Nuuk, Greenland

 Nuuk (pronounced like nuke) is a strange and wonderful place. It is unlike anything or anywhere I have ever been, and it is difficult to describe in a way that catches the wonder of it. My very first impression was questionable. It's cold and windy and gray. The buildings are boxy and utilitarian. It's all built in and around the boulders and the rock.

But then it started to grab me. Everyone we talked to apologized that we didn't get sun today. The buildings may be boxy, but inside, they are modern and comfortable and well-designed, even a bit chic. The restaurant we ate at was downright cozy inside--its the yellow building in the bottom photo above.

We walked to the far end of town to see a woman/artist I found on the internet and the walk was delightful, up and down small streets between colorful houses. I guess that's what you do when you live in a near-arctic community where days are gray and half the year is dark. (For the record, Nuuk lies 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle.)

Greenland is part of Denmark and it only switched to self-rule in 2009. Nuuk is the capital of Greenland, and the parliament building is just a few blocks from our hotel. Nothing, however is laid out in blocks; it is laid out in a free-form sort of way.

In Iceland all signs, menus, etc. were in Icelandic and English. Here they are in Greenlandic (an Eskimo-Aleut language related to the Inuit languages in Canada) and Danish. We had to ask for an English language menu, but in truth, Doug could figure out enough Danish words that we almost could have ordered without it.

I ordered of the "light lunch" section, wanting a sandwich like the Danes make with hard rye bread and salmon. When it came it came it was a huge mound of bread with lots of salmon, lettuce and tomatoes, topped with avocado. Really delicious, but really big.

Finally, I have a picture of a statue "The Mother of the Sea." It's one of Greenland's most famous, long-standing legends of creation and of the importance of not being greedy and of caring about each other and observing society's customs and maintaining a societal contract of sorts. The Mother of the Sea was upset about the people's evil deeds and lack of compassions so she gathered the animals so they could not hunt them.