Woozy with cider

The Crimson Waters

leifr — Sat, 10 May 2014 04:50:02 GMT

I’ll never forget the day I saw whales in the wild for the first time, only to witness the sea turn red in their wake.

It was the boats I saw first: fishing boats, lifeboats, even a dingy or two. Every seaworthy craft in the southern Faroes had answered the call, and now they made their way methodically up the fjord in a wide, crescent formation.

Feeling curious, I abandoned my search for mountain trolls and ran to join the crowds gathering at the water’s edge.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked breathlessly, puzzled at the colourfully nautical scene. A bearded, weather-beaten man of the sea answered:

‘Whales’ he said simply, pointing to a spot a hundred metres from the prow of the leading boat, where dark shapes could be seen rising and falling among the waves. It was a ‘Grindadráp’, a Faroese whale hunt. I had seen the photos and read the articles, but now it was happening only metres away.

Except it wasn’t. The dark shapes had disappeared and now the small armada of boats bobbed redundantly in the ink-black waters. Skippers scanned the dark fjord, onlookers scratched their heads and a band of knife-wielding men stood impatiently in the shallows, waiting.

‘I would do a better job if I still had my boat’ the seaman grumbled, kicking a small rock into the sea.

Suddenly, the water began to bubble and roar. Great heaving masses appeared at the surface and spouts of foamy water shot from them in one mighty broadside of defiance. The boats turned, shouts went up and the hunt was back on, driving the trapped whales closer towards the beach.

‘Ha! Even whales need to breath sometimes!’ yelled the seaman, jumping into life.

This was the only jollity of the day. Soon the armed men in the shallows were wading further out to begin their grim work. None took pleasure in it, but all finished the job with a well-practiced swiftness, the sea turning a sickening red as each whale was dispatched.

Just as it seemed the work had been done, a crashing sound - one of broken wood and shattered bone - shook the air. A single whale remained – the largest and toughest of the lot - and it had cut a small boat in two with a fierce whip its tail, leaving a mangled fisherman flailing and wailing in the wreckage. A shout of anger went up, blades flashed and soon the whale’s thrashing ceased.

‘What happened to your boat?’ I asked the seaman as the hunters paused for breath amidst the crimson gore.

‘One of those did’ he sighed, nodding to the lifeless body of great whale.

Football's worst international

leifr — Sat, 12 Apr 2014 01:30:00 GMT

The coach threw a football shirt and boots at my feet and watched impatiently as I pulled them on. “Now get out there and show us some English grit!” he yelled.

I ran out onto the pitch just in time for the national anthems, the flag of Luxembourg emblazoned across my chest.

Singing along to a song you don’t know the words to can be embarrassing, especially if it’s a national anthem. To my left stood a line of nine Luxembourgers, all proudly belting out “Ons Heemecht” to the small group of onlookers in the main stand of Tórsvøllur (Thor’s Field) stadium, where I had been sitting five minutes before. I mumbled my way through the song, avoiding looking at the TV camera as it made its way down the line of players.

My three friends and I had been traveling around the Faroe Islands for one week. On this day Clément, my French companion, had been eager to be in the capital Tórshavn to join a team of Luxembourg football fans in a match against their Faroese hosts. The following day, the real footballers would be taking to the field in a World Cup qualifier, and the two sets of supporters had decided a pre-match kickaround would be marvelous fun. Unfortunately for the Luxembourgers, they were a man short, and they plucked me from the stands to make up the numbers.

Why this very unglamorous match was being shown on Faroese television was a mystery to me. Perhaps they had anticipated the massacre that was coming and wanted the whole country to witness it. For an amateur match, it all seemed rather excessive.

Lining up at right-back, I surveyed my teammates, who aside from Clem I had never met. It was not a promising sight. Clem was the only one of us who looked like a footballer, short, but well-built, and quick on his feet. The rest of us were scrawny rabble.

We spent the next 90 minutes being flattened by the Faroes. Their first attack was horrifying: Gunnar Mohr, a Faroese ex-international striker, sliced through the defense and unleashed a shot that almost decapitated the keeper before going in the net. The small crowd went wild as the stadium announcer proclaimed the time at the first goal as just thirty seconds. It only got worse from there.

As the match progressed, I got the feeling that our coach was beginning to regret having chosen me to represent his country. Not only was I unspeakably crap, misplacing passes, falling over and running in fear from Gunnar Mohr, but my loyalties were elsewhere. Deep down, I wanted the Faroes to win, and thanks to me they were doing so comfortably.

By half-time, the score was an eye-watering 9-1. Luxembourg’s coach was furious, and refused to speak to me. It was clear that he wanted to haul me off, but had no one else to take my place. Feeling guilty for having let him down, I decided to put my Faroese loyalties aside for the next 45 minutes.

