The Time Has Disappeared...

Hey everybody who happens to read this, I'm so incredibly sorry but we had absolutely no internet while we were in Greenland, and after we returned my week has been consumed by sleeping, unpacking, doing a news interview on the trip, watching the season premier of Project Runway, seeing friends, and heading to Rochester to see The Dark Knight at midnight. Tomorrow we're leaving for Germany, where we hope that we'll have adequate internet so that I can post every day and my posts (like this one) won't be as long, and I won't have to cram a week of awesomeness into one long essay.

I did, however, keep a log of every day in Greenland, along with a slew of pictures, so again, I'm sorry it's all so unorganized, but here, in a nutshell, was our trip to Greenland!

Wednesday, July 2^nd:

Our first flight left Syracuse at 11:30ish, and we landed in Philly for a brief layover to head to Baltimore. I’ve flown out of Syracuse before, but I never noticed the large community of plastic yard flamingoes at the end of the runway (anyone else ever notice this? Syracuse is cute). The plane that we boarded in Philly was quite possibly one of the smallest planes I’ve ever been on, and lucky for me I was in seat number one. Also, that flight was only 20 minutes. The question I have, is why do they even make flights that short?

Once we landed in Baltimore, our commercial flight streak ended and we had to check in to the military station. So from there we had to claim all 13 pieces of checked baggage along with each of our 2 carry-ons (equaling a LOT of luggage) and transport it to the other side of the airport. Lucky for us, we got ourselves someone with a large cart. Unlucky for us, we arrived in Baltimore at 2pm and the military people don’t even go to the windows for checking baggage until 8pm.

So we found ourselves a nice little corner in the ‘Observation Deck’ of the BWI airport, complete with little playgrounds of rocket ships and planes and lots of little kids. My friend from Fredonia, Paige, moved out to Annapolis for a job and thankfully she had nothing better to do that day than to come to the airport and keep us company. It was great to see her, and by the time she left it was about dinner time.

Once 8pm rolled around, we got all our stuff back together and made it to the military terminal. At the same time we got there there must have been a military plane arriving from war because there were so many people cheering, so many balloons and flags, and so many families reunited with lots of tears and smiles. It was definitely an awakening experience to say the least. It made me realize how amazing the trip ahead of me is going to be, and how amazing the people will be that are in the audience, watching us.

We got all our bags checked, but our flight didn’t even board until 1am. So, we did more sitting in a different part of the airport until we could pass through security. From there things seemed to go pretty quickly, and before we knew it we were boarding the plane.

I have never flown military before, or heard of the C-80 (I think that’s what it was), but I felt like I was back in Disney World. We entered the terminal through the usual tunnel. Then we passed through double doors. Then we were all herded into a large group room with four double-doors. The doors then opened to 4 horizontal rows of seats, which was (a surprise to me) a bus that took us to the plane, which we boarded from the back. The plane itself was really large, but it was only equipped to hold about 30 passengers; the rest of it held cargo for the base. They played three movies that night, I can’t even remember what they all were. I hardly slept but I was a groggy mess.

from the plane as we were getting into Greenland.

Thursday, July 3^rd:

After a grueling day at the airport and a 2am departing flight to Greenland, we arrived at Thule at around 9am local time (an hour ahead of what I’m used to). Our pilot was a saint, because flying over glaciers the whole way, and then seeing nothing but clouds gave me real depth-perception problems. I thought we were still way up in the air when we dove down into a cloud and it ended up being the base. I guess visibility for today is only a half a mile, and let me tell you it’s pretty darn foggy. And cold, like 35 degrees.

our hotel! and fog...

Friday, July 4^th:

Show day! We got up and met up with Klaus (our sound guy) at 11am at the outdoor stage. When we got there, we found we were… really playing outside. We weren’t really sure if we would be in a tent, or in an extension of the community center; but no. We were playing on an outdoor stage. And man was it cold. We helped some people set up the stage/monitors/speakers/etc and then took an hour break to grab some lunch.

