greenland had been the most unexpected and unplanned trip of all and yet has been the most memorable one for me so far. i've had many "first"s there when it came to nature and animal spotting.
i never knew that it was closely tied to iceland nor that icelandic people have been setting up business in different parts of the town.
i've heard much about the alcoholism but did not witness it in the capitals nor the touristy towns. it was sad that there did not seem to be much successful locally runned business. if you were visiting the west coast of greenland, it was either blue ice cafe or narsaq hotel or some spanish youth hostel that stefan and his icelandic hotel friend did not seem to have a liking for.
i still feel bad that i technically didnt pay the full amount due to the confusion of the room assignment. i had initially asked for a shared room but because stefan requested for a room as i had to leave one day earlier, i was apparently given a private room that was twice or three times the price.
i never knew what self subsistence farming meant till we watched fish tv on the first and subsequent days where a huge disturbance in the radar meant we would practically be fishing up a bucketful of cod. and the cod liver and cod fish cheeks were absolutely delish. and how a stefan, a reindeer farmer could cook cod so absolutely well that it was on our repeat request list. maybe cus icelandic people just cook fish well self subsistencealso meant tt we cld just hike out in the wild and grab a bunch of leaves and use them for tea, or hygiene sanitary products or even for cooking. angelica was heavily featured in our meals and i loved the herby taste of it, only to find out tt the chinese use the dried roots for soup aka dang gui.
i learnt about icelandic fish sauce which comprised only of lots of butter and onions. the faroese people cooked it as well for the fried cod cheeks. MUCH CRAVINGS for the fish cheeks.
i also regret not joining stefan for his fisherman friend's birthday party which involved seagull eggs and lots of cakes.
the boat/cruise to illulisat was memorable. illulisat itself was a gem. it was bergs and whales, everywhere, everyday. and the absolute silence just a short walk out of the city centre is very healing.
fisherman leave their nets on random rocks where currents meet as there is where it has the highest concentration of fish - usually cod or char. i wldve thought things left in the wild meant anyone cldve taken it but everyone's honest enough not to. seems the same in the faroese too.
greenlanders also hunt for mink whales, seals and musks ox with no specific future planning in mind and this has caused the numbers of these animals in the wild to drop drastically. i'm not sure if it is because food is scarce and hunting is free. but it would seem like a better idea if they stuck to fishing instead of hunting recklessly.
anyway, enough of random listing of facts. terrible at writing stories. XD
