first day funk: the breathtaking ilulissat icefjord

after a series of unfortunate events, we got settled in the yacht for our very first briefing. quick introduction, room assignments, house rules, itinerary for our first day. exhausted, i settled in and skipped the meet and greet over drinks, or whatever the guys did.

i woke up early the next day, like i normally do when i'm travelling (this quickly changed after two days), and found daniel already up and ready for breakfast. it was officially our first day in this trip! it was going to be a day-long hike and i was quite excited, not having the faintest idea of what's to come. 

as we got ready, i quickly realized two things:
1. my shoes were flat. theirs were like hard-core hiking shoes.
2. sofie and willem (hike guides) both have hiking poles. some hikers didn't, but if the ones guiding are using them, they must've been necessary.

assembling the ensemble (photo from pieter)

and so we started to walk. as we reached the edge of the town and started to make our way uphill, we saw some sled dogs chilling, and we made our first stop to take photos. "the dogs always score!", sofie announced. they're husky-like but not as fluffy and they don't bark like normal dogs, they kind of squeal. we tried not to disturb their sunbathing too much.

wherever you go in the world, puppies are always adorable.

at the start of ascent, we could see the beauty from the horizon. you could just imagine how much better it was from the vantage point. it was such a lovely day, a far cry from the day prior's weather. there were barely any clouds, and while that was so great for sightseeing and photo-taking, it wasn't so great on the (lightly sunblock-applied) face. 

very promising views

the omni-present sun

before the trip, i asked to 'host' our organization's mascot and bring it to greenland. we have a monthly newsletter at work, and the mascot is being featured making its way around the world. here it is in camouflage.    

say hello to CPI-clops

halfway into the hike, i realized that i should:
1. kick myself for not having the right hiking shoes
2. kick myself for not having hiking poles

looking back, this first hike was actually the mildest of all the other hikes to come, and it was already difficult for me! things could have really been better had i been more prepared. nevertheless, the regular breaks for hot tea, cookies or chocolates and water were helpful. it also helped that there's always something amazing to see.  

amazing views throughout the hike

post lunch, i could already see the pattern that i'm always behind. from time to time one of the guys would slow down and walk with me, though for the most part i also enjoyed walking alone. 

we finally got to the vantage point where it's 180 degrees of pure magic. that was a view worth hiking for! 

behold, the mighty ilulissat icefjord

lone ranger, perhaps out fishing?

somewhere while everybody's busy admiring the views, i had to hide and wail. i thought of floris. how could he not be here to see this? how could i be doing this alone?

but really, i wasn't. i was there with a bunch of nice people, though at that point i didn't know them well yet. also, there's CPI-clops. what good is a mascot if not to entertain its host, right? 

it's got to be the coolest CPI-clops out there, conquering the largest island in the world

after i recuperated from my self-imposed drama, and after everybody's had their fill of enjoying the scenery that was to be stowed forever in their minds and memory cards, we proceeded to walk back towards town. we did not run out of nice things to see. there was a never-ending trail of icebergs, more sled dogs, and the constant supply of mosquitoes. the notorious arctic mosquitoes. i have never been so violated by tiny creatures in my life, but that's a story for later. you never get truly annoyed of anything yet at day 1. we will come to that soon. 

bye for now, giant icebergs

more sled dogs

almost back in town! i could almost taste my victory Coke

we did pass by a grocery store and i zeroed in on addressing my parched throat and got a 500ml coke, and other goodies to share with the group. as i queued to pay, i realized i did not bring my wallet! of course someone came to rescue and lent me a hundred bucks :D 

'EPAL' is a Tagalog slang for a busybody (or its Singlish equivalent "Kiasu"). the more you know!

  
back in our luxury yacht, everyone settled down to relax. while having our first dinner - some really delicious chicken tikka (i didn't want to be too asian, so i didn't take food photos :( if only jasmine was there haha) and we were advised not to drink alcohol yet (noooooo!) because... we were about to take a trip around the icebergs via zodiac. 

yeaaahhhh!

the best surprise was that i get to do this little cruise with my beloved father in law. double yay!

the cruise was done in batches of 3, and while the rest were doing theirs, daniel and i were already winning by wining at the deck. later that night we started to sail out to our next destination.  

all in all, first day of the trip was so bloody awesome! it was a perfect start to my love affair with greenland. 

the universe conspired: making the cut for the greenland trip

i clearly remember that early in the year, paps announced that he will be away for a few weeks in greenland for work, and that i have passionately expressed how incredibly jealous i was that he will be there.

fast forward to april, i was informed that one of the passengers for the third group backed out due to schedule conflict. paps asked if i was interested to join and gave me the dates. i have intended to visit belgium in the summer anyway, during lovro's pre-school term break, and the dates were perfect. 

