Greenland - First Expressions

Hi everybody,

Yesterday I’ve had my first Greenlandic dish, boiled seal and a seal soup called suaassat, and I would definitely eat it again if my life depended on it, but am not likely to do so otherwise. Today on the other hand I’ve tried raw whale skin, matak, and that tasted very nice. It is very chewy, and some call it Greenlandic chewing gum. The thing is, that the after-taste hits you with a 15 minutes delay and stays all day. But by then it's too late to regret...

The snow, ice, icebergs, mountains, birds, sea, sky and colourful wooden houses here look like a postcard. There is nothing quite like looking out the window every morning. It is just breathtaking. At the moment icebergs are closing in from all directions, and even the sea freezes. I took pictures of boats that are not going to move anywhere before the sea melts again. They are very simply frozen in. It sounds weird, I know, it looks weird... The icebergs come in such shapes, that only nature can create and no artist ever can copy. And the colours are either as white as can be or different shades of the clearest blue you can imagine. I hope the colours in the pictures would be good enough to show that. I have never seen such colours. And the clouds ― always make me think of the opening of The Simpsons - the part where you see the sky over Springfield - the sky here is clear blue and the white clouds look as if they are hanging there by an invisible fishing line.
  

Sometimes you can see the strong wind in the distance – all of a sudden there will be a turbulence of snow on a mountain top, and when it gets here I’m never sure if it’s snowing or if it’s just the snow from the ground being blown up in the air and then falling down again.

Today was our sixth consecutive day of snow. A couple of days ago I walked to work before the snow was cleared from all of the so-called roads, and at several parts of the way it was knee high.

I started going to language school! There is only one class in town, it’s free, the teacher is a Dane who’s been here for almost 30 years, and we are only 4 students in class. The downside is that the class started running in August, so I’m very much behind, but I’ll keep on going there, it can’t hurt. And it’s a good investment - you never know when you might need your Greenlandic. It’s an asset one should cherish. I’ll probably need it some rainy day. Or snowy. But please everybody, keep your expectations low- I don’t want to call the language here impossible, but in lack of a better word - I will. It’s impossible.

That’s all for now, take care and keep in touch,

Oren.