A sunny Sunday afternoon

While Europe is suffering from heat wave Greenland is keeping its cool. On good days the sun is shining and the thermometer reaches about +15 degrees. On bad days the sun is not shining and the thermometer hardly makes it to +5 degrees. But I guess that comes from living in an “arctic climate”. None the less the summer up here is nice. The days are long and the views from different part of the town are stunning. The whales have also come to town and if one is lucky one can spot them on the water surface coming up for air.

Other, much smaller, animals are also making their presence known. A short walk to the coast or up a hillside will acquaint you with two new best friends – a Mrs. Midge and a Mr. Mosquito (in Danish a.k.a. “Knot & Myg”). As most new acquaintance they try to make the most of it and thus keep following you around and tend to stick around long after a “visiting hours” are over. They truly are a nuisance unparalleled.

If one is to venture out into the neighbouring wilderness one does well to bring not only the average mosquito spray but also a full body “mosquito net” (or at least a face net), various kinds of mosquito balsam and sprays and then still be prepare to make a run for it if your new best friends decide to accompany you on your little walk with the whole of their extended family. In Denmark there’s a phenomenon known as “black sun” which as when hundreds of starlings gathers together in big flocks creating fascinating shapes in the air. And with the amount of insects up here there simply must be a similar phenomenon made up by these annoying little creatures. However, since I’m one of those people who tend to always be bitten or stung by every little insect with the ability to bite or stick I tend to spend my sunny afternoons in door or at least fairly far away from these creatures natural habitats.

And thus yet again I enjoy the magnificent view of the towns surrounding mountains from indoor. This time while enjoying a cold beer and reading from the latest addition to my library of “Greenlandic literature” which is a nature guidebook to Greenland’s flora and fauna. In easy language yet with comprehensive details it tells the reader of the many different types of insects there are to be found in this magnificent land and all the bites and sticks they can inflict upon encounter with them. Although I’m tempted to go out and enjoy the good weather this book has persuaded me to stay indoors making this little blog entry possible.

Café breaks (the princes and princesses of Nuuk)

Every now and then I tend to spend a few hours in one of Nuuk’s small cafés. It helps me maintain the illusion that I live in a big city with life and versatility. Obviously this isn’t true, in reality I live in a very small town with few people and very little big city life, but I once read that one is most happy when one is daydreaming and fantasizing and I guess that’s way I tend to return to my cafés.

My café breaks are very nice and to some extend it’s also charming to live in a small city because the people at the other tables are often the same. The guests becomes almost as an extended family. This being said every family has its black sheep and my café family is neither an exception nor short of any black sheep. In fact, I think my café family has a bit too many black sheep. Or maybe it would be more appropriate to call them black lambs, because they’re all children. They’re like little, awful cousins whose parents are those aunts and uncles you never really understood you are actually related to.

I don’t mind people bringing their children with them in cafés or at the cinema or for an art exhibition and so on, but I do mind when the parents don’t control their children or attend to them. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one here in Nuuk who has this condition. Everybody else seems fine with drinking their coffee and reading their news paper while a bunch of screaming children runs about and plays dog kennel underneath the café tables. Just this day I was at my café, drinking my coffee and reading a book when all sudden a small child crawls up under the table and starts barking at me after which he takes the chair opposite mine and starts to drag it across the room. I found myself rather startled at this behaviour but even more startled when I realized that the parents just smiled and praised the boy for being such a good dog(!)

I guess I just have to learn that up here children have the last word. They are notoriously spoiled and pampered and act just accordingly. They truly are like little princes and princesses who never does anything wrong. The boys especially are brought up to think the whole world revolves around them and as consequent teenage boys are often very arrogant and rather rude.

So now I’ve found a new café without children, with eminent coffee, very reasonable prices, excellent music and a marvellous view. And best of all, I’m guaranteed to always get a seat, since the café is set in my own living room. I realized that even though I do enjoy the odd day out at a café I really don’t feel like paying 40DKK (5,40€) for a coffee and then have to drink it in a noisy dog kennel when I own a most excellent espresso machine myself and I have a very nice couch to settle into and a fairly good range of various books to become lost in. So, here’s to Nuuk’s first dog kennel free café – it’s well worth the visit for those who needs a break from their noisy everyday life.

It says "spring" in the calender but does the weather know that?

The weather is always a great conversation opener at the bus stop or at a social gathering where you know no one. And so, I thought it far enough to have my say on the spring weather here in Nuuk. It’s really rather strange that people talk about the weather so much because it’s really not that interesting to know about unless you in the middle of it and it frustrates you. None the less, I just want to point out to people that the spring weather up here is nothing like any other spring weather I’ve experienced so far.

Today for example it’s about +6 degrees Celsius and semi-cloudy. That’s how it usually is in the weekend. For some reason the weather up here is great in the weekdays and then Saturday comes and the weather sucks big time. This Wednesday we had +20 degrees Celsius and high sun, I was out grilling with my neighbour (who works at the same place I do), and we talk about redoing the grill-night this weekend and what happens? Yesterday everybody in Qinngorput (that’s where I live) lived in cloud made of thick fog and the temperature dropped to only +2 degrees. Today it’s cloudy and windy and not really grill-weather – but I bet that come Tuesday the weather will be great and warm and sunny...