within seconds my mind has already identified all the issues and risks that i have to deal with to make this happen. i will need to be away for 4 weeks from work, so i have to check if i have enough vacation leave. i have to leave lovro in belgium that whole time, so i have to ask mams if that's alright with her (which is a silly question, because it is ALWAYS alright to leave the precious grandson to her). i have to book multiple flights, and ensure that i will not have to wait long in the airports for transit, which meant booking the best schedule regardless of the price. plus, i have never ever taken a cruise before, not even just an overnight trip, and here i'm signing up to stay in a boat for 17 days.  

and yet, deep in my heart, i already know that i need to do this. like, by all means necessary, i will make it happen. greenland is #14 out of 116 places that floris wanted to see, and it's so rugged and remote that having to plan that trip by myself would be so difficult, so i could not see how it's possible to pass up on this opportunity. plus, paps would be in charge of the sailing, so i knew i'd be in good hands. however, not wanting to be hasty, i confirmed that i am interested but have not made a final decision yet.

the days went by and towards end of the month, i received a mail from sofie indicating that the spot was still open. i responded with a lot of questions but she patiently answered all of them. it was then that i started to do some research about greenland, and look for flight options and really make a plan. on the 5th of may, seeing that there was only one more seat left for the copenhagen - kangerlussuaq flight, i panicked and booked it immediately. and so consequently, my fate was sealed.

the funny thing about taking a leap of faith and committing to this trip was how little attention i paid to the fact that it was a sailing and hiking trip. and i don't hike. and i didn't even consider making the necessary preparation for it. and that, my friends, is how my lazy asian ass became a bittersweet hiking tragedy.

the sort-of unfortunate way to greenland

she took a long, hard look at my passport and my schengen visa, and said "come this way please" - motioning me to step aside - while the rest of the passengers continued to board. 

this air greenland staff was suddenly in charge of my fate and for the next 20-30 minutes my heart was racing and i was simmered in all sorts of emotion. i was angry at myself (was i really so stupid not to check that i needed a different visa other than schengen?) and at her (was she just power-tripping?). i felt defeated (after i spent all this money for flights and the hiking trip, i won't be able to go?) and shameful (what the hell am i gonna tell all my friends and family?!).

after what seemed an eternity to me, she finally got off the phone after talking to someone in greenlandic, and gave me a thumbs up. i was almost in tears, and a very loud OHHHH THANK GAAAAHHHD came out of my mouth and instinctively, gave her a very firm handshake. suck it, you god of misfortune, i'm going to freaking greenland.

****

it was not long after this that i realized the god of misfortune was not done with me just yet. sandwiched between two large caucasian men, both reeking of alcohol, i felt uncomfortable. both immediately claimed the elbow rest, which meant elbows sticking out to my torso from both sides. the guy at the aisle seat (let's call him creeper) started getting too comfortable and his legs were spread out a bit wider than necessary too. it was in these rare moments that i wish to be a smelly ogre so that no one can out-obnoxious me, but all i could do to express my disapproval was to cross my legs and pretend to accidentally hit his shin with my raised foot, so he'd re-consider opening his legs so widely. unless he had balls the size of baseball, i really don't see how slouching like that was necessary nor comfortable.

things got uglier when creeper stretched out and grabbed my knee, pretending it was a mistake and half-heartedly apologized. and then, the final straw came when he pat my thigh, and spoke to me in danish, as if that was the best way to strike a conversation with a stranger. i promptly put my foot down by saying "don't.f*ckin.touch.me!" and gave him what could probably be the most venomous look an enraged asian woman could muster. i doubt that he got scared, but at least he got the message. 

***

things lit up a little bit when i arrived in kangerlussuaq and took the flight to illulissat. it was there that i met up with daniel - soon to be dubbed daddy d - and we took the exit row seats at front and i had a view from the window of the great whiteness that is ironally named greenland. 

not the best weather that day, for the "not the best" travel day of my life

this is in fact the airport

when we landed he received a message from his son jonas that we were to meet at hotel arctic and then head to the yacht together after that - but perhaps either i was just stupid or jet lagged - i somehow managed to convince daniel to go to the harbour instead and drop off our bags before going to the hotel. in hindsight it totally did not make sense, but daniel did not argue with me, perhaps i've got  'i've had a reallyyy bad day' written all over my face, and once we realized the mistake, luckily, a taxi was at the harbour and at an extra 100krona deficit later, we were at the hotel. 

i was thankful that we didn't have to move too quickly because i was too tired, and meant to take a nap, though instead i found myself talking to a friend for a good hour about the recent misfortunes and it helped me relax a little bit. when sofie finally came to collect us, i met peter (who was gonna be my roommate for the trip) and olivier and we took zodiac (inflatable dinghy) from the dock to the yacht. bags loaded, we zipped through the water towards the moonlight II of london, and i was dying to just get onboard. as jan maneuvered, my small day backpack went flying into the water! miraculously the bag floated, as it took a few minutes for us to retrieve it. "was there anything expensive inside?" jan asked, and i replied "no." although, come to think of it, the olympus pen camera of floris is priceless, and i would've been super bummed if it was broken. for some reason though, i was not upset at all, and as i looked at the red wine that was still intact on the side pocket of the wet bag, i lightened up. "well, that wine is chilled now!", i yelled. olivier laughed and said "that's the spirit!"

and with that, i knew that things can only get better.     
   

