*finally posts something*
Right, so, like, I finally managed to get internet access, so I've decided to be one of those boring people again and post in great detail about my holiday. Mainly because I have a memory like a sieve, and given the amount of money it cost me to get here, it's probably best if I write it down so I remember something about it in the future.
Or something.
You totally don't have to read it. :)
*wails at Danish keyboards with their crazy 'European' layout and stupid netbook laptps with too-small keyboards*
Bah.
Thurs 15 October - Ilulissat
So, after a stupidly long 22 hour flight yesterday, started off the day in omg-freezing Copenhagen, which felt odd because every time I've been here before it's been sweltering. Anyhoo, hopped on a flight to Greenland, which was pretty damn spectacular from above, at least, with all the icebergs and white rocky mountains and hundreds of kilometres of inland ice. 'Quick' (well, quick by Greenland standards) stopover in Kangerlussuaq (no, I can't pronounce it either, and every time I try, people just look at me strangely, so I have no idea what I'm actually saying!), where I nearly slipped over on the ice on the tarmac before I even made it inside the airport! A couple of hours (and some sort of mystery-meat roll... I don't want to think about it, kthx) later, caught one of those little propeller planes to Ilulissat, where there are lots of icebergs. Lots. I think they even named the town something to do with icebergs, but given how awful my Greenlandic is (even with the nicely phoenetic little phrasebook I have), I really am not qualified to say that for sure. *left the Lonely Planet at home, alas*
Went to check into the Youth Hostel, which is stupidly expensive as far as hostels go, but by far the cheapest place in town, and was told it had been closed because the water wasn't working, and would I like to check into this other (somewhat luxury and well out of the range of hotel I normally go for) hotel? Being utterly exhausted after what pretty much amounted to 36 hours of straight travel (with only a quick pitstop in Copenhagen), I stupidly said "sure!" and ended up at some hotel with awesome views but that meant I had a good 1.5km walk into town each day. Which would normally be fine, but, well, Greenland. With the no footpaths and maniac cars and snow that's been stomped into ice by everyone walking on it meaning that I'm likely to fall on my arse about 5 or 6 times on any given walk into town. Hilarious! (Though, in fairness, there were only a couple of times that I couldn't get up, which was hugely embarrassing, but at least I've become far more careful about walking in the snow!)
Having the afternoon free, I booked myself on an iceberg cruise, which, I'm told, is what one does when one is in Ilulissat. *nods sagely* Turns out there's a pretty damn good reason for that, with all the icebergs that have broken off the glacier (some stupid amount of ice, like, each day enough ice breaks off to supply New York with water for a year, or something [/trivia]).
But yeah. Basically it's all very pretty, and very cold, and even though I managed to see a few more recently killed seals than I would have liked, I also got to see two whales, which was pretty cool, given that they're not supposed to be around at this time of year. Hooray!
Unfortunately, though, arriving back at the hotel, I realised that I'd managed to drop the tip of my laptop charger that lets it plug into my Australian adaptors, meaning that I don't actually have a useable computer.
Like, for the whole trip. *has a crippling internet addiction, this is not okay, plzkthx*
Fri 16 October - Ilulissat
So apparently, a 13 hour time difference means that I get really sleepy at like 4pm every day and wake up bright and shiny at like 4am. Hilarious! At least there's not a lot to do in this place when you're not doing proper activities... (I say "not a lot", but what I mean is, there's like three shops and a supermarket, and they all open quite late and close quite early, and the streets are terrifying and slippery, and everything's obscenely expensive. *may have paid 45 dollars for dinner last night because there was literally nothing within a distance that I could be sure I wouldn't slip into a snow drift and die of exposure*
But yes. Today I totally went dogsledding. OMG. It was like top of my list, along with the Northern Lights, which I probably won't get to see, unfortunately, as apparently it's too close to the magnetic north pole here, and I only have one night in the place where you can most commonly see them.
Oh well. But yeah. The dogsledding was technically "pre-season", meaning that there isn't yet enough snow to do proper "smooth" dogsledding, so it was extremely bumpy and deeply terrifying, given that the entire safety system consisted of "hold onto this rope and try not to fall off when we go down this cliff". Exciting! *cough* But the dogs were so ridiculously cute, and looked so happy to be running, and now I totally want to buy a sledge for Mischka-the-hairy-hairy-husky so she can act like a real husky and carry the shopping home, or something.
