Northern Lights (Nuuk, Greenland)

23:42.

The clock blinked, signaling another minute closer to midnight—another minute closer to turning a quarter century old. I sank lower in the Ikea-imitation blue couch provided in my apartment when I moved to the country, semi-entranced by the fact that for the first time in months, it was actually dark outside the nearby glass doors. I’d gotten so used to the sun barely dipping below the horizon during the arctic summer that when the sky turned to darker shades of blue instead of bright hues of red at the deepest hours of night, I felt a bit of fear within my soul that reminded me of being afraid of the dark as a child. How the Greenlanders made it the reverse, the months without seeing the sun, was a mystery to me despite having friends and coworkers try to explain the psychology behind it.

23:51.

The bottle of champagne I had been given at breakfast had been shared with the office and finished off before the noon hour hit. With the price of alcohol sky high even compared to where I had been living in Washington, D.C. and with the only other American in the city, Sarah, in one of the northern cities for work, I could not justify buying a bottle of wine for myself. Instead I sipped on boxed milk and gnawed on an apple flown in from abroad, and wondered idly if the couple who were couch surfing at my apartment would be back before I went to bed from their excursion to experience the nightlife of one of the northernmost capitals in the world.

It had hit me that, like most other places I had lived or traveled abroad, you don’t really have time to reflect or appreciate what you’re living until you’re back at your ‘home base’ and can compare it to what you have in front of you. Again, the surreal nature of living and working in Greenland seemed more than I could put into words or even a coherent thought process—I had walked through a mountain to get to work every morning, had seen a lady wearing an 80's prom dress while dancing and singing in broken English to Mambo No. 5 at the bar, had watched whales swim by my office while working on tax data. Until you leave the aura of uncertainty and the new, you cannot fully synthesize and break it down into understanding—just collect more ‘data’ for use later.

These images slowly, quickly passed through my mind as I watched the clock. The luck and experiences I had both worked hard for and been blessed with over the past years weighed heavy on my mind, though I couldn't put a finger on what emotion I was feeling. Apprehension for the coming months of leaving Greenland, backpacking through Europe and returning to the US unemployed perhaps, or just the gravity of the last few months and trying to make sense of something that made none.

23:58, 23:59.

I raised the glass of milk to the black television in a salute. From outside in the distance I heard some slight commotion, and seconds later a loud banging on the apartment door behind me. Josh and Laura came barreling into the common area, and wordlessly Josh had thrown open the door to the porch and jumped outside. Noticing me out of the corner of her eye staring blankly at the two excitable Canadians; Laura, half short of breath from racing up the stairs, said I need to get outside that second, right now, they were here.

The realization of what she meant and the hope I hadn’t misunderstood her melded into one as I leapt from the couch and briskly walked to the door, stopping only to turn around my first step outside and note in an ironic disbelief that, despite this being reality (or some variation thereof, Greenland tends to make you question that), the clock had just with my eyes on it, turned to midnight—it was my 25^th birthday, the same second as I first saw it. 

Above us, in a very faint green hue, were the Northern Lights dancing in the sky.

There was little to say in those first few minutes. Josh kept repeating the word ‘amazing’, Laura said a number of soft ‘oh, my God’s, and I’m sure I let out a few sighs of disbelief with ‘wows’ of my own. On the rocks below us some locals had stopped to watch the lights as well, and I noticed in the far distance that a car had even stopped in the road for the passengers to get out and watch the sky. Tourist, transient, and locals alike were frozen with our eyes to the sky, all resolved to speechless and smiling humans, watching something beyond our comprehension.

Even knowing the science behind them, the reaction that people have experiencing them cannot be explained.

