With the easing of pandemic restrictions, certain architecture schools have resumed their semesterly tradition of sending their students and professors to far-flung locales around the world. At Yale, the last week of September found my peers in Bangkok, Peru, Benin, the Galapagos, and, in my case, Greenland. We call it “travel week.” Others call this time of year hurricane season. Here is my travelog.
Saturday, Day 1: We fly to Greenland via Iceland, where strong winds, storms, and flooding delays our flight, leaving us stranded in Reykjavik for a day. We are sent to a hotel with jet lag and meal vouchers; little do we know that this will be the culinary highlight of our week.
Monday: We arrive in Narsaq, Greenland, to more of the same: washed-out roads and rainstorms, atypical for this time of the year.
Tuesday: We set out for a day packed with site visits. These include a four-hour round-trip ferry to a single manned hydro plant, plus tours of a slaughterhouse (Narsaq’s biggest employer) and a town dump that’s set against a backdrop of icebergs and endless sky.
Wednesday: We are here to study rare earth mineral extraction, which we hope to connect to similar activity found in the Appalachia region. We meet with environmental group Urani Naamik and present the data we collected earlier on the peaks of the hills behind the town.
Thursday: The morning we are due to leave, some of us split off from the group to explore the local sights and maybe have lunch. We barely make the ferry that takes us to the airport at Narsarsuaq, an old US army base. Once there, all the screens displaying flight times flash the same warning: canceled. With storms still being a major issue, planes will be grounded for upwards of three weeks. We scramble to find accommodations in the local hotel.
Friday: Our studio coordinator makes something like twenty visits to the airport to try to get a flight out of the country. He appeals to school administrators for help. Students are caught in the ensuing email crossfire. It isn’t clear how long we’ll be stranded for, so some of us plan an expedition to the ice sheet and break out the watercolors. Suddenly, word comes from our school that waiting around is not an option: “You MUST be back in Studio for Monday.” No explanation as to how or why is given.
Saturday: Talking to some locals in a nearby cafeteria, the studio coordinator learns of a small charter plane that can get us out, but at a steep cost—at least $30k, as we later heard. He and his co-coordinator relay this option to student travel coordinators back at the school, who lift hell and high water to get approval from the risk management office. The tension rises and, unbeknownst to us, our coordinators take to Twitter:
“Things that have happened in the last 48 hours with my employer: I’ve been blamed for creating two major hurricanes in the Atlantic. I’ve been told I must force an airline to create flights and seats that do not exist. I’ve been told I may be abandoned in Europe indefinitely.”
“This false emergency of getting students back in time for class on Monday really brings into relief the fact that universities are just real estate hedge funds that do education on the side. Butts in seats keep that portfolio fat,” adds the co-coordinator, who is preparing a dissertation on this Greenlandic community and without whom our trip wouldn’t have been possible, concluding: “Abolish the Ivy League. Make them all state schools. Redistribute endowments.”
A flurry of texts arrives from curious classmates in the other advanced studios, which traveled to Thailand, Benin, Peru, and the Galapagos. The whole thing feels surreal.
Unsure if the group will make flight weight, administrators tell the coordinators that students are the priority. We ship back much of our stuff—hastily packed into cardboard boxes duct tapes and plastic hotel bags—to ensure our instructors have seats. No need, it turns out: arriving at our tiny (so tiny) charter, the pilots inform us that there’s actually room for an extra 400 pounds or so. On our seats are goodie bags filled with bottles of water, bananas, and ham sandwiches. Luxury at last.
Sunday: Early in the morning, our plane touches down at dark, dreary JFK. We couldn’t be more thrilled.
Monday: We drag our jet-lagged selves to studio at the architecture school, which is only half filled. Administrators bring the Greenland group donuts and ask if we’re OK. “We’re OK,” we say. No one gets any work done.