Fresh air in Nuuk

This input is about the air in Nuuk. Not so much about polution which I'm sure there's quite a lot of but I don't really know anything about that and it's far too boring to write about. No, I'm gonna write about the effects of the air here in Nuuk, and probably in Greenland in general.

The air in Nuuk is very dry which has a variety of effects. On the posive side you can see incredibly far on a day, creating beautiful pictures like the ones above. On some days you can see as far as 20km away. The view from my office is particularly good because the office is situated on the top floor of the building and overlooks the water with mountains on the other side. My "old" view was quite amazing as well because one had an great view of Sermitsiaq and on really good days one could also see some of the other mountains behind Sermitsiaq.

The pictures above are taken from different places around the city. The first one is taken on my way into the city and it overlooks a "suburb" called Nunaffik. The second one is overlooking the old and the new Atlantic Harbour. (This is where Royal Greenland has it's ships and shrimp trawlers so the next time you eat some shrimps from RG you now know they were packed in this harbour). The third picture is one I took the other day going back from the city. It's Nuuk city center that is visiable on the right side. And the last picture is from my "old" view with Sermitsiaq in the background. As one can see from all of these pictures it possible to see very far and that's because of the dry air.

It certainly creates some breathtaking moments when one is walking around the city and suddently a view like the ones above apear from almost out of nowhere. Nuuk is build on big and small rocks/mountains and because of this the city is situated in many different levels, giving almost all the inhabitants amazing views. And sometimes when you on a street going upwards and you turn a corner you're met with something looking like the pictures above. It's really quite nice, and it certainly a definitive possitive side effect of the dryness of the air.

However, there are also some not so positive side effects of dry air. In fact they're rather negative. The most commen ones are skin irritation, the feeling of a constant cold body and awlful awlful static eletricity.

It's a good thing I chose to bring all my many different lotions because I have never used so much lotion as I have these past few weeks. It's always important to take care of one skin but uphere it's REALLY important. I've always had lotion in my handbag but I've had to "upgrade" it a bit to an extra extra strong one because your skin just dries up in the matter of minutes. It's insane. You're out for 5 minutes and coming back in you have to put on lotion. You can literay feel your skin drying up and starting to itch. You're eyes can very esaily start itching as well, so now I also always have eyedrops in my handbag :-P

Then of course the dry air also makes your body feel colder than it really is. Even though the temperature might just be 1 or 2 below zero it can often feel as if it's about -10 on your body. So when you come inside after a long trip outside you get a feeling of tiredness because your body feels so cold. It's really not that nice.

But the absolute worse thing about the dry air is the awful static eletricity. This causes metal objects to become eletrical charged and thus everytime you touch something that is metal or that is connected to metal you get an electrical shock. Of course it's a rather mild shock but when you get it every day, several times, it gets rather annoying. And of course it also makes your hair look like something created by Frankenstein's hairdresser. Bad. Very bad. So, imagine a normal monday where the weather might be really beautiful with a clear sky and a good view but a really strong wind is blowing. You go outside, your skin dries up, you get to work, and immediately feel tired because your body is so cold and then you touch the doorknob to your office and you get the day's first eletrical shock making your hair stand straight up. Then you go inside your office and turn on your computer and immediately you get your second shock of the day. And so it goes on and on and on.... Then there's the window that needs to be open because the indoor climate is so incredibly bad that you can't breath properly unless you have an window open, and then there's the desk lamp that needs to be turned on because it's still dark in the morings and I could go on and on. These constant shocks, combined with a cold body and dry skin really makes some days quite awlful and no view no matter how breathtaking it is can really make up for it. (Of course if you are in need of a "pick-me-up" all you have to do is touch a doorknob;-P)

So, the air uphere might make for nice pictures as the ones above but unfortunately there's the everyday drawback of dry skin, cold body and statics that comes with it:-(