[Hyacinth Bucket]

Three days of 'at sea.' Whew! A litany of eating and napping and eating and napping, with various ship activities in between: lectures, arts & crafts, lots of conversation with other travelers, and the like. Some of the seas were pretty rough, though it didn't bother Susan and me. Still, the days passed quicker than we would have thought, and we had no choice but to accept missing the visit to Rejkhavik, Iceland, which was in the midst of dealing with the remnants of Hurricane Ike. Okay, that'll be a trip for another day, one which we'd spoken about in terms of spending a few days exploring.

Well, it turns out that the sleeper/surprise of the trip was our visit to Greenland. I make an effort to be conscious of the big world beyond the U.S., and I still cannot help but shake my head when people, explaining how difficult it is to get their family together for Thanksgiving when one member lives in Connecticut and another in New Jersey, and I then comment that I am one of six first cousins who live in six different countries, with me the only one on the U.S. side of the Atlantic, they ask, puzzled, 'Why did they all move so far away?' Hmmm.... As far as Greenland is concerned, though, I must be honest and admit to being 'the ugly American.' I had always lived by the conundrum that Iceland is green and Greenland is ice, believing that there was nothing in Greenland but, well, ice and military installations.

Our visit there was to a town in South Greenland called Qarqotoq, with a population of 3,500, set in a natural harbor surrounded by exquisite scenery of near rock mountains (little vegetation) behind which are huge snow-covered peaks. Houses, neat as pins and all painted bright colors, dotted the area, along with public buildings like shops, churches, schools, other businesses, and significant maritime endeavors. There is also a beautiful lake behind the town with great hiking trails, we were told, but we never got there. Because it is hardly a tourist attraction (we learned later that no more than twenty ships may stop there in the course of a year), and even the cruise line doesn't offer any shore excursions, our arrival there was a particularly big deal to the point that the town had taken on 'tourism' as a project for the day.

Locals were out in native costumes, some selling their crafts on tables informally set up near the tender dock (where we bought a unique piece of beadwork) while others just out and about, those speaking English answering questions and offering information. The high school students (where, by the way, the ratio of students to teachers is 8:1) had spent the preceding week preparing for our arrival, putting together a welcome newsletter and preparing performances of native dances and Inuit sports. Even the boys of grades 8-10 had made earrings for the visitors; Susan was presented with a single earring of a pair of hearts cut from sealskin on the ends of beaded hangers. At the historic church, high school students who spoke English well were available to offer history of the area and answer questions. Something was going on everywhere, and close by to the central square, with the only operating fountain in Greenland (topped with small figurines of whales), is an area filled with striking sculptures and drawings carved into the rocks.

What made our visit even more memorable was meeting a man with a group of high school girls in front of the sculptures. The man spoke fluent English, welcoming us to Greenland, and while the girls did not make an attempt to speak with us, they happily greeted us and posed for pictures. Typical junior high school aged teenagers! The man answered many questions we had for him, and when he realized from our questions that we were interested in culture and history, he directed us to the high school where the events I mentioned were going on. He also gave us directions to a crafts workshop that was not part of the waterfront hoopla.

In a short while we found our way to the high school, where we ran into the same man and finally understood that he was a teacher at the school. We watched the events as well as kids playing soccer in the schoolyard and realized that kids act the same everywhere. We were intrigued that these kids showed a racial diversity that we hadn't even thought about. The population breakdown is about 80% Inuit (a term they use much less commonly than 'Greenlander') and 20% Scandinavian, mostly Danish, but there is so much intermarriage that one youngster looks Asian while the next is fair and red-headed. Our guide's surname is Ibsen (if a distant relation to the playwright, he had no idea) because his father was of Scandinavian descent, and his mother is Greenlander. When we mentioned to him that we hadn't been able to find the crafts workshop he had told us about, he offered to walk there with us, several blocks from the school, all the time our chatting and asking questions.

It turned out that the workshop owners were also neighbors of his, giving us a sort of 'in' along with his willingness to serve as translator for us. The couple worked primarily with native stones such as moonstone and bone carving, primarily caribou antlers. We ended up buying two small pieces of carvings to add to a one-of-a-kind beaded piece that we had bought from a craftsperson set up on a table near the tender pier, giving us tangible items which with to decorate our 'travel home' in Florida. We exchanged email addresses with our 'private guide,' following which he returned to the school and we continued our exploring through town. Then back to the ship, lunch, a rest, and so much reflecting on a visit that in all likelihood we'd never have made if not for this trans-Atlantic repositioning cruise. What an amazing experience!

Today and tomorrow are at sea days; the next following morning we reach our last port of call, St. John's, Newfoundland, where the three of us have a car rented for the day to explore yet another area that we've never visited before. After that it'll be two more at sea days and our disembarkation in New York, while the ship will continue on to its final port, Fort Lauderdale, from which it will then begin its Caribbean cruising season.
HB and Sid