Followed that up with a lunch at a relatively famous restaurant, where I made a point of trying (at least a bite of) one of everything on the buffet (er, it was a small buffet). I'm sure there were a few meats on there that I wouldn't have eaten if I'd known what they were, so it's probably best that I don't. Suffice to say I didn't really eat very much of it at all, in the end. *is not as adventurous as I think I am*
As there was nothing else to do for the rest of the day (damn you, Greenland!) I watched some of the sledge dogs for a while (there are like a few thousand of them around the town, which is absolutely brilliant at 2am when they decide to start barking) and then headed back to the hotel to sleep off the jetlag. Fascinating.
Random thought: it's totally not fair how people here manage to at once look nice and stay warm. For me, I really think that - on a good day - it's one or the other. Here, I'm totally going with the "warm" option. *apologises for ugly photos*
Sat 17 October - Ilulissat
OK, so before you judge me too harshly for today's activities, can I just point out that there's really very little to do here, outside of 'scheduled' activities (unless you want to go hiking, and given that I'm not the most confident hiker, and that I have zero experience in the snow, outside of a year 7 trip to Mt Buller, where I can only remember falling over a lot and not being able to stop on the skis). Also, that this is totally the low season - you apparently get heaps (er, on a Greenland scale) of people here during the summer, and a few during the winter, too. But autumn really is kind of dead.
So, before I left home, I'd looked up things to do in Ilulissat, and even though most of them weren't running at this time of year, there was one that I'd kind of thought was just a bit too extravagant (read: obscenely expensive), and as much as I wanted to do it, I decided against it.
But, when faced with the prospect of a whole day spent either doing a town walk (which, I suspect would have been quite slippery and not all that fascinating, given the size of the town), and doing the iceberg cruise again, I totally decided that my convictions about not paying a stupid amount of money for this activity were kind of baseless, given how far I'd come to get to Greenland in the first place.
So, yeah. Did I mention the part where I totally went in a helicopter? And flew along an icefiord? Because, yeah. OMG. Awesome.
No, rly. Helicopter! *is excited at new things*
So, we drove to the airport, then flew up over Ilulissat (and omg, the little colourful houses totally look like lego from above), then out over Disko Bay (again, not as much fun as the name suggests), then along the icefiord, where all the icebergs travel from the glacier out to sea - and omg, there are a lot of them, up to the glacier (which has now receded all the way to the inland ice, and can't go any further... yay, global warming :-/ ), we landed at (but not on) the glacier and walked around for a while, took lots of photos and stuff, and some people wandered right over to the edge of the rocky cliffs, while I, being fully aware of my utter inability to even walk on a snowy street, stayed well back and made full use of my telephoto lens :)
But yeah, so I didn't actually get a window seat for the flight back, which sucked (but was probably fair, or something. Bah), and we flew back along the icefiord and circled over the bay for a while to look at the icebergs, then landed back at the airport.
Did I mention that helicopters are awesome? I had to wear earmuff things to block out the sound! It was great!
Anyhoo, after that, I'd intended to spend the afternoon buying the souvenirs and stuff that I'd been eyeing off for the past few days, and not quite being able to justify buying. Alas, turns out that since it was after midday on a Saturday, everything was shut, and I couldn't buy them! Woe! Luckily, the guy at World of Greenland (who was running the helicopter flight thing) let me buy some stuff even though the shop was shut. I mean, if I couldn't spend money on souvenirs, how else do I prove that I've been here!? [/sarcasm]
Randomly, still trying to figure out how I feel about the large number of polar bear and narwhal carvings on sale here (though only to locals). I'm not sure whether they actively hunt them (though I suspect they kind of do, given how it's all spoken about here), and whether it's primarily for food (again, I suspect it probably is), and what I actually think about customs and tradition as a justification for hunting (very) endangered species. Hmm.
But yeah. So, having absolutely nothing left to do for the day, I headed back to the hotel for some lunch, and decided, rather bravely, if I do say so myself, to try the Greenlandic platter. Which was a plate of all sorts of 'delicacies', including salmon (which was quite nice), something that was probably halibut (which I had trouble with, given my dislike of raw white fish), a whole pile of rather soggy little shrimps, and two different types of rather black looking meat (I don't really want to know what they were, but I suspect they were some combination of whale (ugh), seal, or walrus), both of which were quite chewy and which I could only eat if I ate it with some of this rhubarby type thing that I think is called Angelica. Suffice to say, most of the plate was left unfinished, and I had to trundle down to the supermarket (which was thankfully still open) to buy something that I could actually eat for lunch!
