A Trip of Ice and Fire - Day 0 - Fire and Ice

“A Trip of Ice and Fire”

6/9/17, “Fire and Ice”
John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York (JFK)

Every trip I take that brings me closer to accomplishing the goals I set for myself when I set out to see the world is special to me, but some trips are more special than others.  Every new country I visit is something I eagerly anticipate, but some I anticipate more eagerly than others.  These two islands, of fire and ice, volcanic and glacial, top that list.  I have travelled to every corner of the globe at this point, and I have enjoyed exploring the strange world, seeking out life and civilizations, but gnawing at the back of my mind every time I visited a new country was a single word.

Greenland.  That was the word.  Greenland was not a country I could visit in a three-day weekend, the way I could Iceland, and it would have been grossly inelegant to visit them separately.  No, the proper way to visit Greenland was to append it to the Iceland trip.  Why Greenland?  Was it not just another North American World Heritage Site to visit?  No, Greenland was the epitome of the North, as I wrote in my closing entry from last trip.  Greenland in the summer is the most beautiful place imaginable to me.

That meant it had to wait.  And wait it would, until I could assign my main summer vacation to visiting these islands of fire and ice.  Save the best for last, I suppose.  It’s good that I waited, since they have recently nominated a new WHS, which may very well be inscribed later this summer.  If I had gone earlier and excluded Kujataa, I would have had to come back, and that would not have been elegant.  Also, I wanted to wait to visit these islands of fire and ice until I had thoroughly and completely visited the North.  I knew that once I had visited Iceland and Greenland, I would call nothing fair unless it be of these islands of fire and ice.

I do have my Newfoundland and Labrador trip after this, but that does hold its own sway for some very significant reasons, including it being the trip where I say, “North America Complete.”  I saved that as my last Canada trip for a reason, too.  During my last trip, I went into great detail in my last entry about why Greenland was so promising, what this island of ice promised me, why it had, for years, been at the top spot of my travel list, but first will come Iceland.

The island of fire is just the appetizer, the first course of this trip.  On its own, as a three-day weekend, Iceland would be a world-class trip, but as the prelude to Greenland, it is nothing.  I hope my reader understands the significance of this statement, of what I am implying here.  Compared to the island of ice, this incredible island of fire is inconsequential.  It will merely whet my appetite for the two days I am there as my excitement builds for Greenland.  Iceland is the place everyone goes, to see the Aurora, to see the volcanoes, to see the greenery.  It is the island of fire.  Most people could identify Reykjavik as the capital of Iceland.

Greenland, though, that is a different animal entirely.  People do not go there for their summer vacation, only extreme adventure vacationers go there, mostly to hike and camp on the glaciers.  It is the island of ice.  Almost no one could identify Nuuk as the capital of Greenland.  It is the island of ice I want to see.  It is the charming capital of Nuuk that I want to visit.  It is the farming landscape of Kujataa that makes my heart race.  It is the icefjords in Ilulissat, and the midnight sun, that will be burned in my mind’s eye for the rest of my life.

While I will enjoy the appetizer of Iceland and have fun seeing the modern capital of Reykjavik and the old parliament at Thingvellir, and while I’m sure the volcano of Surtsey will wow me, it will all be forgotten the moment I set foot in Nuuk, and it will be further forgotten when I see the old sheep farms along the coast at Qassiarsuk, and all memory of it will be gone as soon as I see the icefjords in Ilulissat.  Then, to cap it all off, I will watch the midnight sun shine across the tundra before I go home.  Reader, for a traveler so in love with the North, can you imagine a more wondrous trip than this trip of ice and fire?

Okay, so Day 0?  Well, as is my tradition, I will actually start with Night -1.  My plans with the K-Man fell through, so I wound up going to the movie with Roberto and had dinner there, our last night together.  We saw “Megan Leavey,” a movie about a girl and her dog, except that girl was a marine and that dog was a K9 bomb sniffer working in Iraq.  It was very good, and I had chicken fingers and curly fries for dinner.  After the movie, we lit up Man O’ War cigars and walked to my apartment so that Roberto could get his stuff.

I struggled to pack and, though I was dead tired, wound up not getting to sleep until 2 AM, which put pay to my plan to get to the office early.  As I was packing, I realized that I did not have my laptop charger.  I wasn’t sure if it was in Scarsdale, but I began to wonder if I had left it in my hotel in Queen Charlotte.  I would need to get a new charger, and I would need to use my lunch break to do it.  It would be a short day anyway, since we were leaving at 2 PM to visit our new lab in the Bronx.  That meant I would only have five hours, including my lunch break, to go to Best Buy, go to the bank, print out my paperwork, and take care of whatever open items there were so that my teammate would be fine on his own without me for the week.  I managed to do all of it.

At noon, I left for Best Buy, and they had the charger.  I then went to Citibank, and they took care of everything for me right away.  I then got my usual pre-departure lunch at Hop Won, just boneless spare ribs, rice, and an egg roll nothing fancy, since they were serving refreshments at the lab.  I was done printing my stuff right around 1 PM, and we left at 2 PM.  Our chief engineer had driven into the city.  He had spots for four passengers, including me, which was good since I had my luggage.  It was a long drive due to traffic, but we were still the first to arrive.

They had a nice set-up and I found all the equipment interesting, though not as interesting as the impressive food spread, which easily served as dinner, though I guess I will eat again on the plane.  After everyone else showed up, we saw the concrete, and we got to witness a demonstration of a break test.  It failed at 119,000 pounds of force.  A cylinder the size of a bottle of soda.  That was impressive.  After that, we ate some more, and everyone started making their way home.

I had a car taking me to the airport, and one of the inspectors who lived with Queens came with me so that we could drop him off on the way to the airport.  More traffic, but I had plenty of time.  I checked-in, and I had to fit my carry-on in a sizer.  It only fit after I took out my toiletries, and even then only barely.  I don’t suppose I’ll be able to bring it onboard the smaller planes.  I went through security and headed to my gate, where I sat down and proceeded to write this entry, which I will close so that I can publish and get a pretzel Auntie Anne’s.  I really want a pretzel.