June 12, 2008 – Today was another long day of travelling, and it was finally the end of our long journey going Ilulissat, Greenland, Nuuk, and to Reykjavik, Iceland. Our flight was extremely smooth and peaceful, and I was extremely impressed with AirGreenland’s flight crew, as they were always courteous and made sure our bags were safe, a basic service far better than what I experienced on AirTran! The plane was delayed an hour, but with the friendly crew, it didn’t seem like anybody minded. Some of our old friends from Nuuk visited us at the airport to spend time with us as we waited and we exchanged photos as we chatted. We gave them the chance to watch our video coverage of Niels, because while they knew him, they had never had the chance to see his village or how he lived and this was their chance. We spent a total of 3 ½ hours together waiting for our flight, and as great as they were welcoming us when we arrived, they were just as good keeping us company when we left in such a small airport. It seemed as we broke their hearts as we took off; as beautiful as Greenland is, I can imagine it can be lonely sometimes for some.

It was a three hour, uneventful flight to Iceland and we landed at the Keflavik airport under a heavy blanket of clouds. We rented a car to drive the 40km to Reykjavik to meet Deaf Icelandic Haukur Vilhjalmsson, a former student at Gallaudet University. I met Haukur back in 2004 when he was a special host for DeafNation doing video reports of Iceland. With little time to spend together, we decided to go to a mall where we ate at a delicious sushi bar and had a great coffee. We took David to Iceland’s capitol building, which was so small and simple compared to the enormous capitol building in America! It was so peaceful with no secret service or capitol police surrounding the building as there usually is in America, and it really was symbolic of how peaceful Iceland is as a country.

We met some more deaf people at a pub just 75 yards from the parliament, a stone’s throw. Wouldn’t it be great if there were that kind of accessibility in Washington! It was there after nine full days that we finally saw darkness fall. Although it was after midnight and it was only dark for a few short hours, it was a good warmup and adjustment for us as we got back to America where it is dark nearly half the time- you wouldn’t believe it but it really was great to see the sun fall! We checked in a nice Inn close to the Blue Lagoon, and after such a long time in the wilderness of Greenland, we were ready to pamper ourselves for the next few hours!