Um.. Yeah. Authentic, I guess, at least. *sigh*
Sun 18 October - Aasiaat
Having forgotten to ask for the packed breakfast that I am apparently entitled to from the hotel if I'm leaving early (yay for posh hotels, sometimes), I'd kind of thought that, if nothing else, the promised ride to the docks at 6.30am would go as planned. But, as this place apparently operates on what I like to think of as 'island time', it turns out that the person who was to drive us (there were like 5 people needing a lift), was sick and hadn't called anyone to tell them. So we ended up getting a taxi, and totally missing the supposed 6.30 deadline to catch the 7 o'clock boat.
Turns out they really couldn't care less, and were still letting people on right up until departure. In one case, they couldn't even find this guy's reservation, and still just shrugged and let him on. I do enjoy how laid back things are here, except when I'm stressing about not missing the only boat for a week!
But yeah. It was still dark when the boat set off, and so it took me a little while to figure out that the big dark silhouettes we were passing weren't actually distant mountains, but rather much closer icebergs. Frankly, at the speed the ferry was going, it was all a little too 'Titanic' for my tastes.
Anyhoo, spent the trip watching Torchwood episodes on the iPod and chatting to some American guy who'd come over for work, and it had taken him 8 days to get to the place he needed to go, because of the boat and plane schedules, where things only run once a week. Awesome.
But yeah. Arrived in Aasiaat, and was pleasantly surprised by a truck from my hotel that was waiting for us, meaning that I didn't have to walk in the snow with my backpack (something I was a bit worried about, in case I fell over and couldn't get back up. Which may or may not be a real concern in these parts... for me, at least... *whistles*)
So, when I'd mentioned to anyone in Ilulissat that I was going to Aasiaat, they'd all given me this odd look and said something along the lines of "Really? Aasiaat? Why? Do you, like, know people there?" Turns out there's quite a good reason for this, as even though it's quite a large town, and has schools and shops and stuff (er, all of which are closed on Sundays, turns out), there's really not much else, and definitely nothing for tourists to do. I should have probably had some sort of alarm bells when the tourist office didn't even answer my emails. *sigh*
Oh well. Anyway, wandered down to the supermarket, trying to buy an adaptor for my stupid laptop (*smashes it*) so that I could use the internet, or even just the computer itself (though, luckily, the television here was slightly better than the ONE channel (in Danish, with Greenlandic subtitles, and with maybe the occasional english language episode of Columbo from 1987) that was available in Ilulissat, so I managed a bit better on the entertainment side of things. They totally showed Battlestar Galactica (which I tried not to watch too closely, because I didn't want to spoil myself too badly!)
But yeah. Turned out the supermarket was open, though the electronics section of it was shut. Awesome. So I bought some chocolate and went back to the hotel to watch the rest of the science fiction marathon on TV.
Also discovered that the hotel, called the Seamen's Home, and advertised as a simple, no frills place to stay that's clean and close to the harbour, is actually heavily Christian, and has some sort of 'mission' to spread the bible or something. Awesome. :-/
Random trivia: The town's name, 'Aasiaat', translates as 'spiders', though nobody's sure why the town's called that, as there aren't any spiders there today. This amuses me, for some reason. :)
Mon 19 October - Kangerlussuaq
So, after a rather scary drive to the airport, I caught an early flight to Kangerlussuaq, which is pretty much the main airport hub in Greenland, and the only place that international flights go. Also, the only inland town in the whole of Greenland. *is enjoying the lack of liquid restrictions on internal flights around Greenland*
Anyway, the flight thankfully arrived on time (which is actually quite unusual around here), and I managed to book myself on the very-soon-to-depart excursion to the inland icecap.
So there was pretty much just me and this Danish/Greenlandic family, the father of which was some crazily military type, who knew such a ridiculous amount about Greenland and particularly this area, which used to be a US military base, that he was acting as my unofficial guide. Which was awesome, as the commentary on the excursion was all in Danish, so I had no hope of understanding it!
But yeah, so I got to find out all about the history of the US military base, and the role it played in all the wars and stuff, and how it used to be totally secret, so that they had to put up fences and all sorts of things to hide the military base from the civilian airport that was just on the other side of the mountains. Madness.
Also found out that this dude totally did that Sirius expedition, where (a few, select) people spend a whole winter dogsledding across northern Greenland, and which is - to put it mildly - kinda hardcore. Refreshing, then, that he said that he thought Australia was a more dangerous landscape than Greenland. I guess it's what you're used to!
So yeah. That was entertaining.
