Quiet day in Torshavn

After my ambitious hike yesterday I decided to spend today exploring downtown Torshavn. My leisurely breakfast in the hotel (included with the room cost) included delicious coffee, fruit, pear banana yogurt and a heavenly chocolate croissant.

As it turns out I'm glad I took today to look around town because all the shops will be closed tomorrow. They close today, Saturdays, at 2pm. I didn't go into many stores because I'm trying to curb my spending and my pack can get so damn heavy, but I did find a teeny little store I'm pretty excited about. It was hardly a closet of a store and I had to take off my backpack to move around, but it had the loveliest local wool items. It's a co-op where a group of women- and a few men- make all the items from local wool and sheep's horns. The lady that was working is from the Faroes and we talked for quite a while. She gave me some pointers on things to see in Sweden and we talked about this country she was born in. I had also heard about the whaling issue in Faroes that has got some outsiders pretty upset. According to what I've read- and seen some gruesome pictures of- the local fishermen wait for a small group of pilot whales to come into the bay where they kill them quickly with a knife blow to the spine. They butcher them right there and everyone in town gets a share for food. It's a tradition this culture has been doing for many, many years. She brought it up so I asked her. She said they have always eaten whale to survive but now with the ocean getting dirtier they really couldn't eat them anymore. She didn't have much more to say other than it has always been part of their culture. I did end up buying some pretty beautiful little wool items- and thus my pack gets heavier. I wanted to send some things home but, alas, post is closed on Saturdays.

I went in search of a market to buy some snacks and bumped into the SMS. Turns out Faroese have a shopping mall. I'm talking 3 stories of new clothes, cheap costume jewelry and The Body Shop. It even had a food court with Burger King. The first floor did have an amazing grocery store. I walked every aisle and let me tell you these people love their meats. My favorite was a tie between cheese and cookies. Europeans love their "biscuits". After I left the market, checked out the 2nd floor I just couldn't bring myself to look at the 3rd floor so I headed out.

Ended up at a quaint little cemetery with gravestones dating to the 1800s. How's that for extremes? Shopping mall to cemetery. I must admit it was much more peaceful amongst the non-breathing. I sat and ate my small snack listening to the wind swirl through the grass.