Status Call

Long time, no update. Well, the reason is that I'm pretty busy since I got back from Greenland with work and stuff. But not that much happened anyways. Last weekend I went to the Fluff Fest...for the 6th time in a row. Just like last year the weather kinda sucked (again no hang outs at the pool), plus this year the line up wasn't that good. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of bands I wanted to see (Ruiner, Another Breath, Iron Lung, Amen Ra, Right Idea, No Turning Back,...) but no band that got me siked like the years before (Trial or Bane for example). Also the party was just quite ok. No karaoke, no real DJ, just an Ipod playlist. But it still was a good hang out and meeting friends from all over europe's always nice. But next year I'll just go when there's a good line up and the weather forecast's good as well. At least that's what I'm saying now...I bet I'll end up there anyways.

Last week I went to see Lagwagon again. They played a great set with just hits and made me feel really young again. Then on thuesday I felt old again as I got diagnosed with "Inguinal Hernia" (just google it). This bumms me out a lot. I have to get surgery this fall (involving general anaesthesia and staying in the hostpital for like 3 days) and after this follows a slow recovering process (for 3 months I won't be able to carry heavy stuff). But as they say: Shit happens! And I'm happy that it's not something "serious". It's just annoying, that's all...

What really gets me siked these days is, that on Thuesday I'll fly to Israel with my BFF Stefanie! We'll stay in Tel Aviv for a while dancing the nights away and spending our days at the beaches, the we'll make our way up to Haifa to check out Cesarea and Akko. After that we'll drive to Lake Genezareth, then down to Jerusalem (checking out Nazareth and Ramallah on the way), continue to the Dead Sea (Masada!!!) and from there to Eilat at the Red Sea and then back to Tel Aviv. This means I'll get to see quite a lot of the country and also swim in 3 different seas! How cool's that?

So that's it for now. I still need to get the rolls developed from Greenland. Expect a pic update and a story of my adventures once in a while.

Desolation in Solitude pt. IV

So I'm almost back home. Right now I'm sitting in a youth hostel in Copenhagen and will go to bed soon cause I wanna check out the city a bit tomorrow before I head back to the airport to catch my flight back to Vienna.

So what did we do since the last blog entry? Well...we stayed for a while in beautiful Qarqatoq, strolled around the city, went to the local pup to watch the football championship, got real drunk on saturday and in touch with the locals (I'll go into detail about that in another entry). Then we went to Nanortalik but not without stopping at the lovely Unartoq hot springs and taking a bath there right beside huge mountain ridges on the one side and frosty icebergs on the other. Breathtaking! Nanortalik was chill. Nice little fishing village. From there we took the helicopter back to Narsarsuaq where we stayed the last two days, mainly walking around in that area or chilling at the hoste with the occasional visit of the local museum.

Here's a bunch of more pics. More of them and more detailed stories will follow once I have developed all the rolls of film I'm carrying around right now...

You'll never walk alone...

Desolation in Solitude pt. III

So here it is – the first update with pictures. To put them into the right context I will give you a quick run down of what we have been up to the last few days.
When we got back from our 2 day trip to the inland ice we spend a night camping near the Narsarsuaq hostel so that we could finally take a shower…something we REALLY needed. The next morning we had to get up early, cause we had to catch a ferry to Itelleq. From there we hiked to lovely Igaliku, a small fishing village and spent the afternoon there, buying food for the next few days that we would stay in the wilderness. To gain some strength we stayed at the local youth hostel , enjoying a proper bed again.
The next morning our big hike to the Hvalsey ruins began. We made our way up to a 400m plateau, walked for 4 hours and had our first brake at the Tasersuasik mountain lake where we had a nice meal. 5 more hours of walking later we made our camp for the night. I can tell you that was a horrible night as it had like zero degrees and the ground was really boggly. Plus our backs really hurt from the 15kg that we carried on our backs the whole day. But I do not want to sound like a pussy, so I will stop the complaining.
The next morning we really felt the last 4 days of hiking in our legs which really affected our motivation. Therefore we could not really appreciate the breathtaking landscape that surrounded us. In the evening we finally arrived at the impressive norse Hvalsey ruins and it seems like lady luck was on our side that day as we got picked up by the luxury sailing yacht Saxon Blue that made its way up from England over Iceland to Greenland and will continue from the to Baffin Bay, down to Canada, USA and will end its journey in the carribean sea. Harvey and his crew made us feel really really welcome on board and served us the best meal we had in a long time. They dropped us off at Qaqortoq where we are now. Due to arriving pretty late in town all the hotels and hostels were already closed and so we took our last chance and followed a tip of my lonely planet guide to a private house and as it turned out that was the best that could have happened to us. We are now staying at the Isobeth familys house in our own apartment the next few days and will continue our trip down to the south on Monday. Next station will be Alluitsup Paa where we will visit the hot springs and thereafter we will head to Nanortalik from where we will take a helicopter back to Narsarsuaq…at least that is the plan. Do not know when I will be online the next time. I do not think that it will be before I arrive back in Vienna. There you will get the rest of the pictures once I have developed all the rolls of my analogue cameras.

Welcome to the middle of nowhere...

Watersports

Greenlandic speciality - Finnwhalemeat

Lonesome travellers

Absolute freedom

Bizz as uge

View upon the glacier

Avoiding flies

Ciller than most

Igaliku

Wild horses

Chefcook

Pirates

Hvalesy ruins

On board of the Saxon Blue
Sunburn and iceburn
The Saxon Blue
Qarqortoq

Dogs of war

Desolation in Solitude pt. II

Just a quick update: We're now in Greenland for three days and we already love it. We're in the middle of nowhere, aka Narsasuaq, and we're willing to go even more into the wild. We already spend the last night camping close to a glacier right beside a mountain lake...how amazing is that? Right now we're waiting for our ferry to Itilleq from where we will start our 3-4 day hike towards Qarqortoq. Hopefully from there I can give you the next update, maybe even with some pics.

Desolation in Solitude pt. I

So today I'm leaving for my great Greenland-adventure: 2 Weeks of hiking, camping, fishing, simply enjoying the nature in total wilderness. It's weird: I'm not nervous at all. To be honest: I didn't think about the trip that much during the last few weeks. But right now, I'm getting really excited. Tomorrow I'll be in a totally different world. We're flying to a "city" with something like 190 people living there! I really can't imagine what it's like to live up there, but I hope I'll find out once I'm there.

Keep checking the blog if you're interested in what's going on as I will try to update it even in Greenland with news, stories and pictures. But I guess it won't happen that often.

so bye for now,

P.