Anyhoo, the excursion was in this big overland truck and it took about three hours along rough roads (the only long roads in Greenland, actually), through this utterly alien-looking landscape, to reach the icecap. Because it was so cold outside, we were sealed in this truck, and I totally felt like I was in that Midnight episode of Doctor Who. Except for the part where this truck had, like, windows and stuff. And, y'know, the lack of DOOM. :P
According to my aunt, who'd been there a year or so ago, you used to be able to drive right up to the ice cap and walk on it. But apparently a whole section of the road had collapsed into this ravine, so instead, we all got out of the truck and walked along this (very narrow, icy and gravelly) ridge - the one that had collapsed into the ravine - to look at the ice cap. Except that, as I've mentioned, I'm not very good with snow and stuff, so it was deeply terrifying, as there was a steep slope on one side, and a big effing cliff on the other (the driver was just like "well, if you fall, try to fall in that direction", pointing to the steep slope covered in snow and rocks), not to mention the ridiculously strong arctic winds blowing off the ice cap. Awesome. Er, I mean effing terrifying.
Gah.
Needless to say, I only made it about a third of the way along the ridge before turning back (I'm not sure whether it's better or worse for my ego that one of the very young children was also scared and had to turn back), and I decided to "observe" the ice cap from a safer distance, near the truck.
It was pretty awesome, actually. Like, these enormous cliffs made of ice and snow (like, not ice-as-in-icebergs, but actually big crystal-looking ice cliffs) and all cracked and jagged, with these absolutely freezing winds blowing off it. Did I mention the winds? Freezing!
On the way back, the weather turned insane, like, within half an hour, and there was just a crazy amount of snow and you couldn't see more than about 10 metres. Madness. When we got back to the airport, it turned out that practically every plane was delayed or cancelled, and so there were huge numbers of people just hanging around, waiting to find out where they were sleeping.
So this is the point where I start worrying about whether my flight to Copenhagen will actually leave tomorrow (because if it doesn't go, then I don't get to go to Paris :-/ ), a fear that's not helped by Danish-army-guy, who helpfully tells me that he was once stuck in Kangerlussuaq for 3 weeks because the weather was so bad. Um. Not. Helping. Thx. :/
Anyhoo, watched while the Copenhagen flight finally departed (like, 7 hours late), and had an informal town tour from Danish-army-guy, which was quite interesting. I was going to try and have a bit of a posh last-night-in-Greenland dinner at the hotel restaurant, but after seeing the prices (seriously, like, $70 for a main course), I thought I should go the more 'authentic' option and eat what everyone else was eating, which turned out to be a cheap meatloaf with potatoes from the cafeteria. It was much cheaper, but not particularly nice. And seriously, I will be so glad to never have to drink the coffee here again (that is, the plain coffee, not the ridiculously alcoholic Greenlandic Kaffee, which comes with like 3 shots in it,and which you can apparently set on fire, but which I couldn't seem to find anywhere. I think it's probably a homebrew thing).
Managed to get some internet access back at the hotel, which made me feel a lot less isolated, though most of the place was taken up by a Danish tour group having a slide show, and not letting anyone else into half of the communal areas, which was awesome. *sigh*
Mixed feelings about leaving Greenland, though. On one hand, it's a bit of a tough place to travel in, especially alone, as there's not much to do, so I'll be kind of glad to leave. But on the other hand, there's a lot I would have liked to see and do, and I would have liked to get more into the culture and meet more people (because all the ones I met were really nice). I think that I'll have to come back, for longer next time. But it'll definitely be in the summer. Because, seriously, in case I didn't mention it earlier, I am not good with snow. :)
Tues 20 October - Copenhagen
Bit of a boring day. Wandered around Kangerlussuaq for a couple of hours in the morning, before flying to Copenhagen. Luckily the flight was relatively on time, which meant that I could actually get into Copenhagen to my hostel, rather than forking out for an expensive airport hotel, which I would have had to do if we'd arrived at 1am, which the flights often do.
So, yeah, that was a relief.
The flight was rather boring (no real entertainment), so I spent most of it taking photos out of the windows, or watching videos on the ipod. It's odd, though, because any time I've flown on Air Greenland, I've been pretty much the only (non-Danish, at least) tourist on the flight, and apparently this is a bit of a source of curiosity, for some reason. People (like, Greenlandic people) keep asking me why I'd go to Greenland, as though they couldn't see any possible reason. *sigh*
Random thought: I'm never sure whether to ask Danish people whether they speak English, because of course they do (and I don't want to insult people by acting like they're uneducated or whatever), but I don't want to be one of those people who just ploughs ahead in English. It's just they always sound vaguely... not offended, but a bit perplexed, maybe, when I start with the whole "do you speak English" thing. [/deep thoughts]
Flickrz and stuff
Um, so, yeah. I'm sure you're all utterly riveted, but I'll try and post some more tonight, but I'm leaving for the middle east tomorrow and I should probably try and sleep at some point. :)
*feels like I've invited everyone to a boring slide night*
Um, hooray!
