Long time no see!

Dear Friends!
I have been a bad blogger. My brother told me that if I updated weekly I’d soon have 400,000 views. It worked for him! He now has five times that many (check out his minute physics youtube channel)!

A quick update on my whereabouts and recent activities:
I’m currently in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, on the Yenisey River, near the geographical center of Asia. It’s right in the middle of Siberia. At 56 degrees North, it’s not the Arctic, but it’s currently snowing, and the temperature regularly drops to negative 40 in the winter! Right now I’m in this industrial city of a million people, but I’m preparing for two trips to rural communities in the region. It’s quite difficult to do, especially this time of year, as we either have to wait for the rivers to freeze so we can drive across them, or charter a helicopter.

For the last month of my stay in Greenland, I lived in the settlement of Qaarsut (pop. 180). Only one or two people spoke halting English, so it was a real challenge and opportunity to learn Greenlandic and learn from people not incredibly influence by American pop culture! I visited and lounged around with people a lot, since that is what you do until the wind/snow/rain dies down and you can go out on the ocean. When the weather was good, I tried to invite myself on as many hunting and fishing trips as possible. At the beginning of the month it was quite frustrating, since I would ask people what they would do for the day and they would say “Nothing. Stay in town.” And later I would stop by and they would be out catching 10 seals. However, I gradually improved my communication abilities and understanding of the weather-dependent rhythm of the settlement, and people learned that I wanted to come along, so would stop by to knock on my door and ask me to come. My time in Qaarsut was certainly the highlight of my entire Watson so far, as I have never before delved in such depth into the local ways of another place.

Winter began with a 15 cm snowstorm on September 18, my last day in Qaarsut, as I fled towards Iceland, where fall was still in full color. I spent two weekends in Reykjavik, the capitol, with an Icelandic family I’d met by chance earlier, and in between, toured around the country looking at farms, volcanoes, and fishing boats.

On October 2 I flew to Oslo, Norway, for the sole purpose of applying for a Russian visa, as Greenland has no Russian consulate and I’ve heard good things about the consulate in Norway. The lady in front of me was refused, by I got my long-awaited visa! I had spend the last two months trying to receive an invitation from my hosts in Krasnoyarsk, so I was quite happy to be successful after all! In my remaining time in Norway, I took a train south to Ås, an agricultural town, where I visited with ag development researchers and picked apples and mushrooms. Then, just because, I flew north toward Trondheim, where I visited with a really nice family for my few remaining days in Norway. On Oct. 12, I flew to Krasnoyarsk.