After a while, Laura began to snap photographs and Josh took off to the nearby rock face to try and get a better vantage point. I watched the lights and recalled back to my few weeks in Denmark, when I had provided voice for one of the short promotional videos for Greenland—a two minute spot showcasing the Northern Lights, with my voice providing the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ when the camera spanned upwards to the glowing green sky. I had felt silly sitting in a windowless white room in (hot) central Copenhagen with an Australian-Danish producer, shoving a fluffy microphone into my mouth and mimicking for me to sound more excited, be more audible. After all, I was ‘seeing the walruses play football in the sky from a cabin in Kangerlussuaq with the Inuit people hosting me’, not sweating in a cosmopolitan European capital city trying to block out the sound of construction equipment building a bridge across the harbor outside. When the spot had been developed and sent to our office as a test run a few months later, I was already in Greenland and felt foolish when I heard myself. It worked for the video perhaps, but my voice had always sounded forced or odd to me in that clip.

It wasn't until those minutes standing outside with only the sound of Laura’s camera snapping beside me and a far off Josh’s loud and constant exclamations that I understood, even then, that experiencing something like this couldn't be faked. The soft, breathless sighs from my couch surfers next to me on the porch earlier seemed so much more full of life and understanding than my terse ‘it’s so beautiful’ in the video.

To this day I don’t know why I became (and still am) obsessed with the Northern Lights. Until my last day in Greenland I would sit outside from midnight on during any clear nights, hoping to catch a glimpse of the increasingly brighter green through the wisps of clouds. I even slept in the living room of the apartment with all the blinds drawn so I could watch the sky as I slept through the glass doors, and wake up from dreams of the lights to seeing them softly turning above me.

Even now, nearly a year later and living in one of the world’s capitals, I dream of them above me; of glancing up above, only to notice that the sky was on fire.

-View from my apartment in early September 2012

9/27/2012- The Concept of Time while Traveling (Copenhagen, Denmark)

The concept of time is always fleeting to travelers—where any time spent ‘away’ seems both like it was an eternity ago that they stepped out their door, and just yesterday, a cliché to be sure. And yet; yet it’s so completely and absolutely true. So long ago I sat atop the mountains above the Ilulissat Icefjord, falling asleep to the gentle sounds of calving ice and powerful waves; how short a time ago I worked in the Copenhagen office above Noma, savoring the scents of the world’s top ranked restaurant and laughing at their staff’s choice in prep music. I haven’t been in a town with more than 15,000 people in four months; yet having seen that many from my current bench in Hejbro Plads over the last half hour seems as natural and daily to me as seeing perhaps 75 people a day while in Kulusuk. Greenland was, and is, both yesterday and forever ago; both comforting and frightening me. It’s comparable to a dream perhaps; when you wake it’s truth—no going back.

I just hope it doesn’t fade in time as well. 

                                                                 

                                                     *Just outside my office in Copenhagen, a floor above Noma 

9/27/2012- Reflecting on the Definition of Peace (Copenhagen, Denmark)

The definition of peace. Should be simply—I’ve lived it the last four months. Nothing says peace more than the absolute silence which stems from being in Kangerlussuaq after the Copenhagen flight for the day leaves—being in a fjord, mountains on all sides, no more than 400 people living in town all inside, the midnight sun softly cast down. I knew leaving there I was going to back to a different world; trading snowcapped mountains and only hearing your breath & the wind & the water for the commotion and bustle of crowds and traffic in both Copenhagen and all else.

                -and yet-

-seeing the first city lights below our plane was strange as seeing the vastness of nothing, but-

-walking and driving through Christianshavn stuck in traffic with Malik was unnerving, yet-

-sitting now in one of the city Plads, watching as more people pass by in ten minutes than are in half the country I’ve been living, hearing different languages and cars across cobblestone than a flute bard, smelling not the nothingness in Greenland I’ve become accustomed to but garbage and crisp leaves, sweat and caramelized almonds; but-

-but with the warm air on my neck a sensory overload lashing at me, and jet lag fighting at my head-

                                                             -and yet this is peace, in its own way. 