Or something.
You totally don't have to read it. :)
*wails at Danish keyboards with their crazy 'European' layout and stupid netbook laptps with too-small keyboards*
Bah.
Thurs 15 October - Ilulissat
So, after a stupidly long 22 hour flight yesterday, started off the day in omg-freezing Copenhagen, which felt odd because every time I've been here before it's been sweltering. Anyhoo, hopped on a flight to Greenland, which was pretty damn spectacular from above, at least, with all the icebergs and white rocky mountains and hundreds of kilometres of inland ice. 'Quick' (well, quick by Greenland standards) stopover in Kangerlussuaq (no, I can't pronounce it either, and every time I try, people just look at me strangely, so I have no idea what I'm actually saying!), where I nearly slipped over on the ice on the tarmac before I even made it inside the airport! A couple of hours (and some sort of mystery-meat roll... I don't want to think about it, kthx) later, caught one of those little propeller planes to Ilulissat, where there are lots of icebergs. Lots. I think they even named the town something to do with icebergs, but given how awful my Greenlandic is (even with the nicely phoenetic little phrasebook I have), I really am not qualified to say that for sure. *left the Lonely Planet at home, alas*
Went to check into the Youth Hostel, which is stupidly expensive as far as hostels go, but by far the cheapest place in town, and was told it had been closed because the water wasn't working, and would I like to check into this other (somewhat luxury and well out of the range of hotel I normally go for) hotel? Being utterly exhausted after what pretty much amounted to 36 hours of straight travel (with only a quick pitstop in Copenhagen), I stupidly said "sure!" and ended up at some hotel with awesome views but that meant I had a good 1.5km walk into town each day. Which would normally be fine, but, well, Greenland. With the no footpaths and maniac cars and snow that's been stomped into ice by everyone walking on it meaning that I'm likely to fall on my arse about 5 or 6 times on any given walk into town. Hilarious! (Though, in fairness, there were only a couple of times that I couldn't get up, which was hugely embarrassing, but at least I've become far more careful about walking in the snow!)
Having the afternoon free, I booked myself on an iceberg cruise, which, I'm told, is what one does when one is in Ilulissat. *nods sagely* Turns out there's a pretty damn good reason for that, with all the icebergs that have broken off the glacier (some stupid amount of ice, like, each day enough ice breaks off to supply New York with water for a year, or something [/trivia]).
But yeah. Basically it's all very pretty, and very cold, and even though I managed to see a few more recently killed seals than I would have liked, I also got to see two whales, which was pretty cool, given that they're not supposed to be around at this time of year. Hooray!
Unfortunately, though, arriving back at the hotel, I realised that I'd managed to drop the tip of my laptop charger that lets it plug into my Australian adaptors, meaning that I don't actually have a useable computer.
Like, for the whole trip. *has a crippling internet addiction, this is not okay, plzkthx*
Fri 16 October - Ilulissat
So apparently, a 13 hour time difference means that I get really sleepy at like 4pm every day and wake up bright and shiny at like 4am. Hilarious! At least there's not a lot to do in this place when you're not doing proper activities... (I say "not a lot", but what I mean is, there's like three shops and a supermarket, and they all open quite late and close quite early, and the streets are terrifying and slippery, and everything's obscenely expensive. *may have paid 45 dollars for dinner last night because there was literally nothing within a distance that I could be sure I wouldn't slip into a snow drift and die of exposure*
But yes. Today I totally went dogsledding. OMG. It was like top of my list, along with the Northern Lights, which I probably won't get to see, unfortunately, as apparently it's too close to the magnetic north pole here, and I only have one night in the place where you can most commonly see them.
Oh well. But yeah. The dogsledding was technically "pre-season", meaning that there isn't yet enough snow to do proper "smooth" dogsledding, so it was extremely bumpy and deeply terrifying, given that the entire safety system consisted of "hold onto this rope and try not to fall off when we go down this cliff". Exciting! *cough* But the dogs were so ridiculously cute, and looked so happy to be running, and now I totally want to buy a sledge for Mischka-the-hairy-hairy-husky so she can act like a real husky and carry the shopping home, or something.
Followed that up with a lunch at a relatively famous restaurant, where I made a point of trying (at least a bite of) one of everything on the buffet (er, it was a small buffet). I'm sure there were a few meats on there that I wouldn't have eaten if I'd known what they were, so it's probably best that I don't. Suffice to say I didn't really eat very much of it at all, in the end. *is not as adventurous as I think I am*
As there was nothing else to do for the rest of the day (damn you, Greenland!) I watched some of the sledge dogs for a while (there are like a few thousand of them around the town, which is absolutely brilliant at 2am when they decide to start barking) and then headed back to the hotel to sleep off the jetlag. Fascinating.
