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Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

matduggan.com

231–240 of 352 posts

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#231
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall having whale on a regular basis when I was college in Japan in 1968-69. I liked it, though its grey appearance wasn't appealing. I was always struck by how much it resembled meat in both texture and taste.

# I was always struck by how much it resembled meat in both texture and taste. Say what? How can a mollusc taste like meat?

mollusc [sic]: 'An invertebrate of a large phylum which includes snails, slugs, mussels, and octopuses.'

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall having whale on a regular basis when I was college in Japan in 1968-69. I liked it, though its grey appearance wasn't appealing. I was always struck by how much it resembled meat in both texture and taste.

It literally is meat. It's a mammal!

To clarify: animal meat. I had a feeling this clarification would pop up...

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#233
It's tiny and inhospitable, but it's beautiful like the inhospitable beauty of the high desert--but with snow. The pop of color of the houses against the the bedrock they're built on, the orange spray of lichen on the granite, the site of brightly colored red sails on tourist boats radiant as the sun punches through the fog, the incredible glaciers and density of snow and ice as it exits the mouth of the fjord, the site of an iceberg tipping over as it melts...

It's not somewhere you go if you want to enjoy architectural masterpieces, but the harsh beauty of a place like that can't be understated.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#234
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also don't fly with sas to the faroes. They turn back and try again the next day like in the article. To me this is a good reason to fly SAS.

If you want to enjoy a day in an airport hotel and be late for what you are travelling for then sure. Sas plane is full of tourists who don't know. Locals all use atlantic airways cause they know they actually land.

Again I say, I'd choose SAS. There is a reason they choose to do what they do.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#235
post #83

I have been to northern Norway and Iceland a few times. It all started when I was running my previous SaaS at the peak of its growth. I needed a break, and wanted to go far away, while still being close enough if sh*t hit the fan. My co-founder had recently talked to some friends who had been to Tromsø, Norway. The place looked perfect, so I booked a 5-day solo trip there. Places that are so distant, with such harsh…

You just described wonderfully why I'm drawn to remote places. It started with a trip to the interior of Iceland, then Tromsø, and more recently Svalbard and the Faroes. I tried to capture the beautiful sense of isolation in Svalbard here, maybe it inspires others to make a trip to somewhere remote. https://photoblog.nk412.com/Svalbard2024/n-ssC8fP/Svalminiph...

Thanks for the pics! The prevalence of rifles is... thought provoking. The pic of the guy on a bike with a rifle is so metal

My overall impression of the area is "gloomy" all pics are overcast. It feels sad. It is beautiful, but I long for the sun

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#236
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to drive it on I-94; in fact, for many years it was faster not to, because of insane bottom of the lake traffic. You can take the Dunes Highway instead (and then keep off 94 up the Michigan shore; there's good stuff up there).

I need to do that next time I’m driving between Chicago and Michigan. I haven’t seen the dunes there yet and I bet it’s incredible.

Check out sleeping bear dunes park in Michigan especially if you can get out to the islands. Also Three Oaks Michigan is also a nice spot to stay and explore for a day or two. Journeyman distillery and a few nice restaurants are located there.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really easy to write off a giant part of the country that millions of people live in as tired (and the implication underneath is usually "backward"), it's also dehumanizing them and makes assumptions about their quality of life when it might actually be a lot better than the people making these assumptions. Spend some time not just driving through them, and one may be surprised to find plenty of diverse and inte…

I lived in the area for more than 20 years, have annually visited family living there for my entire life even after I left, and consider myself quite qualified to comment on the area, the people who live there, and their culture, thanks. I've traveled a lot through the area. I was throughout Ohio earlier this year, spent two weeks in Illinois last year, etc.

If I'm allowed to be anecdotal too I've also spent a decent amount of time in the area, including a visit to Bloomington, Indiana to visit their Informatics school, which was full of very interesting, open people that were absolutely wonderful and invited us into their world for a weekend.

The last night there I had dinner at one of the professors' houses in a very nice neighborhood that was absolutely lovely, and in general I thought it was a solid middle class place to live. If it was plopped in the middle of Silicon Valley it would be considered one of the more bucolic and put together cities in the area. And unlike Greenland, the weather is quite good for much of the year and there are trees.

My personal experience does not match the image of tired, doomed NPCs living in a wasteland that it's painted as in this blog post and in these comments.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#238

I happen to be one of the Danes who partially grew up in Greenland that he talks about in the article. I even recognize the places from the article. Some of my cordial childhood memories are from there and it is a place I will forever love. One of the most visceral memories I have is looking across the ice fjord listening to the thunderous breaking of the ice bergs - you can hear the sounds on videos, but combined wi…

> the enormity of what is in front of you and actually being able to feel the sound in your body it can only be experienced by being there.

I have a video of the coolest moment of my life and it looks like maybe the magnitude of a firefly on film. An asteroid impact was predicted and I heard of it in time, so I went to observe it. No sound (or body feel) in my case, but knowing how crazy big and distant the fireball that you're observing is, lighting up the sky from the far side of France...

People whom I showed didn't really have a big reaction. I didn't really understand that, but by now I have enough distance to the event to look back at the video more objectively and realize that, indeed, it's cool but it's just another video. This, too, seems like it can only be experienced in real life

Eleven have been predicted ever (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Lis...), none yet in 2025. If you see the notice and you're within, say, 750 km, share the news with a friend and go see it! Of course, it objectively really is just what it is: bigger version of a shooting star. Idk if everyone would have my reaction, but I did ^^

Thank you for sharing iceberg cracking. I love 'cold vacations' anyway (two months in Finland were some of the best months), so this is a new entry on my bucket list :)

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#240
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

# I was always struck by how much it resembled meat in both texture and taste. Say what? How can a mollusc taste like meat?

mollusc [sic]: 'An invertebrate of a large phylum which includes snails, slugs, mussels, and octopuses.'

Mollusc is a perfectly legal way of writing mollusk if that's what you mean. And everyone knows that whales evolved from hungry beach snails around 50mya.
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