St. Olaf's day in Torshavn

My dad is a very good landscape painter, but he tends to choose deliberately Freudian images-- lots of tunnels and chasms with things going into them. I couldn't help thinking of his paintings as we took a very intimiate boat tour of some Faroe island cliffs.

We're here in the Faroe islands just days before St. Olaf's day. This is the Stampede, Thanksgiving and Easter all rolled into one: the Stampede because men and women who work in banks are suddenly kitted out in traditional gear. Not stetsons and boots, but rather fetching black coats with lots of shiny buttons; Thanksgiving because this is a time when Faroese families return from abroad (many, it seems, emmigrate to Denmark for work) to spend a few days with the old folks and eat whatever they eat. We haven't figured what it might be yet, but I'm sure it involves salt and fish; Easter because it's a religious holiday, and there's lots of sermonizing and such going on. 80% of the Faroese belong to something called the "State Church." There's really no separation of church and state here; tomorrow is the first day of parliament, and it involves parliamentarians and clergymen alike walking to the parliament building to open the doors.

Actually, there's not a lot of separation between the state and anything else here in Torshavn (the capital of Faroe). That little cluster of sod-roofed houses in front of the row boat is the parliament. In Iceland, they boast that you can look up the prime minister's number in the phone book and chat with her. Here, you could pop in for tea. Or fish cakes.



For those of us who are passing through, the real attraction of the islands is, well, the islands.