Random thought: it's totally not fair how people here manage to at once look nice and stay warm. For me, I really think that - on a good day - it's one or the other. Here, I'm totally going with the "warm" option. *apologises for ugly photos*
Sat 17 October - Ilulissat
OK, so before you judge me too harshly for today's activities, can I just point out that there's really very little to do here, outside of 'scheduled' activities (unless you want to go hiking, and given that I'm not the most confident hiker, and that I have zero experience in the snow, outside of a year 7 trip to Mt Buller, where I can only remember falling over a lot and not being able to stop on the skis). Also, that this is totally the low season - you apparently get heaps (er, on a Greenland scale) of people here during the summer, and a few during the winter, too. But autumn really is kind of dead.
So, before I left home, I'd looked up things to do in Ilulissat, and even though most of them weren't running at this time of year, there was one that I'd kind of thought was just a bit too extravagant (read: obscenely expensive), and as much as I wanted to do it, I decided against it.
But, when faced with the prospect of a whole day spent either doing a town walk (which, I suspect would have been quite slippery and not all that fascinating, given the size of the town), and doing the iceberg cruise again, I totally decided that my convictions about not paying a stupid amount of money for this activity were kind of baseless, given how far I'd come to get to Greenland in the first place.
So, yeah. Did I mention the part where I totally went in a helicopter? And flew along an icefiord? Because, yeah. OMG. Awesome.
No, rly. Helicopter! *is excited at new things*
So, we drove to the airport, then flew up over Ilulissat (and omg, the little colourful houses totally look like lego from above), then out over Disko Bay (again, not as much fun as the name suggests), then along the icefiord, where all the icebergs travel from the glacier out to sea - and omg, there are a lot of them, up to the glacier (which has now receded all the way to the inland ice, and can't go any further... yay, global warming :-/ ), we landed at (but not on) the glacier and walked around for a while, took lots of photos and stuff, and some people wandered right over to the edge of the rocky cliffs, while I, being fully aware of my utter inability to even walk on a snowy street, stayed well back and made full use of my telephoto lens :)
But yeah, so I didn't actually get a window seat for the flight back, which sucked (but was probably fair, or something. Bah), and we flew back along the icefiord and circled over the bay for a while to look at the icebergs, then landed back at the airport.
Did I mention that helicopters are awesome? I had to wear earmuff things to block out the sound! It was great!
Anyhoo, after that, I'd intended to spend the afternoon buying the souvenirs and stuff that I'd been eyeing off for the past few days, and not quite being able to justify buying. Alas, turns out that since it was after midday on a Saturday, everything was shut, and I couldn't buy them! Woe! Luckily, the guy at World of Greenland (who was running the helicopter flight thing) let me buy some stuff even though the shop was shut. I mean, if I couldn't spend money on souvenirs, how else do I prove that I've been here!? [/sarcasm]
Randomly, still trying to figure out how I feel about the large number of polar bear and narwhal carvings on sale here (though only to locals). I'm not sure whether they actively hunt them (though I suspect they kind of do, given how it's all spoken about here), and whether it's primarily for food (again, I suspect it probably is), and what I actually think about customs and tradition as a justification for hunting (very) endangered species. Hmm.
But yeah. So, having absolutely nothing left to do for the day, I headed back to the hotel for some lunch, and decided, rather bravely, if I do say so myself, to try the Greenlandic platter. Which was a plate of all sorts of 'delicacies', including salmon (which was quite nice), something that was probably halibut (which I had trouble with, given my dislike of raw white fish), a whole pile of rather soggy little shrimps, and two different types of rather black looking meat (I don't really want to know what they were, but I suspect they were some combination of whale (ugh), seal, or walrus), both of which were quite chewy and which I could only eat if I ate it with some of this rhubarby type thing that I think is called Angelica. Suffice to say, most of the plate was left unfinished, and I had to trundle down to the supermarket (which was thankfully still open) to buy something that I could actually eat for lunch!
Um.. Yeah. Authentic, I guess, at least. *sigh*
Sun 18 October - Aasiaat
Having forgotten to ask for the packed breakfast that I am apparently entitled to from the hotel if I'm leaving early (yay for posh hotels, sometimes), I'd kind of thought that, if nothing else, the promised ride to the docks at 6.30am would go as planned. But, as this place apparently operates on what I like to think of as 'island time', it turns out that the person who was to drive us (there were like 5 people needing a lift), was sick and hadn't called anyone to tell them. So we ended up getting a taxi, and totally missing the supposed 6.30 deadline to catch the 7 o'clock boat.