8/20/2012- Hardest Part of Living Abroad (Nuuk, Greenland)

In 2007 before I boarded the MV Explorer and embarked on Semester at Sea, I made an agreement with my family; if anything were to happen to anyone, under no circumstances was I to leave or return home. Although unspoken, each of us knew that it was in reference to my grandfather, who had been suffering from Parkinson's for years and had come to the edge of death a number of times. How would it be when that time came?, I wondered as I boarded. Would it come? Would I keep my word or want to be there for my family?

Throughout the subsequent months I faced these moral questions in a number of forums, though luckily never outright. A cliche'd cry on the top deck during a storm after discovering a friend's father had passed and receiving a call from my mother that dropped and having to wait ten minutes in silence at 2am knowing someone had died and not whom were two of the most poignant (it was our dog, Sailor, in the second). However none were as moving as a story went around the ship during the voyage-that a girl had found out only a week into the journey that her brother had been killed in an automobile accident, and although she returned home for the funeral, her family pushed her to fly to the next port and meet the ship, continuing her journey in her brother's memory. It wasn't until one of the final nights that this story hit home for everyone; the majority of the ship gathered for kareoke in the main hall, and she stood up to tell her story and sing 'You Raise Me Up' in front of the entire ship. Not a dry eye in the house became a literal expression that night, not just a saying.

Given the buildup five years ago and how much I had come to prepare myself and expect the inevitable death of my grandfather while abroad on the Explorer, it came as a glancing blow yesterday morning when, upon waking up at 0645 to speak to a friend overseas, I logged onto Facebook and saw a single note from one of my uncles:

sends heartfelt sympathies out to the Paterson clan....we'll miss you Mampa.....:(

I blinked a few times, staring at the screen. There was a confusion; Mampa? Paterson clan? That was my grandfather, of course, but...

Oh, he must have passed away last night, my mind calmly replied. You should probably text your mother, or is calling better? Does she know? If she doesn't how is it best to break the news? He wouldn't put it online unless he was sure, I suppose. I should log onto the Air Greenland site and see if there are any flights which would get me back to the US in the next few days; I don't think the Reyjkavik flights leave for another few days though, so will probably need to look into going back to Copenhagen then Boston? Do they have direct flights on that route? Do I have enough money to buy a ticket in my account, or should I contact Dad first to see? I really should call Mom...

I texted my mother with a simple 'I love you' to see if she was awake, or if she knew. Moments later she called my US phone, and I answered as best I knew how; instead of a hello, with love, and an awkward 'how are you' which was responded to with a like 'Im alright' or something equally false and devoid. In that second we each knew the other was aware of what had transpired, and fell into tears of emotion from saying it (in my case) for the first time.

After assuring her I was fine (damning the fact that no matter how calm I actually am and how accepting of something I can be inside, I still cry when saying things for the first time, which did nothing except to worry her) I promised to try and get ahold of Lee, who was refusing to answer his US phone and had not yet given anyone his Australian phone number so that she could try to sleep a few more hours.

The next few hours were a whirlwind; getting ahold of Lee online and needing to tell him through Gchat (still better than Facebook?), speaking to my father about how Mom would handle everything, fielding two more calls from my grandmother and mother later in the day, writing an email to them about my favorite memory of Mampa, and taking a few trips into town to get air and walk all blended together as the hours stretched on.

I thought back, once again and so many times, to the conversation I'd had with all of them five and a half years ago; that no matter what happened, where I was, how bad it could be, that I would not come home. The circumstances were different now; I wasn't in the middle of the ocean or enrolled in classes this time around, for one. Lee is living in Australia now, meaning that Mom needs to handle this without either of her children even in the same country. Despite my grandmother's initial comment to me that I'd 'better damn well not even think about coming back for the funeral' when she picked up the phone, all of this ran though my head.

In the final call of the night, Mom repeatedly asked me if I was okay, being alone in a foreign country dealing with everything. Despite my trying, it was impossible to reassure her that I was really okay; that it comes almost as a comfort knowing he's passed on after fighting so hard for so long against a disease for which there is no cure. He beat the odds so many times that having Mampa around this long is a miracle in itself. That after a few seconds of the initial emotional outburst of losing the only grandfather I ever knew, all that was on my mind was concern for THEM, for my family, when I couldn't be there for them and to be a rock.