Back on the pitch, my first contribution was to scythe down one of the Faroese midfielders. I didn’t mean any harm, but as my boot met his ankle, I heard a sickening smack. As my opponent got to his feet, I realized he was none other than Tróndur Vatnhamar, a goalkeeper for Faroese league leaders B36 Torshavn and kids’ TV presenter. He was a giant of a man, and angrily pushed me in the chest for upending him. Suddenly, things didn’t seem so fun.

A minute later, we were the best of friends. Tróndur took the resulting free kick himself and curled it sweetly into the top corner, drawing whoops of joy from everyone present. He ran over to me and shook my hand, thanking me for giving him the opportunity to score such a stunning goal.

After that 10th goal, the mood relaxed. The Luxembourg coach and players started to enjoy themselves more. This new outlook resulted in four goals for our side, all scored by Clem against a tiring Faroese defense. The final score was 11-5, in the Faroes’ favor.

After the game, the players from both teams sat in the center circle, chatting merrily, singing songs, and swapping shirts. From nowhere, bottles of champagne emerged and were passed around. I was personally thanked for at least five of the Faroes’ goals; one of their men asked if I would be playing for Luxembourg’s real national team in the next day’s game.

“With you in their team, we cannot lose!” he explained

The anticipated goal-fest the following day never happened. Playing in an icy downpour, the Faroes won 1-0 on a late penalty. But, with the farcical weather taking the competitive edge off everyone, both players and fans did something almost unheard of in modern sport: they had fun.

I stood in the fog and rain, loving every minute of it. It was comforting to know that in the Faroes, the old ways of sport were still alive and well.

Photos: Denmark

leifr — Sat, 12 Apr 2014 01:09:00 GMT

How I learned Danish

leifr — Sat, 12 Apr 2014 00:54:00 GMT

“Man, you are so weird.”

This was the rather dispiriting response from Kim, my new Danish flatmate, after telling him that I would be spending the coming year in Denmark trying to master his native tongue. Unfortunately, similar remarks (all in English) were common during the first few weeks of my Erasmus Study Abroad program in Århus.

Danes found it laughable that anyone would want to learn Danish, especially a native English-speaker like me. If a league table existed for the most popular Scandinavian language Danish would come bottom. Certainly it lacks the sexiness and sing-song qualities of Norwegian and Swedish, but is no means the ugly language that many make it out to be.

Looking back on it now I was fighting a losing battle, as most Danes speak English fluently, due to excellent schooling and a strict diet of American and British TV. If anything, they were learning from me, and saw my arrival as an excellent opportunity to keep their English fresh, the swines! This was not how I had imagined things going at all.

After two years of intensive university study my Danish should have been a hell of a lot better, but for some reason my grasp of it was still very basic. The prospect of living and studying in Denmark itself, therefore, was terrifying. Never mind the inevitable homesickness – how was I going to survive for a whole year with a toddler’s Danish?

“Ah, you’ll be fine. They all speak English over there, don’t they?” my friends would say.

“Yes, but that’s not the point!” I responded, shaking them in frustration.

What was the use of going abroad to learn a language and using English as a safety net? I had to master it for my university degree and I wanted to master it too. No matter how scared I was at the prospect of sounding stupid, I was determined to leave Denmark fluent.

You will understand then how frustrated I was during those opening weeks, with my aspirations slowly fading before my eyes. My insistence to speak only Danish with my flatmates had been a miserable failure and to make it worse my German friends (also fellow exchange students, who were all taking courses in English and had not planned to learn any Danish) were already fluent.

My courses at university were hardly inspiring either and left me feeling totally bewildered and dizzy, as I only concentrated on what was being said, rather than the context of the lessons. At that point it was very tempting to give in and merely revel in the careless joy of being an Erasmus student, but suddenly everything changed.

One night some friends and I found ourselves down at the student bar down by Århus harbour. We had heard there were some local bands playing and were keen to go along. The music was awful, the kind that focuses on making ears bleed rather than being entertaining, and I found myself retreating to the bar with a ringing head. While ordering a Tuborg I noticed a girl stood next to me, suffering like myself.

“De spiller alt for højt, hvad?” I shouted across to her.

She smiled and nodded, removing a finger from an ear to shake my hand and introduce herself. She was called Marie and agreed that the band in question would have us all deaf by the end of the night. After introducing myself and letting her hear that I wasn’t Danish, an amazing thing happened: breaking national law she did not immediately switch to English but carried on speaking in Danish, and even better, expressed no great surprise that a foreigner was speaking her language. I resisted the urge to hug her and weep tears of gratitude, and we continued our conversation long into the night.

Making my first Danish friend changed everything. Although I never said anything, Marie understood that I was not in Denmark just for the Erasmus parties and that I wanted to come away with something more lasting. Therefore, right from the beginning English was banned by an unspoken rule between us. Even if I was struggling to find a word or put a sentence together she refused to let me take the easy way out.

Instead she showed great patience and let me work it out for myself. The one time she did correct me caused her much hilarity. We were in a post office together one day and, unsure as to where the queue started, I asked a man

“Er du i koen?”

