I have been visiting the Faroe Islands off and on for more than eleven years. I doubt that there is any place else where one can learn this language.

My first few visits were for a few weeks at a time during the summer. I knew that I couldn’t learn the language during a short visit, but I did try to learn a few every-day, common words. Since many items of food were already labeled, I decided that was a good place to start. There were canisters in the kitchen labeled for flour, sugar, tea, and coffee. There were labels on milk, eggs, butter, marmalade, lunch meat, cheese, and I would try to pronounce these rather strange words.

Years later I learned that most of the words I learned during these early visits were Danish words, since items imported from Denmark logically had Danish labels. When learning Faroese, it is very important to ask:

“What language is that, again?”

(Incidentally, the photos have nothing to do with the story. They are just nice pictures.)

There are not very many hours during the day this time of year when I can take pictures of scenery in daylight, but we have had several days with good weather during the daytime. Maybe I should save some of these pictures for next week, in case it is too stormy for pictures.

My father was born in the Faroe Islands in the town of Fuglafjørður in 1896. He began sailing full time when he was 14 or 15 years old, sailing all around the world, and finally settling in San Francisco. The last time he was in the Faroe Islands was in November 1916. Some eighty years later I made my first visit to the Faroe Islands, not knowing in the least what I would find there. I had a piece of paper with a few names and a stack of letters (in Danish) written to my father from the Faroe Islands in the years 1917-1924. I couldn’t read the letters.

The story of this journey is the subject of my new book, Saknaði Sonurin (The Missing Son), which will be published in Faroese in the Faroe Islands later this month. The book tells the story of my finding my father’s family and their welcoming me with open arms, like a long lost child. It also tells about life in the Faroe Islands in the early 1900’s, from the letters my father received from family and friends. There is also an unexpected love story, with letters from my father’s sweetheart, who wrote to him for seven years, always hoping he would return to her.

I will have a book-signing party at 15:00 on Sunday, 23 November, at the Mentanarhús in Fuglafjørður, and everyone is welcome. We will have books (of course), music by my family in the Faroe Islands, many of my favorite photos of the Faroes, and old photos from my father’s sailing days. I promise to make a speech in Faroese.

Maybe someday I can publish the book in English, for those of you who can’t read Faroese.

I didn’t realize how nice sunshine is until it was gone. At home in America, I always walk on the shady side of the street to stay out of the sun, but during the past few weeks, I have started to miss the sun. This time of year there are very few hours when the sun may shine on my house, after it rises over one mountain and before it hides behind another. In just a few weeks it won’t shine on my house at all, but hopefully I will be able to see it on the mountains across the bay.

There is a flock of geese that live across the road, but they wander freely in the neighborhood, grazing beside the road and in empty fields. A Christmas goose is a favorite Faroese Christmas dinner.

The past few days I have been watching as the snow on the peaks of the mountains slowly moved down lower and lower. Last night when I went to choir, I drove slowly and carefully on frozen roads and zig-zagged up the hill instead of driving up the steep streets. I’m not very comfortable driving in snow and ice, since there is never snow on the roads in the San Francisco area where I come from.

This morning, the road by my house was covered with snow, with just a couple of tire tracks leading down to the little factory by the bay. At noon it is zero degrees Celsius, 32 degrees Fahrenheit. I can stand by my window and watch the wind blow across the bay, and I feel a jolt when it hits my house.

Today I am wearing my warmest winter sweater. It is one I knitted a couple of years ago, and left here in the Faroes to use when I visit here, since the sweater is too warm to wear in California. I made the sweater before I lost 50 pounds, so now if I pull it down it also keeps my legs warm.

I wear wool in layers and put on boots, scarves, and raincoats to go outside. I know that I can get very wet just walking to my rental car, which is parked at the corner. Today I tried again to get a picture of a storm on the bay, but my challenge is still to get a good picture of the wind. This afternoon, I stood in my basement doorway, out of the direct rain but still with the wind in my face, and took pictures of the storm on the bay. Finally, my feet were too cold to take more pictures, so I went back upstairs and watched from my window. Gusts of wind sometimes blow a wall of water-spray across the bay, but it is hard to get a picture when it is blowing in my face.

Today is Sunday, and I went to church this morning. I usually attend the state church, which is Lutheran. The priest (or pastor) was here today, and we had communion. He has five different congregations, so he is not in Fuglafjørður every Sunday. The organ postlude was an excerpt from Handel’s Water Music, quite appropriate for the weather. I wonder if Handel wrote any sunshine music.

I have a lot of relatives in the Faroe Islands, and one of the benefits of this is being invited to birthday parties. In the Faroe Islands it is the custom to have an open house on your birthday, with friends and neighbors dropping in for food and refreshments. This party was in Tórshavn, an hour’s drive away, and it was nearly 3:00 a.m. when I got home on Saturday morning.