The hardest part about losing someone you love while being so far from home isn't being alone, or not being there. It's not being able to be there for your family, at least for me. Knowing that even if I were to return it would be over $2500 for plane tickets, require me to have the very least two to three layovers (there are no Iceland or Canada flights left before the funeral as they run from Nuuk only twice a week, and no direct flights to the US, so it would need to be through Kangerlussuaq and Copenhagen) and take me at least 24 hours (though days is a better estimate).

It comes down to trust; trusting that my family will be there for my grandmother and for my mother when I cannot be.

I suppose this is the hardest part about living abroad...

8/7/2012- Defining Home (Tasiilaq, East Greenland)

Home…

                The hardest question I’ve been asked living in Greenland is the one everyone first asks— “where is home for you?”

Luckily the Danish to English translation puts it is ‘where are you from’, which is easier to answer, though not by much. Were I to give the long answer to a non-American—I was born in Connecticut (then have to clarify by saying the area between New York and Boston when the inevitable blank stares follow), moved to Washington, DC for university and the first few years of my career, moved to Copenhagen, Denmark for work in April and now am residing in Nuuk—they would be confused.

However, this discounts a few facts; namely, that I’ve lived in Virginia the past 3 years, and DC the 2 before that. That even my permanent residence is a big question mark—with my passport based in and my mail forwarded to my parents’ address in Connecticut, my driver’s license and voter registration at an occupied house I once rented in Virginia, and my visa paperwork for Greenland and Denmark claiming I reside at my work address in Nuuk, there is no actual legal answer.

While traveling in Greenland, I answer that my home is in Nuuk, as that lends credibility to my working for another country’s representation, particularly while surveying visitors from around the world who may not be as open to Americans representing another country’s boards and interests. Technically, this is true, as I am paying taxes built into my salary here and have a residence within the city.

Home, though, to me? Home is tangible. If I had to choose a place, it would be DC and the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area as a whole as it is where my friends are. Yet, at least for now, home is in the Arctic where I don’t speak the official language and my residence card is still held up by embassy paperwork. 

-Small house in Tasiilaq, East Greenland

8/01/2012- Failed Attempt to Fly (Kulusuk?, Greenland)

Greenland is dictated by the weather—and in over two months living here, I have seen many examples of this firsthand. Sure, you can cite examples of going on the sledges when the ice is thickest or good shipments to the settlements and towns being contingent on the ice situation in the fjords. Even working in tourism it's evident as there are a lot of peoblems with operators cancelling excursions on days with good fishing, or cruise ships changing calls or berthing due to icebergs in the harbors year round.

So I'm writing this, not surprised in the least, on a flight from Kulusuk in East Greenland to Nuuk—except we left Nuuk at 0600 this morning.

After waking up at 0430 to be at the airport by 0515 to check into my flight (without even needing to show an ID or receipt to get my boarding pass this time, just provide my name), taking off at 0600 and arriving to the edge of the east coast by 0730, the 20 of so of us on the flight realized the odds were not in our favor. As we descended below the cloud cover and East Greenland's signature snowcapped mountains came into view, so did a solid layer of white fog just below the peaks. Although a stunning visual to see mountains fighting through a flowing sea of white, it did not bode well for landing.

As expected, the pilot announced a few minutes later (although I'm not sure why he didn't simply turn around and tell us as the door to the cockpit had been open the entire flight) to tell us in Greenlandic and Danish (and a quick version in English after the flight attendent made note there was an 'English talker' onboard) that we were in (admittedly the world's most beautiful) holding pattern.

((Yes, I just broke the world record for using the most parenthesis in a single sentence))

The calm I was feeling promptly broke when, a moment later, the pilot told us 'we are going to try and land through it, and will pull up if we see something that shouldn't be there' and put he wheels of our Dash-8 down. All the while, we couldn't see more than five feet through the fog.