2 nights in copenhagen

as greenland is a danish territory, the most convenient route to the country was via copenhagen. i've never been to denmark, but with the tight schedule i didn't really have much spare time to check it out. so i allotted just two days for copenhagen.

incidentally paps and i took the same flight to copenhagen from brussels, but he was to leave immediately the next day, and i still had another one. we arrived late afternoon and decided we can probably only do one thing together in copenhagen. i asked if he was interested to see christiana, and so we did.

i've looked up on things to do in copenhagen but nothing was absolutely compelling, to be honest. i posted in the couchsurfing group to ask for opinion and i was told that i must go and see christiana. christiana was indeed an intriguing place to see, what with its self-proclaimed autonomy and a dab of danger with its rather controversial push street's sale of recreational drugs (which is still illegal in denmark, by the way). i've had my share of solo travel, but honestly i preferred to have company to visit this place. i'm glad paps agreed.

we went and walked around, i took quite a lot of photos because everything was just colorful and vibrant. of course there were areas where they were explicit about not allowing photography and i was not going to be that tourist who would violate that. we were lucky that there was a gig happening then - nemoland - some kind of a summer festival. there were a lot of people, young and old, and the atmosphere was pretty chill. we stayed for a few beers. 

the next day paps left early for his flight to ilulissat. i couldn't sleep anymore after he did so i checked out soon after. i left my big backpack at the hotel concierge and went with my day pack. i was going to stay on a hostel that evening, and took what i needed in the day pack. i went to the city hall for the assembly point of the free walking tours. but first, breakfast. i went old school danish. 

 

smørrebrød - 3 for 40 kr at a local supermarket

it's great that in almost all of the big european cities there is always this free walking tours where you basically just tip the tour lead. with groups as big as 25, i'm sure that doing it just for the tips was still worth the guide's time. it was a 3-hour walk, covering a few important places in the city, and was a great way to explore.

we started at city hall, went through the old and new square (gammeltorv and nytorv), christianborg palace, nyhavn harbour with the view of the opera house, and amalienborg palace. the guide did share some very interesting tidbits of information that you were surely memorable. like how the queen's palace in amalienborg has five chimneys because she liked to smoke (?) or that the vikings don't really wear hats with 2 horns - it was just a romanticized depiction for dramatic flair. 

nytorv (new square)

christianborg palace

nyhavn harbour

copenhagen opera house

after the walking tour, i roamed around and ended up going to rosenborg castle. the weather started to shift maniacally. one minute it's drizzling and the next, the skies were blue. there was a lot of putting on and taking off of my jacket happening. 

i thoroughly enjoyed the last place i visited - kongens have or the king's garden, which is really the garden around the rosenborg castle grounds. i loved the colorful flowerbeds and plants and the serenity of the afternoon. 

   
i was finally exhausted from all the walking that day and headed to my hostel called sleep in heaven. copenhagen was not a cheap place to be, and i didn't find it worth spending a hundred or so euros for a few hours of rest. the hostel was quite alright. i took a bed in a 6-bed female dorm. the room was orderly, people were quiet and considerate. i took a nap for a couple of hours and then decided how i was going to spend the only night alone in copenhagen. a few days ago i signed up to attend the copenhagen couchsurfing meet-up, but i was feeling a bit too tired to be sociable. instead, i decided to treat myself to a nice dinner. i went to restaurant kokkeriet for the light set course + wine pairing, but there was nothing light about it. i ended up spending four hours in that restaurant and was full to my neck. it was one hell of an expensive but special dinner. 

you'd think it's ironic that i went for a cheap sleep but then splurged so much on dinner, but i think that this table for one evening was quite an experience and was definitely the climax of this side trip. of course, i can't afford to do that regularly, not even every month :)

the next morning was an early start and off to the expedition of a lifetime! 

i "should be" excited

Tonight i'm flying out to Europe. I'll be staying with my in-laws for a few days before heading off to Copenhagen and onto Illulissat in Greenland. In freaking Greenland. A once in a lifetime trip! Entry number 14 in Floris' impressive bucket list which would have been 27 out of 116 by the time I'm done. 

I should really be more excited.

