“It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.” Steven Wright
Two things you really should know about me. I love beer. I love globes.
I love the fact that beer is so cold and refreshing and just perfect on its own and just perfect with every meal (except duck… just doesn’t cut it with duck). I love the fact that beer is best swigged from a bottle. (This is what gave it the edge over my other great love… wine). I love the fact I live in a beer friendly society, that has pub culture and that as a nation the friendliest thing we do is have a beer with people.
It may seem a slightly unrelated fact but I love the globe. Not the occupants or the actual planet per se… just any map of the world. I find it fascinating to look at where places are. Maybe it’s living in Europe that does it. I think when you live in just 1 of 50 countries that live cheek by jowl with each other; you get pretty curious as to exactly where your neighbours are.
Especially if you live somewhere as cosmopolitan as London where you are more likely to bump into anyone from anywhere than anywhere else on earth. I find it helps to have a mental image of where Ivittuut may actually be. So the love of beer and the co-incidence of living in the world’s most actual melting pot and knowledge of where places are… are pretty useful attributes when sinking beers in a pub in London.
And then you find yourself having a beer with someone who is from Ivittuut.
And you haven’t a clue.
Not a scoob.
El blanko.
WHERE THE PLOP IS IVITTUUT???
If you know the answer without the help of Google… then YOU are my personal hero.
I cannot believe I have a collection of globes (including one that illuminates at night), that I have replace my A1 size wall hanging of the world every time a new state is born… and this person with a distinct northern European accent says that they were born in Ivittuut and I haven’t even a vague idea of whether it is a country, a province, a city or a cowshed. I just couldn’t picture where it was… everyone else in the room was either bluffing for Britain or they all knew. My ego says bluffing. So I bluffed along too and as with all conversations in the UK, we glided away from origins and onto experience, which after all is the glue that bonds all us simple folk together.
But… guess what I did, the moment I got in.
Gaaaaaaaaaahoooooooooooooogal!!!!
And I found out where on earth Ivittuut actually was.
To be fair to myself when you think Europe you kind of think it starts at Iceland in the West and ends in Russia in the East… you kind of know it goes up North into Norway and South into Malta . You kind of forget that of the 50 countries in Europe, 5 are also in Asia… but one thing you absolutely totally forget (unless you are from Ivittuut) that there is a part of Europe that strictly speaking is in the continent of North America.
Yep. Ivittuut is in Denmark… and Denmark is a little bigger than I thought.
Denmark to me has always been a little European country to me. The bits I’ve visited the most are on the islands floating around in the sea under Sweden. (I remember being rather surprised years ago to find a chunk of Denmark attached to Germany) But never the less Denmark certainly didn’t extend much beyond my mental picture of Europe. And besides… when I last went there it sure didn’t have a town called Ivittuut as far as I know. And I’m a map geek… I should know!
Well as it turns out … for just over a thousand years… Denmark extends into what is now known as the continent of North America and is a lot further west than Iceland.
How comes I never knew that the worlds largest island with a population the around the same as the UK is a part of Denmark and Ivittuut is a town in Greenland. How could this happen without ME being informed?!
Greenland is part of DENMARK???
Greenland is in EUROPE???
People are actually from GREENLAND???
Well f**k me silver and blue…. I never knew that!
Well, once I got over the shock, this little map geek had a wonderful time looking it up. Turns out the town of Ivittuut was abandoned in the 1980’s… which was about the time the chap I was talking to moved to London! Arrrrrrrrrrrggggghhh… if only I knew that when I ran into him… there is NOTHING on the interweb to indicate why this town was abandoned, and I actually met someone from there and didn’t ask!!!
Unfortunately – as anyone who has ever lived in London will know – despite sinking a few pints and having inconsequential conversation for several hours, the chances of our paths crossing again is about zero.
I suppose the most consequential thing from that interlude will be the questions I never asked because I was to ignorant to know what they were. Because I was too busy trying to be more knowledgeable than I was.
That’ll teach me for bluffing.
So I’m coming clean now. I had no idea about anything Danish outside of pastries, Hans Christian Anderson and beer. I have totally missed my opportunity to ask probably the only person I will ever meet from Greenland anything interesting about his homeland. So.. if anyone does happen to know why a whole town closed in 1987… or why no one ever told me that Denmark is bigger than the Carlsberg factory… can you let me know?!
Cheers!
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