Well, flying home had the usual delays (this time not caused by polar bears), and it took me two days to get there (since the flight in Copenhagen arrived too late for a connecting flight, I had to spend another night at a hotel near Copenhagen) and it was uncomfortably warm. (Since my luggage originally was just right for the weight allowance, but since I bought some clothing in Qaanaaq, I had some surplus stuff and was wearing full 'polar clothing' on the flight, so it wouldn't be in my checked in baggage. Which was fine within Greenland, but spring had broken out in mainland Europe in the meantime and stuff that's comfortable at -20°C isn't at +20°C.)
But that's just the usual grumpiness of having to go home after a vacation. It doesn't really mean anything.
What really surprised me on this trip was how little I was worried about things.
When I was heading for Antarctica, I was worried about things that might go wrong for about a year before I actually got there. Nothing significant went wrong, but I was worrying quite a lot. Of course this had something to do with the high cost of the trip and the fact that the 'success' of the trip seemed to depend on a single factor (would I make it to the South Pole?), but still...
This time I just assumed that things would work out somehow. I just wanted to see the icebergs, which was sort of given (unless something went wrong really catastrophically), so I didn't mind much how the details worked out.
So while the trip probably had more unexpected things happening than any other I've done (I tend to over-plan vacations), since there wasn't anything I really needed to 'achieve', there wasn't anything that really could 'go wrong'. Just 'go different'.
Although, to a certain extent, it still surprises me that I have done the trip. It's very far removed from the kind of trips I have done in the past. It's probably the most 'expedition' kind of trip I'll ever do, being, despite the fact that my travel agency and the Qaanaaq tourist office took care of most of the organization, a trip that took me out of the usual 'tourist infrastructure'.
Most trips that are advertised as 'expeditions' are much more touristic than this one.
It's not unusual for many people to take those kinds of trips, but it is unusual for me. I've never fancied backpacking to strange places or go through Europe on a Eurorail ticket, staying in hostels or anything like this.
I like to travel, but I like to travel in comfort.
So sitting somewhere on a wooden platform in a crowded room with people I couldn't understand, I was asking myself: What am I doing here? Why am I doing this?
But then the answer was easy and right outside the door: I was here to see icebergs.
And as I said in the beginning: Everything else just followed (more or less logically) from that.