At this point I should mention that just this week I sat in on an interview a German journalist was conducting with an Air Greenland pilot—who did not seem to grasp the idea of too much information and happily told us not only about why there had been accidents in the past, but how he 'longed for a challenge while flying' because the routes here apparently bore the pilots. The comments seemed amusing at the time—but not while attempting to land in no visibility while replaying his comments about landing in no visibility in Greenland being vastly more difficult than anywhere else in the world as the angles and mountains leave a smaller margin of error than the instruments allow for.

Luckily (though not so much for my nerves and stomach), the pilots decided last second to pull up hard, giving me a great sideways view of a mountaintop. They then let us know they weren't going to try again and that we needed to go to the nearest airport in the country with an airstrip to land—which happened to be back to Nuuk, on the other side of the country, as all other towns and settlements on the east coast only have heliports.

Strangely (to me as an American), the 20 or so other passengers (17 native Greenlandic and a 3 person Danish party) all smiled and laughed, before simply asking the flight attendent for more coffee. She wasn't asked about alternate flights or times or compensation—and she seemed genuinely surprised when I asked her how often our flight ran weeky (twice). 'They'll arrange something for you all; maybe tonight, or tomorrow possibly' she said calmly before walking back to the front to take pictures out one of the windows herself.

*

After landing two hours later, I was informed by the agents at the desk that they would call me at 1900 that night and they had booked me a hotel, sending me on my way back to my apartment in a taxi (with, I kid you not, a piece of paper from the airline to give to the driver saying 'we owe you ___' for him to fill in later and collect from them) after finding out I lived in Nuuk. Hours later, I got a call from operations letting me know they couldn't arrange another flight until Friday morning—two days after my original flight.

That flight, however, made it in record time.  

7/11/2012- 'Nothing More than an Airport' (Kangerlussuaq, Greenland)

Much like coming into Kulusuk back in May, flying into Kangerlussuaq through bad weather in our bright red Dash 8 Air Greenland plane was a feast for the eyes.

After leaving Nuuk (no wrong boarding passes or security this time—in fact, no ID check or security at all, just me handing them a receipt and them handing me a pass to get on the plane and choose a seat) and getting above the clouds which had been causing major storms for days, the flight passed quickly. After less than an hour seeing nothing but white, we dipped below the grey and were treated with our first views above the arctic circle and of a landscape vastly different from what was seen either in East Greenland or the Capital Region. Immediately below us was a snaking river through green mountains, followed by glowing blue glacial water feeding off a glacier and ice cap through the fjord. The plane banked and we seemingly fell downwards towards the glacier, making me realize why so many people spent large sums of money to take helicopter or small plane tours of the area.

Kangerlussuaq is the former Sondrestrom US Air Force Base from World War II. It's built in an estuary and has steep mountains on either side, and is divided by the airport and runway running parallel the two mountians in the middle. This means that you will either be on one side of the runway (with the airport itself, the main hotel, and the two hostels I'm residing in) or the other (with the post office and grocery store, or the other side with residential housing, the sled dog kennel, and the old air force base equipment and buildings), with no way to cross unless you go all the way around.

After arriving and putting my things into a hostel near to the airport owned by World of Greenland (a tour agency), I went to the store for food and settled into the airport in hopes of getting one or two surveys to start the trip off on a good note. As my job the five days in Kangerlussuaq was to survey visitors (both land and cruise based) to assess a number of things for the strategic plan, I would be based at the airport for the time there in order to try and catch people are they were leaving the country; as Kangerlussuaq is the only airport in the country which can accommodate jets, it's the only airport which has flights into Copenhagen. The airport at Kangerlussuaq is made up of the main room with two gates (one for domestic flights that you simply walk onto the tarmac and onto your flight from, and one for Copenhagen flights that contains security, duty free, and a separate sitting area), the entrance to Hotel Kangerlussuaq in the middle room with couches for waiting guests, and a cafeteria on the other end.

