Mount Everest

I live next to Mount Everest. 

I was not aware of this fact when I was sitting in my parents' kitchen in Aarhus last week, looking endlessly at satellite photos of Nuuk, trying to learn more about this exotic place I was moving to. 

I was also not aware of this fact as Hans Henrik, the owner of the apartment in which I'm staying for my first week, picked me up from the airport yesterday and drove me to my new home. 

And, unfortunately, I was still not aware of this fact a little while later when I was strapping on my boots to go grocery shopping. But I really do... I live next to Mount Everest.

I started getting an inkling of this fact when I was searching for the "shortcut" that I'd heard about - there is a path leading from my new home, across this... small obstacle..., past my new workplace at GU Nuuk and down to the supermarket and the center of Nuuk. Simple, right?

My mind started asking questions about what the hell I was doing as I turned off the road and made my way across a field of deep snow, following a track of previous feet that had gone this way. At first the snow was hard and firm and I was busy enjoying the brilliant blue sky and the bright sunlight and the fresh air after sitting in three different stuffy airplane cabins during the morning. My mind was occupied with the surrealism I was feeling at the fact that I was here - in Greenland! When three weeks ago I was still studying for my thesis exam! Unreal...

But I was yanked back to the here-and-now when my right leg fell through the snow down to the knee. Shwump! And then with every fifth step I fell through again. Goddamnit! This excursion was turning out to be a little trickier than I had expected, Struggling through this was slow and hard work, so when the snow firmed once more so that I could walk on the surface, I was glad. That is until I heard this ominous and deep groaning and crackling beneath me. Like ice shifting.

So I froze (no pun intended) and stood there like a panicked statue, wondering if I was about to make the headlines on Discovery Channel ("Young woman's first day in Greenland proves fatal!"). Was I walking on ice? What if I fell through?! The rational part of my brain did register that tons of people had walked here before me, although at some point my trusty footprint-pals had turned to the right while I forged straight onwards. Since I hadn't exactly planned on drowning on my first day, I decided it was time to walk around the death trap and rather struggle through the deep snow.

The terrain rose to higher ground now and this was around the time I started to realise that I do in fact live next to Mount Everest. The track went straight up the side of the slope, which, to someone standing at the bottom and already winded from the short walk in deep snow, was starting to look freaking insurmountable. But I'd gotten this far and I wasn't about to turn back now!

I don't know how long it took to reach the top, but along the way I cursed the gods repeatedly, I cursed every little twist of fate that had left me in this place at this moment, gasping for breath and struggling up this godforsaken snowy cliffside and I started questioning this whole Greenland-extravaganza! At the steepest bit, earlier footprints had left deep gouges that went into the hillside until it was like climbing up a ladder of snow.

Photo taken at the summit of my Everest - of another,
slightly larger Everest in the north...  I live down and to the left

Reaching the summit, though, was breathtaking - and not just because I was out of breath, ha ha. The sun appeared and I took a moment to soak in my surroundings. Clear blue skies, the icy-grey fjord and this stunning landscape of mountains upon mountains covered in a deep layer of snow. I've already come to find that the lighting here is something special - it must have something to do with how the sunlight hits the snow. I don't know how, but the result is this broad spectrum of colours that are all visible in the landscape. Right, I realised as I stood at the summit of Mount Everest, this is why I came here. This is what it's all about. I'd forgotten somewhere below, as I was hauling my butt up the cliff!

After shopping for groceries I decided to not brave Mount Everest on the way home (I was carrying eggs!). I've always found it more difficult to walk down steep cliffs than up and I don't think breaking my leg on the first day and having to stay at home would sit well with my new boss, the principal of the high school. So I took the bus home ;-)