6/10/2012- Nightlife (Nuuk, Greenland)

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to go out and experience the nightlife of Greenland firsthand.

…boy, that was NOT what I was expecting.

I’d been told before arriving in Nuuk that Greenland has an alcohol issue, stemming from fairly recent cultural shifts which changed family and power dynamics. I’d assumed this would mean that I would experience something along the lines of Adams Morgan in DC on a Thursday night—lots of laughing, drunk youths stumbling around from bar to bar.

My first week here, I was warned again against going into the bars. I was told that if I were to go in I wouldn’t be in danger necessarily, but would be harassed by many drunk older men. As I had been asked to go out with a Greenlandic girl from Ilulissat, Ivalu, I felt relatively safe—she was from Nuuk originally, and we were meeting up with her friends, so it was worth seeing what the nightlife was all about. After getting back from the pool (yup, did not think I would be swimming twice in two and a half weeks in Iceland and Greenland after once in two years living in the US) and having some coffee, we took off for the strip of bars in downtown Nuuk at 12:30am (which apparently is early to start the night—despite the bars closing at 3—and the sun just having ‘gone down’ for its three hour below-the-horizon dip, leaving essential daylight behind still).

The first bar, a long yellow building next to the grocery stores and hotel on the main street, had three or four rooms in it which were packed to the brim. We checked our coats there for the evening as it was more than warm enough even during the ‘night’ to walk around without a jacket. The first room was similar to an American bar, with lots of booths and tables and chairs, and a large bar lining the back wall. It was fairly crowded already, and the majority of people were already fairly sloshed. We sat in a corner near the bar with Ivalu’s old boss and three of his friends—all older gentlemen who spoke little English, argued about who was the most perverted, and made lewd comments about the girls around. Despite this they were nice guys, buying me a drink (which I promptly chugged down to feel more comfortable) and trying to ask about my work. After a bit we wandered into the next room, which had a dance floor and very American music playing, with the floor crowded full with drunk people of all ages, both Greenlandic and Danish. At this point I looked around, intrigued by the mix—not only was the crowd spread equally in age from about 16 to 80 and from both ethnicities, but the dress of the people was astounding. I saw everything from a t-shirt and jeans to miniskirts and tube tops to prom dresses (and I’m not kidding or exaggerating on this last one—I saw two girls in sorter prom gowns and one in a long version).

At this point I’d been groped by passerbys about ten or so times, and had a drunk boy grab my arm trying to drag me to the dance floor as his girlfriend yelled at him, before handing me his beer. As we made our way across the street to another set of bars (a karaoke in one, again with terrible American music; a concert in another which you had to pay to get into; and band in the last which sang an extremely odd mix of old American music including what I think was supposed to be Mambo #5 with only knowing the chorus and mumbling during the rest while everyone formed a sort of mosh pit), I decided that there was no way I was remotely prepared to drink in a scene like this without getting killed or ending up sleeping in a gutter, so stuck to following Ivalu around while watching everyone.

Every few feet she’d let out a ‘what the fuckkkk’ and hug another person, who she knew from growing up in Nuuk—and we’d chat with them for a bit.

Trying to avoid the need to have people speak in English for my benefit I would try and give space to the friends, which worked well when I heard New Zealand accented English come from a man standing next to one of the guys she was talking to. Quickly I started a conversation with the man, who actually was German but had lived in New Zealand for a few years before moving to Nuuk while working for Air Greenland. Excited to find another foreigner, though admittedly not from my country (there are only two Americans living in Nuuk that anyone can remember—an older gentleman and a ‘pianist named Jim’ who everyone seems to know but can identify nothing about besides the fact that he is, in fact, American. And a pianist. From America. Named Jim. So I doubted very much I’d run into anyone outside the Danes), I spoke to him for a while before he headed out with some friends. I found Ivalu and we met up with some more of her friends, and luck with me, there was a man there from the UK who worked for the European Union looking into Arctic policies, and was extremely excited to find a place which was ‘very much like a pub at home!’ (which he repeated quite a bit). As we spoke a Greenlander plopped down next to me with beers, hit the top of one, and demanded I drink it down. After a few pathetic sips and much laughter, he showed us his tattoos—which were representative of Greenland, and the folklore that he believed in, including the Maiden in the Sea and an outline of the country.

It wasn’t until a drunk (and that’s putting it lightly) younger man literally fell on top of the table and spilled beer everywhere that I got up and wandered outside, where it seemed there were hundreds of Greenlanders smoking and throwing bottles at the street. I’d spent the past few hours literally needing to push people to move, so it was nice when I was able to get off the patio and into the street, though glass crunched unhappily beneath my feet with each step. Drenched in beer and exhausted, I called Ivalu and she came out so we could go back to the first bar and get our coats (it was now about 3am, so the music was shut off and bouncers stood outside with plastic cups to force people to put their drinks into when they went to the streets, as you can drink anywhere in Nuuk aside from a block or two in the city center and they didn’t want more broken glass everywhere). She was able to get in the first door as three boys followed her and grabbed her, but the bouncer told me I wasn’t allowed in, and that I’d need to find another entrance to the bar to get my coat. Intimidated by the sight outside of hundreds if not thousands of drunken Greenlanders throwing bottles around, I made my way to another door, where I was able to retrieve my coat—and then we were stuck as the bouncer at the door had to go break up a fight, so you couldn’t exit the building without his key (talk about a fire hazard).

Eventually I said goodnight to Ivalu and made my way out at about 330am, weaving through taxis and bottles up to the mountain split that separates town from the residential areas that I live in. There, I came across the most beautiful sight I have seen in years, if ever.

Through the mountain split I saw the sun rising on a crimson sky, the colorful houses at the base partially clouded in a low mist, with the cloud cover low itself, framing the snowy mountain behind the houses and the ground with the sunrise and its colors between. Behind me a few drunk teens laughed and fell over as taxis rushed by through the split, unaware of the sight before them.