Nordkurs in Nuuk, Greenland

Day 1: Arrival in Nuuk!:) 

Summer solstice (longest day of the year)

(Wed 20/6/2012)

We started from Iceland, the central Reykjavík Airport (domestic+Faroe Islands+Greenland!), not to be mixed with Keflavík, which is the international airport! Flugfelag Islands, which is owned by Icelandair, did not give me flight miles for SAS (Scandinavian Airlines), which was rather disappointing…

We had a small propellar plane, the flight attendant provided us with good service and good food - for free! Always nice when you are traveling in budget class… Mareike was a bit scared of flying so I held her hand during take off:) We also met two Swiss men, Ralph and Oliver, and I tried my best to talk to them in my awful & clumsy German:) Ralph was now living in Argentina and they were both going to Nuuk to get to a sail boat, which was arriving from Halifax and sailing on to Iceland. Such cool guys!! :D

Amazing scenery met us when getting closer to Nuuk: ice, snow and ice topped mountains were simply breath taking! The arrival in Nuuk was okay, to our surprise there was no passport check. We shared a taxi with Ralph and Oliver to the university, which is located pretty close to the airport. R&O drove off downtown, and we met with Karen Langgård, our teacher and course leader.

Karen gave us a bunch of keys, keycards and maps and we took the bus downtown and easily found our home for three weeks: Hotel Nuuk, in which the top floors were student dorms. The views from our penthouse windows are a like postcards! On the other side (=view from my window) there is Store Malene (a mountain) and on the other side (=the kitchen) there is a fjord with small pieces of iceberg floating in it… There is a cosy living room/common area and a rather messy kitchen but with all things necessary for preparing food. Of course we needed to go grocery shopping, and it took a while to find the right things in a unfamiliar store.

We got acquainted with other students, and I also got to hug Stine and Maria from Denmark, who I already knew from my language course in the Faroe Islands! My room was missing a pillow, blanket, sheets and covers, but I managed to get a blanket and a cover from my course mates. Slept really well despite the bright sun during the night.

Flugfelag Islands terminal.

At a small airport you can have gates 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in ONE:)

Free food!

M & Ralph.

At the bus stop at the University.