Iceland and Greenland

Dear reader, now I have finally lived some of my childhood dreams and visited remote, distant parts of the world, usually ignored by majority of tourists.

When as a child I daydreamed with Atlas of the world in my lap and spend those rainy afternoons pouring over those far away places & names, I could have never in a million years imagined that one day they will become a reality. As it turned out, life had somehow brought me around the world and now I am familiar with most of the main destinations, although there is always some new, another place to visit. This time it was Iceland and Greenland. No idea who had actually named them, because there must have been some confusion with these names - its almost a joke, because Greenland is not green at all and in fact Iceland is actually far greener. They are both fascinating but after the first enthusiasm of being there, its clear that such remote, brutal nature is not exactly the first place you would think as home.

Iceland has lots of interesting thing to see - nature is quite spectacular, full of Martian scenery, huge rocks, moss that grows forever, hot springs, geysers, distant icebergs that melt into rivers & huge waterfalls, canyons and whatnot. It all comes down to the fact that these people live constantly on the edge of volcano, in fact the whole island is basically a volcano and lava is everywhere. They use geo-thermal heating and produce their own electricity (strangely, no windmills because the wind is too strong) and although trees are very rare, locals make good use of greenhouses so they have everything what they could possibly think of, including bananas (which they export!). Reykjavik is truly picturesque, unforgettable place full of interesting, colorful houses, hip & trendy shops and locals seems to be very creative and inventive, I truly enjoyed my time there. If you have chance, I suggest some tour out of town would be absolutely necessary in order to truly appreciate the beauty of the country - I went on a Golden circle tour that took some eight hours and it was fabulous as we visited National Park, giant waterfalls and even geysers (and than we were so full of excitement that we didn't even return on the ship but stayed in town and walked around). I have also visited local History museum which was absolutely fascinating and browsed exposition about more or less very brutal surviving trough centuries of life on volcanic rock. Fascinating place to visit but not sure that I would find this truly appealing as a place to live, because weather is expectedly atrocious and if this weak sun is the highlight of the summer, its probably even worse trough the rest of the year.

Greenland looks surprisingly very much like Norway and Norwegian fjords, except that here there is not a single tree - its all bare rocks and quiet, calm sea, looks almost like some lake. I walked around little Qaqortoq once and that was enough - it is a village-sized little community that survives on a fishing and fish is all they have here. No wood, no food, no trees, everything has to be imported from Denmark and although locals seemed happy in the sun, I cannot for the life of me imagine why would anybody stay here if there is any other option available. When you think about it, its basically deserted rock in the middle of Atlantic, whipped by the wind, rain and snow. Qaqortoq is also unfortunately known as the world's capital of suicides but not because of long winter evenings, in fact completely opposite, it seems lack of night in the summer drives people insane. In any case, I was thrilled to visit but would definitely not chose this as a place to live or even a vacation spot. In fact, I am perfectly satisfied now with seeing both of these places and ready to sail for Canada (Atlantic coast) with its summer weather, beautiful architecture, nice shops and far more appropriate living conditions. All these adventures and living in extreme situations are not exactly for me.