The man looked at me as with alarm and it turned out I had actually asked him whether he was “in the cow”, rather than the queue.

“‘Køen’, not ‘koen’, dear”, Marie sniggered in my ear.

One night a week Marie would invite me over for dinner in her cozy flat and we would talk about all sorts of things until the early hours. What was so refreshing about this was that it didn’t feel like some sort of pre-arranged language tuition session. It was something real. It was everyday life. Finally I had fit in.

The more time I spent with Marie the better my Danish became and the more my confidence grew. I realized that doing workbook exercises and learning grammar by heart can only teach you so much and that best way to learn is to get out and meet people and just talk, talk, talk.

For a few months I had been going to a language school in town and found myself in the advanced class, which was full of snobs who were already fluent but who only turned up merely to show off. Rather than listen to them titter at my mistakes I realized that spending time with a local was a far better and cheaper way to learn.

Now that things had finally got moving I slowly began to immerse myself in the language. University classes became easier to follow and I started reading a newspaper everyday, looking up words I did not know and writing them down on note cards.

Pretty soon I could read the whole paper without the help of a dictionary and words I had never noticed before started appearing everywhere. I also listened to the radio on and soon got hooked, so much so that one day I had a visit from a radio licensing officer who demanded payment for a license.

I got in a lot of trouble for that, but at least I got some practice out of the angry words exchanged! I was even dreaming in Danish at this point (always a good sign, I’m told) and on a few occasions responded to an English friend’s questions in Danish without realizing it.

As my confidence grew I found it easier to strike up conversations with people. I made another friend called Kristian at a party who shared a love of football and we would spend literally days watching every game on TV, chatting away happily and occasionally yelling at the referee with an array of eye-wateringly strong Danish expletives.

Not every day was a good day for me in language terms. For some unknown reason I suffered from temporary Danish amnesia. One day I would be discussing the news with Marie and Kristian, and the next I couldn’t even understand the simplest questions put to me.

It was as if something in my brain had been temporarily unplugged and it used to get me really down. Infuriatingly on days like these my flatmate Kim would suddenly choose to speak to me in Danish, and when he perceived I hadn’t a clue what he’d said he would laugh in my face.

“Oh yeah? Well you’ve got a girl’s name!” I always wanted to shout at him.

Fortunately days like these were rare.

Leaving Denmark was incredibly difficult. By the end of the academic year it had started to feel like my home and I was on the very cusp of being fluent in the language. On the plane home I got talking to the two girls next to me. They had noticed my Roskilde Festival wrist band and we laughed about how muddy and fun it had been. Eventually one of them asked me why I was going to England and I replied:

“Jeg skal hjem” (I’m going home)

“What?!” one of them shrieked “We thought you were from Århus!”

If ever there was a time for a high five, that was it.

Understanding a Culture through Food - What have I let myself in for?

leifr — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:30:09 GMT

“Are you going to eat the eye?” Jón asked casually. “That’s the best part.”

He pointed his fork towards the eye in question, still attached to the unfortunate sheep whose head we were dining on. I say dining, Jón (my Icelandic friend and guide to his country's cuisine) had had the wolf’s share of this grisly meal, while I had merely choked down a few morsels of gristle. I had always been a keen carnivore, but eating a sheep’s head turned my stomach.

It was my second day in Reykjavík and I had begged Jón to show me some traditional Icelandic food. The previous evening in town I had been shocked by the Icelanders' obsession with hot dogs and pizza, which they guzzled down at alarming rate on every street corner.

"It's the Americans' fault" Jón sighed while tucking into a greasy sausage, referring to the unpopular airbase in nearby Keflavík. The airmen may have gone home but their food still remains. "But," he continued, "it's a hell of a lot better than what we used to eat!"

Suddenly intrigued, I insisted that the next night we should eat like his ancestors. Jón's face lit up, both in surprise and devilish delight. What had I let myself in for?

Having somehow forced down the sheep’s eye (which actually proved surprisingly tasty) the food grew yet more bizarre. A plate of what looked like dog food was placed before us, with the grayish meat neatly sliced into bite-size cubes.

“I want you to guess what this is” Jón said with a grin.

The meat was sour and left a metallic taste at the back of the mouth, but yet again proved oddly delicious. Shoveling in another mouthful, Jón ruined the moment:

“That’s pickled ram’s testicles you’re eating.”

It would have been better not to know. Still, it was more interesting than hot dogs and probably much healthier too, in a very strange kind of way. My friend agreed:

“I am glad that we still eat this stuff, even if it’s just for fun these days. Not so long ago this stuff kept the people alive during the winter.”

In a country obsessed with its history and sense of identity, traditional foods remind folk what it is to be Icelandic. Although they now enjoy all the comforts of the 21st century, with one of the highest standards of living anywhere, through their cuisine Icelanders remember the struggles their forefathers encountered in an often unforgiving climate.

Taking a shot of schnapps with the unnerving name of "Black Death", Jón fixed me with another devilish look.

“Now, how about some rotten shark?”