Monday – Torshavn, Faroe Islands
Today we arrived in Torshavn, in the Faroe Islands.
The day didn’t start too well.I was quite miffed to receive a small knock on the cabin door, and the call ‘Housekeeping’… [knock knock] … ‘Housekeeping’… [knock knock]…
I won’t repeat my reply verbatim, but it was somewhere along the lines of ‘Seriously?…. do you know what flipping time it is?….’ You get the picture. I set my alarm for 8am, with a snooze option of 30 minutes, which gives me plenty of time to get to breakfast before it finishes at 9:30am. I’m going to need to have a word with him (he’s new… and keen…).
It was busy in Marco’s Bistro; so much so that I had to walk around the ship a couple of times before trying again. Passengers can eat breakfast in the Restaurant, of course, but many opt for the less formal surroundings of Marco’s. Unfortunately, at busy times, this makes finding an empty place almost impossible. I only managed to get a seat to eat breakfast thanks to the kindness of a couple from my class who saw me wandering aimlessly around.
After breakfast, I gathered my things together, ready for a potter around Torshavn. I figured I wouldn’t need any cash (cos I’m tight like that), but decided I would take my wallet with cards in, just in case. I store the wallet in the cabin safe; unfortunately, the safe refused to accept the code that I’d programmed into it.
Eventually, having tried and failed several times, I went looking for the cabin steward, who had to go get a master key to let me into it. Having opened the safe, he then struggled to re-code it, and told me he would call for his supervisor who should take a look at it. When his supervisor knocked on the door a few minutes later, she managed to open, lock and re-code the safe without any trouble whatsoever… I told you my cabin steward is new…
When I finally managed to leave the ship, the first thing I saw was a massive queue for the complimentary shuttle bus. Having wimped out yesterday, I was determined to walk around the harbour into town… only to have my way barred by a security guard. He wasn’t a big, burly security guard; he was quite thin and weedy-looking. I figured I could take him… but then I probably wouldn’t have got very far, so I reluctantly joined the queue for the shuttle bus (of which there was only one).
On reflection; I think the reason they were insisting on everyone using the bus was because there was a lot of container-moving activity in our way. It’s quite possible they were afraid of someone being squashed… imagine the paperwork for that one!
Torshavn was how I remember it. Except the last time we were here, when we were passing through to see the Total Eclipse in April, we had torrential rain. Despite being a little overcast, with the occasional drizzle of rain, it’s remained reasonably fine for us. I wandered around the harbour quite happily, taking photos of the brightly-coloured houses and the turf roofs. There were some interesting boats too; one in particular looked quite new… but it was a beauty!
One of the brilliant things about Torshavn is the availability of good, free wi-fi in the library, which is where I’m sat, writing this post. I’ll update a few things, and do some uploading and downloading, then head back to the ship for some lunch… maybe return this afternoon… I love free wi-fi me…..