I learnt, however, that although the Greenlanders aren’t normally flexible people they certainly are it when it comes to the weather. The other day when the sun was shining and everything was wonderful the office was more or less deserted apart from us silly Danes that stick to regular office hours. All the Greenlanders had gone out sailing. Even our Premier had gone out hunting seals with one of his friends and employee.

So the lesson for me to learn here is definitely not to don’t bother about office hours and start focusing on sun-hours

In the search of wildlife

The other weekend I went of hiking in the surrounding mountains in the search of a bit of wild life. I’ve recently received a nature guide book and so I thought it fun to try to track down some of all these amazing life forms that the book advertised for. Spring has finally made it to Nuuk and although it is far from any kind of spring I’ve experienced before at least it has made most of the snow disappear. The smaller mountains are therefore rather easy to hike in if one just wears sensible shoes and stick to the tracks.

So, I found my fairly sensible shoes, packed a small bag with necessary essentials such as water, camera, mobile phone and a light snack and off I went in search of a track. (Of course no sense in bringing a map, compass, an extra sweater or stuff like that...)

After 3 hours of huffing and puffing up and down cliffs and rocks getting my feet wet from irritating spring creeks and huge areas of wetland I had not managed to track down a single life form worth a picture. Everything out there is just brown, dead and boring. Sure the view’s nice and the air is fresh but I can get that from just sitting on my terrace enjoying my sea view. No need to climb up a cliff with a waterfall or climbing over huge rocks with supporting yourself on all fours... No thanks.

In the end I’d almost given up but at last I found something – a greenish looking plant that looked fairly alive and two ducks looking very much out of place in a mountain lake.



So much for Greenland being a land of wildlife!

New design...

I decided I'd try a new design for my blog. I've noticed that I write rather long blogs which is probably not the way to do it but then again I've never been able to follow trends and the latest new ideas/ways. However, I've tried to find a design that might just work better for looooong blogs so the text is easier to read. Enjoy:-)

The Greenlandic flag - Erfalasorput ("Our flag")

A few months ago I was involved in an assignment concerning the Greenlandic flag. The assignment itself was of little interest but the information I gained while slowing the assignment was rather amusing. Without breaching any duty of confidence I will now try to pass on the story I discovered. None of the information I pass on is secretive but neither do I think it is considered common knowledge here in Greenland.

The Greenlandic flag was hoisted for the first time on June the 21st 1985 which is the national day of Greenland. However, the idea of a Greenlandic flag was first introduced back in 1973 when a group of people suggested a flag consisting of the colors green, white and blue. The year afterwards the Greenlandic newspaper Atuagagdliutit/Grønlandsposten (a.k.a. AG) published 11 proposals for a Greenlandic flag. Ten of these proposals suggested a flag similar to the existing Scandinavian flags with a cross as a main part. In 1980 the Greenland home rule organized a competition of designing a Greenlandic flag. 555 proposals came in whereof 293 of these came from Greenland. However the home rule government was incapable of reaching a joint agreement on what a flag should look like. Therefore a group of artists were invited to come up with their suggestions for a flag. The Landsting (the Greenlandic parliament) gave its final decision voting 14 pro the flag we see today and 11 voting for a cross flag similar to the other Scandinavian flags consisting of the colors green and white. Many people were very upset about this decision because they felt they ought to have a flag with greater similarities to the Danish flag. However, today this dissatisfaction seems long forgotten. The Greenlanders love their flag and I doubt they would ever change it if they were given the opportunity.

However, it is in fact not quite safe to say that the Greenlandic flag is in fact Greenlandic and who knows one day the Greenlanders might just be given the opportunity for a new flag…
The man who designed the flag we see today was Thue Christiansen, a previous member of the home rule government and today a painter and graphic designer. He explained his design of the red and white colors and the circle in the middle by saying that the white color symbolized the inland ice while the red part of the circle symbolized the many bays and fjords in Greenland. The red color symbolized the ocean and the white part of the circle symbolized the many icebergs and pack ice. The two colors also suggested a connection with Denmark and circle was also to be seen and the rising and setting sun in Greenland. All in all, the flag seems to fit very well to the country of Greenland, however there’s just one small thing that seems a bit odd.

The design of the flag already existed at the time Thue Christiansen delivered his idea to the home rule government. If one was to take a look at the Hei-rosport’s homepage (a sport club for rowing in Jutland) http://www.hei-rosport.dk/%C3%85REFEDT one would see that their pennant bears the exact same design as Erfalasorput and they flag is from 1969 making their flag older than the Greenlandic one. This information has on some occasions been challenged in Greenland but today it seems to have been forgotten. This might be because the sport club in question has allowed Greenland to use the current design for their flag as long as it’s not in the shape as a pennant. Thus one only sees pennant of the Danish flag in Greenland, never pennants of the Greenlandic flag. As long as the sport club accepts the use of the Greenlandic flag but if they were once to withdraw this accept Greenland might just have to come up with a new design. One can also wonder from where Thule Christensen originally got his idea when it seems so similar to a pre-existing one…

Few knows this little story and that is probably for the best because it’s the Greenlanders love their flag and to them it would surely seem impossible to imagine another flag at the top of their flagpoles.