Turns out they really couldn't care less, and were still letting people on right up until departure. In one case, they couldn't even find this guy's reservation, and still just shrugged and let him on. I do enjoy how laid back things are here, except when I'm stressing about not missing the only boat for a week!
But yeah. It was still dark when the boat set off, and so it took me a little while to figure out that the big dark silhouettes we were passing weren't actually distant mountains, but rather much closer icebergs. Frankly, at the speed the ferry was going, it was all a little too 'Titanic' for my tastes.
Anyhoo, spent the trip watching Torchwood episodes on the iPod and chatting to some American guy who'd come over for work, and it had taken him 8 days to get to the place he needed to go, because of the boat and plane schedules, where things only run once a week. Awesome.
But yeah. Arrived in Aasiaat, and was pleasantly surprised by a truck from my hotel that was waiting for us, meaning that I didn't have to walk in the snow with my backpack (something I was a bit worried about, in case I fell over and couldn't get back up. Which may or may not be a real concern in these parts... for me, at least... *whistles*)
So, when I'd mentioned to anyone in Ilulissat that I was going to Aasiaat, they'd all given me this odd look and said something along the lines of "Really? Aasiaat? Why? Do you, like, know people there?" Turns out there's quite a good reason for this, as even though it's quite a large town, and has schools and shops and stuff (er, all of which are closed on Sundays, turns out), there's really not much else, and definitely nothing for tourists to do. I should have probably had some sort of alarm bells when the tourist office didn't even answer my emails. *sigh*
Oh well. Anyway, wandered down to the supermarket, trying to buy an adaptor for my stupid laptop (*smashes it*) so that I could use the internet, or even just the computer itself (though, luckily, the television here was slightly better than the ONE channel (in Danish, with Greenlandic subtitles, and with maybe the occasional english language episode of Columbo from 1987) that was available in Ilulissat, so I managed a bit better on the entertainment side of things. They totally showed Battlestar Galactica (which I tried not to watch too closely, because I didn't want to spoil myself too badly!)
But yeah. Turned out the supermarket was open, though the electronics section of it was shut. Awesome. So I bought some chocolate and went back to the hotel to watch the rest of the science fiction marathon on TV.
Also discovered that the hotel, called the Seamen's Home, and advertised as a simple, no frills place to stay that's clean and close to the harbour, is actually heavily Christian, and has some sort of 'mission' to spread the bible or something. Awesome. :-/
Random trivia: The town's name, 'Aasiaat', translates as 'spiders', though nobody's sure why the town's called that, as there aren't any spiders there today. This amuses me, for some reason. :)
Mon 19 October - Kangerlussuaq
So, after a rather scary drive to the airport, I caught an early flight to Kangerlussuaq, which is pretty much the main airport hub in Greenland, and the only place that international flights go. Also, the only inland town in the whole of Greenland. *is enjoying the lack of liquid restrictions on internal flights around Greenland*
Anyway, the flight thankfully arrived on time (which is actually quite unusual around here), and I managed to book myself on the very-soon-to-depart excursion to the inland icecap.
So there was pretty much just me and this Danish/Greenlandic family, the father of which was some crazily military type, who knew such a ridiculous amount about Greenland and particularly this area, which used to be a US military base, that he was acting as my unofficial guide. Which was awesome, as the commentary on the excursion was all in Danish, so I had no hope of understanding it!
But yeah, so I got to find out all about the history of the US military base, and the role it played in all the wars and stuff, and how it used to be totally secret, so that they had to put up fences and all sorts of things to hide the military base from the civilian airport that was just on the other side of the mountains. Madness.
Also found out that this dude totally did that Sirius expedition, where (a few, select) people spend a whole winter dogsledding across northern Greenland, and which is - to put it mildly - kinda hardcore. Refreshing, then, that he said that he thought Australia was a more dangerous landscape than Greenland. I guess it's what you're used to!
So yeah. That was entertaining.
