Wednesday 28 July 2010

Góða Ólavsøku

Good St Olaf’s Wake!, today is the eve of Ólavsøka, a national holiday in the Faroes and as with all good eves, it’s when all the boozing and celebrations take place before the serious business of the day proper including religious ceremonies and the opening of the parliament.

The population of the Faroes is around 48,000 people, and it looked as though every single one of them and quite a few more had crowded into Tórshavn today to celebrate.

The streets were filled with people wandering around in national dress (including young kids), and everyone was in a party mood.

I couldn’t help but notice a couple of interesting points:

  • I think the Faroese must have a target of smashing the 50,000 mark as the number of babies was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a large number of buggies in the same place at the same time.

  • The big sound of the event was the very Faroese Vuvuzela, and the Irn Bru stand appeared to be doing a roaring trade, but apart from those small examples of Globalization the rest of the celebrations were very much Faroese.

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