Day 1

I started the my trip at the Helsinki airport in a sleeping pod. At first I wasn't intending to rent one because the price is actually a bit ridiculous (45 euros / hour) but then the idea of staying awake or trying to sleep in front of a thousand traveling people on a horrible leather chair (which also equals staying awake if were being truthful here) was too daunting, so I coughed up the money and in I went. The pods are actually pretty comfortable; with earplugs and pulling the whole cover over yourself, you can fool yourself into thinking you're in a safe, warm place and fall asleep. I also might have had some kind of medicinal help. Okay, that came out wrong. Not that kind of medicinal. The totally legal, prescribed by doctor for anxiety and not-sleeping kind of medicinal. This is turning out weird.

Anyway, I can recommend the pods, if you don't mind the price. If you're at the airport during the day, then they're free. Just don't put your valuables near the cracks or they will slide in when you try to get up and fall into some other dimension, or something. My water bottle fell in there and I never found it.

My first flight was to Copenhagen, after I'd woken up at five and trudged to the other side of the airport because of course my gate was in some weird place nobody else ever goes to. I actually don't remember a lot about that flight. The flight to Kangerlussuaq started out not that great either, both my in-flight entertainment unit and my seat were kind of crap; neither worked and I was sitting there, full of anxiety, having nothing to do to get my mind off it. I tried to read a crappy book I had spent too much money on but unsurprisingly, it was a bad, and I was distracted from reading by wanting to write a really snippy review about it.

I wanted to buy Hidden Figures but nobody was selling it anywhere and a very snooty bookshop clerk told me that it's so old it can't be nowhere to be found. Old, my ass! The movie is newer than Me Before You and you're still selling that everywhere. Why do I keep running into Me Before You and why does it annoy me so much? Stupid damn thing. Suicide isn't okay, guys! Don't romanticize it. Okay, I'm not paralyzed, so I can't say that much but if a person is suicidal, other people should try to help him feel better, not help him try to kill himself!

Well, as you can see, I'm in a bit of a mood.

Eventually, after many hours of white, I began to see something else: mountaintops rising above the clouds. My sights were a bit ruined because in both flights I ended up sitting next to the wing, so all my photos have that same Air Greenland wing in them. I guess in the small plane from Kangerlussuaq to Nuuk you can't really get a seat without the wing in a view but it was a bit annoying. Anyway, rather that than not having a wing at all, I guess?


I'm trying really hard to get to the point of the trip where it was exciting. I guess I'm experiencing quite a culture shock.

Okay, back to the views. Slowly, I began to see the land take shape: there were mountains and highs and lows and rock, stretching into forever. I don't know the proper geological names for all the formations but I do love looking at them. The ancient rock, untouched by us, forever covered in snow, it's just so... ancient. Always makes me think of how old this world really is and how little we can actually do to it. I mean, I guess we could destroy all this with a few nukes and knowing what we're like, maybe we one day will. But right now, it's still relatively untouched and it makes one human life seem pretty insignificant. I wish I could be a giant and run my hand all over the terrain.




We landed at Kangerlussuaq, which is a very small town, mainly there for the airport. The weather in Greenland is pretty unpredictable and there are only a few places where bigger planes can land. Kangerlussuaq is one of them, people usually change planes there. The half an hour I spent in Kangerlussuaq, I still liked it despite the smallness. The sunset was blinding, as were the mountains. Because we don't have mountains at home in Finland, I'm always awed by them. It might seem a bit silly for somebody living in a place with mountains; they're pretty common on this earth. But to me, they're always like being dropped into a postcard. Kangerlussuaq definitely had that remote, wild, small town in the mountains feel to it.


At Kangerlussuaq we boarded this small, red plane that was a bit scary, though the flight was not as bumpy as I've had in small planes. It was a short flight to Nuuk, we dived into clouds and then slowly, we saw water. Seeing blue in the middle of all that white was also kind of shocking. Incredibly beautiful, though. Nuuk is placed right at the beach of a big fjord, which never really freezes over (though it is hellish cold). It's pretty amazing.

Then I was picked up and driven to the residency. I was, and still am at the time of writing this, very disoriented and jetlagged too, I think. Still not sure what's up and what's down and who am I and what's my place in the world. I'm trying to get my head on straight and figure all that out.