the plumes of pine trees

here are a few high-res scans of artifacts from my travels which i've been slowly archiving. it seems every time i open another bag/box/envelope/notebook (still too full of feeling for me to do very very often yet) i find another dozen things to scan...anyway, i'm putting these and the rest all together in something i'd someday like to call a book.

it's against the law to frown in....capital city

i arrived in Washington D.C. last night, after a bittersweet goodbye to rainy Reykjavik. i'm staying for one more night (tonight) before flying on to California in about 6 hours. my hosts this time are a sweet and funny middle aged couple comprised of Antoinette (a beekeeper) and Sam (exec of some kind). they live right in D.C. and keep six hives of bees - check out her blog CityBees for more on that. anyway, she picked me up from the airport yesterday and took me to get Mongolian food (!!!), after which we came home and watched the Metalocalypse episode where they destroy Finland, and ate cookies until i passed out from jetlag. yes.

here are some photos from my last days in Reykjavik. some things i don't have photos of but are worth mentioning, specifically the Icelandic Love Corporation retrospective at the Reykjavik Museum of Art. wow. i can't remember the last time i smiled almost continuously through 3 large galleries of one group's work...it was a brilliant, inspiring, beautifully put together showcase spanning 10 years: the performances. the drawings. the champagne. the top hats. the mirror-lined coffins. the licorice portraits...phew. i never wanted it to end, seriously.




went over to Svanny's parents house to eat waffles, drink lemonade and play with puppies.


these little hunting guys are worth about 150,000 isk each


first encounter with the sheep's head


"the red hills"









helga


namesake vessel outside the secret old sailor men's coffee shop near the harbor





















warning: if you want to spare yourself the sight of the delicacy known as ye old Icelandic singed/boiled sheep's head, skip the next three photos











you have to admit this is kind of funny


svanhvit likes the eyes and the tounge the best









two photos from the start of the Iceland Airwaves fest i took before my camera died (at 12 Tonar recordshop)


Rokkuro (IS)


Gavin Portland (IS)





goodnight rvk



anyway i actually have some fun snaps from my day in DC that i'll post when i'm home in California, including feeding bees at a Franciscan monastery, the first American meal in 9 months, hanging out at the Arctic Studies Center, etc.

see you tomorrow.

snow day

things are coming full circle. today, september 10th, i saw and felt the season's first snowfall in Sisimiut. before it happened i somehow knew it was going to be an exceptional day. the air seemed especially fresh and good to breathe, and my knee aches in the way it does to only certain kinds of cold. the mountains directly across from the kitchen window, some of the lowest in the area, are dusted with snow.

i commented to Mads and Trine (my hosts), who moved here one and a half months ago from Denmark, that the snow was coming to get them. it really is an entity all its own. the flat Mads and Trine (an anthropologist working for the municipality and a teacher, respectively), share has windows on opposite sides. one side frames an unobstructed view of the sea, the Davis Strait. directly on the other side of that immense water is North America.

tomorrow i will get up early and dress warm because through the magic of the universe i am getting a free ride up to Ilulissat with a boat captain M. & T. know. he and his crew are going up there to pick up a French film crew and the trip has already been paid for. also, i don't take up too much space. it's seven hours long, and then we will be in Disko Bay and then - the iceberg fields!

did i mention i left my laptop at my apartment in Nuuk for some reason? like, on purpose? along with most of my stuff, including my beloved maroon sweater. even now i am totally surprised that i did that. i think it was a test. i am anxious! it only made me realize how attached i've become to the things i have been carrying with me for these past 7 months or so. in my life, as it is now, they are basically the only things i can touch that are constant and available anytime, every day. they wear down much faster since they are used more, but everytime i unpack and repack these objects in a new place, in my mind i go through some slightly emotional re-telling of the how's and when's and who's associated with them. they fulfill small but real needs that make a long journey possible. i feel as if i could almost shed a tear missing my sweater, as if it were a friend, especially on a cold snowy day like today.

kalaallit nunaat, pt. 1

so, it's Sunday in Nuuk and i just got back from my first kaffemik, a Greenlandic social event that involves hours of drinking coffee, eating cakes and hanging out. the occasion was the first birthday of the daughter of a Faroese couple.

i'm going to post now some photos from my last days in Iceland, and some from my arrival/first weekend in Greenland.

the second to last day before it was time to fly away, the house mates and i made a trip to the Blue Lagoon - a geothermal lava pool created by the output of power plant. it's warm and luxurious, and rich in silica - the mineral rich mud is great for your skin.








however, for some reason the lagoon has been green for the past year. a mystery



OH YEAH, after the lagoon...



i had my first burrito in over 7 months. yes it was Taco Bell, but it was awesome. mmm.


the next day, i went to check out the Culture House. i looked at an exhibit of the manuscripts of illuminated Eddas, the ancient poems of Iceland.

on the top floor, there was the coolest exhibit of all time, about the island of Surtsey, the newest piece of land on earth created by a volcanic eruptions from 1963-7. this exhibit, and the space it was in, was one of the most beautiful i've seen in a really long time.


when you enter the exhibit, you are greeted by a giant mirror projection of lava exploding.














on friday i flew to Greenland.




first icebergs




glacial tounge, east greenland




view from Kulusuk airport


iced ocean



i arrived in Nuuk, and the airport was packed. the Air Greenland cabin crew had suddenly gone on strike a few days earlier, stranding over 1,000 people all over Greenland and preventing almost anyone from leaving or entering the country. except for me and the 15 passengers on the season's very last Reykjavik-Nuuk scheduled flight on Air Iceland, that is.


Pauli

...i'm going to have to continue this post later. i'm pretty tired and uniformly the internet here in Greenland is extremely slow. as of yet, there hasn't been any cables laid across the sea bed, thus all internet is from satellites.

goodnight...