágur --our home base until our final day. Hopefully we (I) catch something we can make for dinner. I am thrilled for the drive again, and I hope Austin is up to the task of being our shotgun photographer.
JXMC