Anyhoo, the excursion was in this big overland truck and it took about three hours along rough roads (the only long roads in Greenland, actually), through this utterly alien-looking landscape, to reach the icecap. Because it was so cold outside, we were sealed in this truck, and I totally felt like I was in that Midnight episode of Doctor Who. Except for the part where this truck had, like, windows and stuff. And, y'know, the lack of DOOM. :P
According to my aunt, who'd been there a year or so ago, you used to be able to drive right up to the ice cap and walk on it. But apparently a whole section of the road had collapsed into this ravine, so instead, we all got out of the truck and walked along this (very narrow, icy and gravelly) ridge - the one that had collapsed into the ravine - to look at the ice cap. Except that, as I've mentioned, I'm not very good with snow and stuff, so it was deeply terrifying, as there was a steep slope on one side, and a big effing cliff on the other (the driver was just like "well, if you fall, try to fall in that direction", pointing to the steep slope covered in snow and rocks), not to mention the ridiculously strong arctic winds blowing off the ice cap. Awesome. Er, I mean effing terrifying.
Gah.
Needless to say, I only made it about a third of the way along the ridge before turning back (I'm not sure whether it's better or worse for my ego that one of the very young children was also scared and had to turn back), and I decided to "observe" the ice cap from a safer distance, near the truck.
It was pretty awesome, actually. Like, these enormous cliffs made of ice and snow (like, not ice-as-in-icebergs, but actually big crystal-looking ice cliffs) and all cracked and jagged, with these absolutely freezing winds blowing off it. Did I mention the winds? Freezing!
On the way back, the weather turned insane, like, within half an hour, and there was just a crazy amount of snow and you couldn't see more than about 10 metres. Madness. When we got back to the airport, it turned out that practically every plane was delayed or cancelled, and so there were huge numbers of people just hanging around, waiting to find out where they were sleeping.
So this is the point where I start worrying about whether my flight to Copenhagen will actually leave tomorrow (because if it doesn't go, then I don't get to go to Paris :-/ ), a fear that's not helped by Danish-army-guy, who helpfully tells me that he was once stuck in Kangerlussuaq for 3 weeks because the weather was so bad. Um. Not. Helping. Thx. :/
Anyhoo, watched while the Copenhagen flight finally departed (like, 7 hours late), and had an informal town tour from Danish-army-guy, which was quite interesting. I was going to try and have a bit of a posh last-night-in-Greenland dinner at the hotel restaurant, but after seeing the prices (seriously, like, $70 for a main course), I thought I should go the more 'authentic' option and eat what everyone else was eating, which turned out to be a cheap meatloaf with potatoes from the cafeteria. It was much cheaper, but not particularly nice. And seriously, I will be so glad to never have to drink the coffee here again (that is, the plain coffee, not the ridiculously alcoholic Greenlandic Kaffee, which comes with like 3 shots in it,and which you can apparently set on fire, but which I couldn't seem to find anywhere. I think it's probably a homebrew thing).
Managed to get some internet access back at the hotel, which made me feel a lot less isolated, though most of the place was taken up by a Danish tour group having a slide show, and not letting anyone else into half of the communal areas, which was awesome. *sigh*
Mixed feelings about leaving Greenland, though. On one hand, it's a bit of a tough place to travel in, especially alone, as there's not much to do, so I'll be kind of glad to leave. But on the other hand, there's a lot I would have liked to see and do, and I would have liked to get more into the culture and meet more people (because all the ones I met were really nice). I think that I'll have to come back, for longer next time. But it'll definitely be in the summer. Because, seriously, in case I didn't mention it earlier, I am not good with snow. :)
Tues 20 October - Copenhagen
Bit of a boring day. Wandered around Kangerlussuaq for a couple of hours in the morning, before flying to Copenhagen. Luckily the flight was relatively on time, which meant that I could actually get into Copenhagen to my hostel, rather than forking out for an expensive airport hotel, which I would have had to do if we'd arrived at 1am, which the flights often do.
So, yeah, that was a relief.
The flight was rather boring (no real entertainment), so I spent most of it taking photos out of the windows, or watching videos on the ipod. It's odd, though, because any time I've flown on Air Greenland, I've been pretty much the only (non-Danish, at least) tourist on the flight, and apparently this is a bit of a source of curiosity, for some reason. People (like, Greenlandic people) keep asking me why I'd go to Greenland, as though they couldn't see any possible reason. *sigh*
Random thought: I'm never sure whether to ask Danish people whether they speak English, because of course they do (and I don't want to insult people by acting like they're uneducated or whatever), but I don't want to be one of those people who just ploughs ahead in English. It's just they always sound vaguely... not offended, but a bit perplexed, maybe, when I start with the whole "do you speak English" thing. [/deep thoughts]
Flickrz and stuff
Um, so, yeah. I'm sure you're all utterly riveted, but I'll try and post some more tonight, but I'm leaving for the middle east tomorrow and I should probably try and sleep at some point. :)
*feels like I've invited everyone to a boring slide night*
Um, hooray!