Knowing myself though, I'm sure I'd enjoy it. There are other people in that expedition that I'd be bunking in with for 16 days, so I'll make the most out of it. And if not, the icebergs would probably pick me up. Hopefully it wouldn't remind me too much of that Iceland trip, that was by far the most memorable adventure I ever had, which unfortunately happened to be with you-know-who. 

I'm looking forward for this trip to top it off, though, because this trip would be all about me. Maybe being away from it all, and being literally at the edge of the world, would stir some sort of enlightenment in me. Maybe seeing the simplicity in life in those remote parts will help me appreciate what I have, what I still have, and aim for getting my life back together.

Maybe. But who knows. It's always easier to be glum and wait for the end of the world, right? 

trinkets

If you know me well enough, you'd know that I like using the word trinket to describe that place where I put my memories - good or bad - that have especially affected me. 

On a day when I feel down, I go to that storage room filled with trinkets, select one in red (the happy ones), open it up and savor the moment again to pick me up, and once satisfied I close the trinket and put it back in the storage room and close it behind.

You would think that any normal being would always only select the red trinkets. But not me apparently. Once in a while I take a good look at the black ones - the ones that hurt the most; the ones I wish to forget; the ones that made me feel like a worthless piece of shit. It's never been very clear to me why I do this, but the one thing I'm certain of is when I do, I'd bawl. 

Maybe I'm a masochist.

Sometimes though, when I know that I'm in the storage room and looking at the black trinkets, there's a voice in my head that tells me to stop. Don't go there, it says. Why'd you do that for? You got better things to do! It is when I listen to that voice and stop on my tracks, and indeed focus on doing something positive instead - that's the Cindy that my friends refer to as strong. That's the Cindy that everybody expects to be. That's the Cindy that gets dismissed with a "you'll be fine" because that's just my reputation.

Perhaps because I know it's (sometimes) necessary to wallow in sorrow. It's good to watch sappy movies about fictional love that conquers all, only to remember that this kind of bullshit is really just meant to be on-screen. Because in real life, love is meant to hurt, and life is meant to suck all the time from time to time. It's what gives meaning to our mortality.

When I look at my imaginary storage room, I can see trinkets of other colors too. There are orange ones from my days of adventure and fun and doing crazy shit. Gray for the ones when I've acted like an asshole towards someone. Green for the ones when I chose to do something right and humane. Many colors, yeah. Because you know what? No matter how shitty my life is at the moment, overall, my life is colorful. It's filled with many moments of magic and darkness and fun and stupidity and love. 

And because of that, I have one thing that I cling to that is the epitome of my survival: hope.

As long as I have hope, I will not jump off my balcony. 

waiting for the end of the world

It was only recently that I've watched the movie The Big Short (which I loooove, by the way) and in that movie they've quoted the famous Haruki Murakami: "Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come". 

It was so powerful I decided to buy the book 1Q84 the next day. Damn it.

There is a resounding truth to this sentence though, if you're a confused and depressed little fuck like me. That's exactly why I'm here, updating a blog that's been in hiatus for more than a year, while sending my 'non-life changing' date home, so I can sit in a bar by myself and have a moment of 'media' enlightenment, so to speak. 

This year has not been kind to me so far. I've gone through a very ugly breakup. And then signed myself up on these "dating apps" that has been exciting for a limited period in time, and just downright pathetic for the rest. The breakup was cruel, because it just made me realize that no matter how much you give, it will never be enough with the wrong person. It also severely crushed my overly inflated ego, and maybe rightfully so, because I had to be pulled back to earth so I can be on my knees, on the dirt, to kiss the gravestone of the one who, for a short period of time, had completed me. I realized that I have never really truly, completely, mourned over the loss of my greatest love. I had to move on, thinking I had to do it for my son, when maybe I was only cheating mourning itself, because I don't know any better. I just knew I had to get there somehow, and soon.

I supposed I needed to be truly alone, truly miserable, so I can maybe crawl out of my hole in whole (fun puns, yes). Trying to come out of my grief by soliciting the help of others can only move me an inch. Having to actually go through my misery, by myself, and consciously surviving each and every day by choosing to be alive is perhaps the only way out. It sure as hell ain't easy, trust me, I probably haven't seen the worst of myself yet, and I'm quite scared of how much uglier it can get. But no one else could and should see it, but me. There is yet another movie I watched recently called Colossal (which I also looove) that quoted, "There is a monster in all of us". Well, my monster is screaming and bickering and kicking and moaning because its steel arms are brittle and its joints are rusty. I am just so fucking tired of trying to be strong. 

Will I come out of it alive? It's a matter of for how long. All I know is, when I think of Lovro, I fucking try. Until that day, when I'm done trying, then we will all find out whether it's the strong or the weak who truly wishes for the world to end.