Arrival

Wednesday 8-8-07

DAY 1

We're off on our honeymoon! This was doubtful until the last minute. No it's not what you think. What happened is Michael's son Jonathan had surgery, and we weren't sure about leaving him so soon, but Michael's dad Peter volunteered to let Jonathan stay with him. So anyway, at dark o'clock Wednesday morning Peter is kind enough to drive Michael and me (Magda) to the airport. The plane leaves early; like 6:30 am. I sleep until we transfer in Salt Lake. The flight to Baltimore is longer. We get to watch the movie “Shrek 3” (OK, it's a movie on an airplane, but at least it's cute). We arrive in Baltimore around 5 p.m. and find a phone, which dials straight to hotels. The wait for the hotel to pick us up is really long, but we end up getting the room at a discount. The room has a kitchenette, and a queen size bed. Michael cooks dinner, then we watch “The Dirty Dozen” and go to sleep.

Thursday 8-9-07

DAY 2

We get up, stretch, take a shower, and go down for breakfast. It is good! They have waffles (real batter, not the toaster kind), cereal, bagels, and juice. We check on emails, go back to the room and get our stuff, and go back to the airport to catch our flight to Greenland!

The plane leaves on time. It is a long flight (5 hours), enough for not one, but oh boy two movies: “Family House” and “Employee of the Month”. They are both silly and cute.

We arrive in Greenland! We get our luggage and find a grocery store right outside the airport. It has fuel for the stove and matches. Michael is a little disappointed finding out that they actually do have fuel for his white gas stove (we specially brought an alcohol stove since we were only sure they had fuel for that).

Kangerlussuaq is an old air force base and it has become a very small town by the airport. We walk around and find the campground near the airport. It is a bit noisy with the town's power generator. There are other people camping as well. There are two women, one from Sweden and the other from France; there are also three geology students. Everyone is very helpful in giving us information about the trek from Kangerlussuaq to Sisimiut. We go to bed about 9 pm Greenland time (4 pm Seattle time) and it is still light out. I sleep soundly until midnight, then I force myself to sleep.

Friday 8-10-07

DAY 3

We get up around 6 am. Michael is awake even earlier than that. By forcing myself to sleep at night I end up still groggy. I get up with him and go into the campground kitchen, a small building where the bathrooms are as well. I am cold so Michael gives me his extra fleece. I hope to get used to the cold weather - Michael is loving it, but after all he used to study glaciers in Antarctica...

We go back to sleep and get up around 10 am. We rent bikes and ride to the science support building, VECO. We meet up with Michael’s old friend Steve Warren and he loans us four maps: Kangerlussuaq, Pingu, Sisimiut, and Ilulissat. We meet Steve’s co-workers, Sparky and Ed, who inform us that we have one of their bikes, the famous “stolen bike”. We tell them that we rented the bikes from the hostel. They let us use it anyway and loan us maps and give us advice. Then we ride about 25 km out to the edge of the ice cap.

The bike ride starts out easy and progressively gets harder. The road is very bumpy and has sandy sections that we have to walk through, although Michael does try to ride as far as he can. Sparky told us of a shortcut where we would have to get off the bikes and then walk the rest of the way to the glacier.

What a sight! We arrive at the glacier just in time to see a big chunk break off. It is cold standing next to this glacier! After a late lunch and enjoying the view for awhile, we head back to Kangerlussuaq. It took us almost three hours to get out to the glacier and only one and a half to get back. My butt is sore. Starved, we go to get pizza and we are five minutes too late, darn! I ride back to VECO to meet up with Michael who is returning the "stolen" bike. So we end up with only one bike. We decide that I should walk a ways, he will drop the bike, and after I get to the bike I will to ride until I meet up with him. This works well, because we end up arriving at the campground together.