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 Blog # 5 - Canada and Greenland

We celebrated "Canada Day" on July 1. Now, it's time to have fun on July 4th

The ship put on an elaborate lunch buffet with gourmet food plus (and why not) hamburgers, hot dogs and plenty of beer!

Dinner time

There was a festive night show with lots of "Americana" music and dancing

Welcome to Nuuk, Greenland

Greenland's towns and villages are not connected. There are very few ways to reach friends and family living in different areas. Everyone must use boats, helicopters or, in some cases, an airplane.

There are plenty of volcanoes, lava fields, glaciers and nasty weather

There is also a lot of rock. The "rock" or moraine is granite and other minerals broken up by the glaciation process

Waterfalls and runoff water from melted snow (and glaciers) are also found throughout the countryside

Nuuk, the main town in Greenland, has a harbor which is used to distribute all of the necessities for everyday living. Very little (of anything) grows naturally in this place!

Containers are staged anywhere there is flatland; which is rare!

This "main" highway does not go very far in either direction

Waiting for a bus

One of Nuuk's "main" streets

Greenland's population is about 57,000.

19,000 live in Nuuk

Construction is going on throughout Nuuk. It seems that people living in other areas are finding it difficult to live, earn a living, etc. Thus, there is a relocation process where they are looking for a place to live in Nuuk.

Typical apartment complex

Rooms with a view

There is very little room for children to play near their home such as in a backyard

Newer accommodations

We're showing these pictures of homes to hopefully give everyone a clear picture that Greenlanders live in a desolate area with a poor climate at best, 21 hours of daylight during the summer months and 21 hours of darkness during the winter months

Typical small children outing. Notice what they are wearing. This was a "warm" (8:30 AM) day of around forty degrees although there was a short flurry of snow earlier in the morning indicating it might have been cooler

Folklore "Mother of the Sea art piece

Enjoying lunch back on the ship

Getting ready for dinner.  Do we eat a lot?

Chilly

Our tour guide emphasized that everyone has a choice how their remains are to be handled - buried, cremated, etc. In fact, he took us to the cremation facility. This was odd since crematoriums (Begravelese) cannot be closer than fifty yards from a public highway

Does this sign mean people getting ready to die sit on a bus bench with everything they want to take for their cremation?

We were "stuck" in Nuuk for an extra day. It was so windy (> 50 mph gusts), the ship was actually being pinned to the wharf. There were not enough tugs to pull the ship away from the wharf. Also, one of the bow thrusters was removed and parts were relocated to the engine room to provide for additional air conditioning in the cabins.

Oh well!

We were socked in with fog. Then, it lifted providing a pretty site

The couple sitting at the table in front  invited us (with our other new friends) to dinner in their "owner's suite." A butler took our (anything we wanted) order and served). Jerry "borrowed" flowers from one of the ship's offices for the occasion. He returned them after dinner.

What fun !!

This area is one of the few where homes face each other. We think this makes for better neighborhood communication.

Getting ready to celebrate our 54th anniversary

CELEBRATION!

The ship recognized us with this delicious cake

The wonderful evening was finished with a violin concert. Many upbeat, well-known favorites were played such as "Fiddler" music. However, he finished with a fast moving classical piece. There was a orchestra filmed that was playing in the background along with a superimposed close up of his fingering. Clever! Amazing!