Almost immediately I noticed that the only flight left for the day was a delayed flight to Sisimiut, and there were only perhaps ten people heading to that destination. All appeared to be local (thus could not participate in the survey) except one; a bored looking man who took me up on my offer for a beer and survey to pass the time until his late flight would leave. Although the bar wasn'et yet open we sat in the cafeteria, and he spent a good hour talking to me about his life in Lithuania and his obsession with fly fishing, which had brought him to Greenland as a chartered guide for other Europeans.

By the time we were finished speaking the flight was soon to leave and the airport empty. I decided to go on a long walk down to the other side of town, and meandered down the sandy edge of the estuary past the abandoned military buildings and signs warning of arrest if one were to pass. I stopped for a bit by the water's edge; around me was beige sand, purple flowers jutting between white cotton grass and green mountains, with a gray river of glacial water rushing before me. Colors beyond anything I would see at home, let alone what I would expect to see in Greenland, surrounded me.

For a while there laying in the sand with the midnight sun beating down on me, I pondered reality—I kept saying to myself aloud, 'this cannot be real. This is not reality', and in fact, it seemed as though it could not be. Everything looked just like a painting rather than scenery, in ways that I cannot describe them because they would simply seem fake or false.

The next morning I awoke early and began talking to guests, gaining a few interesting conversations and a notice from Jørgen at World of Greenland to be awake early and meet with the company on the other side of town where they would be bringing the guests from the Fram ship of Hurtigruten, which would end their voyage that morning and would be waiting until their flight at 2100. When I arrived the next day I met with Sofia, a woman from Grenada, Spain who had recently moved to Greenland with her Danish husband, who was a tour guide with WoG. After enjoying a cup of coffee the busses started to arrive, filled to the brim with older Northern European guests off the Fram who looked exhausted and not at all thrilled to then sit in a modified old set of barracks for more than twelve hours with only a few tours running.

As the time passed and the guests got more bored, they began to catch my eye and speak English (despite an hour or so before when they claimed they spoke none). By the end of the day, nine hours later, I'd spoken with twelve couples/individuals about their time in Greenland, and was invited to join the group at a barbeque at Restaurant Roklubben, a restarurant a few kilometers from the airport in the moutains, at the head of Lake Fergusson, where Kangerlussuaq gets its water supply from. After enjoying some reindeer and musk ox, I heard American English coming from the dock outside and followed it down to meet six scientists from the US. I had a beer with them and caught a ride back in their work van, enjoying being around people my age who spoke my language who were also living far from home.

The next day I again woke early to speak to guests off the ship Clipper Adventurer, contracted by the Danish company Albatross Travel. I spoke for a while with a travel agent off the ship who refused to do a survey—however overhearing us and then asking if I would interview her was a 92 year old grandmother, who was wheelchair bound. Surprised, I sat on the gravel next to her chair as she talked happily to me about her trip and reasons for coming. Goosebumps appeared on my arm as she told me outright she didn't have many years left or long to live, so she sold her flat and wanted to spend all her money before she died by traveling with her family to places she wanted to go and wanted them to see. Later another couple I was interviewing told me that the entire ship called her 'grandma' and that they would carry her when she could not get somewhere; renewing my hope that, in fact, people are good if given the chance to be such.

Time flew by and before I knew it I was at the end of this trip—I had been told before my departure that it was foolish to get my hopes up, and that I would be extremely bored while in Kangerlussuaq because its 'nothing more than an airport'. Funnily enough, it ended the exact opposite for me; even after traveling to more touristy deastinations such as Tasiilaq or Ilulissat, Kangerlussuaq remains a haven for me because it's nothing more than an airport. The absolute silence and peace, framed by unreal sights, away from life—to me, that's what I enjoy most about Greenland; experiencing a place which most people land into and fly from without more than a cursory glance or camera snap.