When we returned we hung out and sound checked around 3pm (the show was to start at 4:30), and whenever we could we got ourselves inside with our instruments to try and keep them (and us) warm.

Around showtime, we headed back to the stage where there was a Danish barbeque going on. There had been a softball tournament up until the barbeque, and a golf tournament on top of Mount Dundas (apparently it is the northernmost golf tournament in the world). When everyone had gotten to the site, Cornel Cox announced the winners of the golf tournament and the softball game, and we were set to play.

We decided on doing a shorter set due to the temperature outside, so we were thinking (2) 8-song sets with a break of about 15-20 minutes. We finished the first, and then took our break. While trying to make it inside I ended up talking to a few people, one of whom actually went to college at Alfred State (and he didn’t look too much older than us). By the time I realized it was about time to go back on, I hadn’t even gotten inside. Then Cornel Cox handed me hand warmers before I got back on stage. I have never been around so many wonderfully kind people in a show setting like this. We were and are so thrilled to be here, and it seems as though the feeling is incredibly mutual.

Susan, the director for all of the activities, told us before we went back on that our second set should only be about 4 more songs, because the people were too cold to stay out. So, we did just that. And by the time we got back to our hotel, we had been outside for almost 8 hours.

We showered, got warm again, and then headed to the TOW club to hang out with the people for a little while. We talked to Susan, Larry, and Mike, and tried some Danish liquor (…a mixture of vodka and cough syrup…), and then some of the guys at our show let us try another signature Thule Drink, ‘Green Goo.’ Needless to say, I only tried it, and then made it back to the hotel early because I was exhausted.

Overall though, what a great show.

Saturday July 5:

We woke up this morning to meet up with Larry and Mike for brunch, and then from then we kind of went ‘joy riding’ around Thule. Thankfully the fog cleared and we were able to see Mount Dundas, and… wow. We rode out to the coast and saw the iceburgs and pieces of ice floating around the ocean, and drove anywhere and everywhere we could. I am so amazed by what was covered in a fog for the past few days, and in awe that I’m actually seeing it with my own eyes.

Mount Dundas!

Iceburgs!

So we were gone for about two hours or so, and then when we got back we basically crashed. We headed to the tow club around 7:30, got some dinner, and then started our show around 10:30. We had a few technical difficulties, but thankfully the show went out without much of a hitch. The crowd was amazing, and we ended up playing for around 3 hours. We finally made it to bed around 3am, but still I have never been so impressed by a crowd. Their support and the fact that they all stayed the whole entire time (and the fact that we met almost every one of them afterwards) is still just so amazing.

Sunday July 6^th:

We made it to brunch again around 11ish (it’s our day off today), and then decided to climb Mt. Dundas. We were told that the last leg of it would be kind of difficult (involving a rope), but we’ve all climbed mountains before, and so we were all just pretty stoked on it. It took about 20 minutes by car to get to Dundas, and the scenery along the way was nothing short of amazing. It seriously looked like we were driving through the set of Lord of the Rings, with mountains, hills, and water as far as the eye could see. We also drove past Dundas Village, a small hunters camp where Innuits come in the wintertime. It was unbelievable.

When we got to Dundas, it immediately looked about 50 times more intimidating. I’m pretty sure it was about a 60 degree angle the entire way up. And it was nothing but loose rock along the ‘trail.’ We took about 45 minutes to get to the top, where the very top was about an 80 degree angle of sheer rock with nothing but a rope to get us to the landing. And to make matters worse, there were two Danish men that were determined to climb and descend the mountain ten times in one visit, and they just waltzed past me, struggling on the rocks, at least three times. Worst.

But, eventually we made it up there, and the view from the top was AMAZING. The climb down, on the other hand... awful. awful awful awful. I haven't been that scared...ever haha. When we finally returned back to the hotel, it was movie-night and a whole lot of nothing.