High heels and handbags in the arctic

A long overdue update

2011-07-19T15:12:00.016Z

Yes it's almost been a year. So here is a quick run down of everything:
1) I'm still living on Svalbard :)
2) Cities and countries I have been to since i last updated:
St.Petersburg, Russia
San Fransisco, USA
Boston, USA
Bergen, Noway
Oslo, Norway
Paris, France

3) A few things I have learnt
a. United Airlines are the worst airline ever. After leaving us sat on the tarmac in the plane for 5 hours at Paris Charles De Gaulle airport they decided that we weren't going anywhere (this was when they shut down Heathrow last Christmas). They had 2 members of staff dealing with ~5 planes worth of people. After another 4 hours we were offloaded into a coach (which we had to pay for) and deposited in a hotel with no vouchers for food and not told what was going to happen. Luckily I have a great sister who managed to book me on the eurostar home (obviously I was promised by United they would re-imburse the ticket...I'm still waiting..). I gave up on waiting for United to pull their finger out so I trudged through a very snowy Paris with my luggage to get to the train station. A big thank you to the nice old lady who gave me some tokens for the underground after the ticket machine and I had a small disagreement.
The Eurostar was like a travellers refuge camp...standard conversation was 'where were you supposed to be going before every airport in Europe shut down?'

b. I can cross country ski on snow while being pulled by dogs.

c. I cannot cross country ski over ice while being pulled by dogs (my sense of humour failure at the time means there are no pictures of that..lets just say I had to get Ole to come out on the snow mobile and pick me up to bring me home as there was no way I was skiing back again!!)

d. I do actually have the most amazing view from the 'Radar office':

e. It is sometimes 'challenging' to get into the office (the door is under there somewhere):

f) I can fit two large dogs in the back of the car:

g) Bergen is nice and sunny (I know that I was there for the 3 sunny days of the year but it was still nice):

h) I get the most interesting birthday gifts:

i) There are interesting visitors in the harbour:

j) It is most definately tourist season (these are two different boats....we get between 2 and 5 a week in..the biggest with ~4000 people onboard...there are less than 2000 people living in the town):

A must for every household

2010-10-27T15:22:00.002Z

While at my parents we managed a day trip to Beamish open air museum. I last went to this place about 20 years ago so it was about time I re-visited it. The ‘museum’ is a re-creation of life around the turn of the last century. There is a village you can visit with all the shops to go in such as the local grocers, the car garage, the bank etc. You can also go into the dentists and see into a traditional house.

There is also a coalmine along with a coal village to visit. The houses here would’ve been more traditional miners houses. My dad grew up in a similar house and I think it was nice for a bit of nostalgia.
One of the best things I spotted was in the shop where you buy all your bits and bobs for your horses, such as saddles, carts etc.

I feel this item is a must for every home, especially since it can cure many things including hysteria!

Our first proper holiday

2010-10-27T15:06:00.006Z

Ole and I finally left for our ‘summer’ holiday to Scotland at the end of August. We’d decided to encorporate things with going to my friends wedding, which was at the start of September near Darlington (near where my parents live).
I decided to bite the bullet and finally spend a few nights camping (interspersed with time spent in B&Bs obviously!).
We decided to do a road trip through the Cairngorms stopping in various villages along the way. We managed to stay in Pitlochry, Aviemore and Dunkeld.

I haven’t been to Scotland before apart from a few days in Edinburgh and a week at a summer camp when I was a kid. I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. It really is a beautiful country.

We spent the first few nights in a B&B so I could get used to the fact I was about to spend 5 nights living in a tent. The first thing we did was go out and buy an inflatable mattress to sleep on!

Our campsite was really nice (plus it was down the road from a Hilton hotel..if things got really bad!). It had very good bathroom and shower facilities and we managed to pitch our tent on a little island in the middle of a small river that was away from most of the other tents. The inflatable mattress made a huge difference and I managed to sleep very well for all 5 nights.

Obviously, this being Scotland and the bank holiday Monday, it pretty much rained non-stop for the majority of the time we were there! I was very glad we had our little hire car as it meant we could store pretty much all our things in there, although after 5 days everything was damp. We knew it was time to leave when the inside waterproof lining of Ole’s extreme outdoor tent started to leak!
We did however manage to see a lot of Scotland while we were there including a pleasant drive around Loch Ness and various other lochs that I should remember the names of but can’t.

We also started on our whiskey distillery tour at Dalwhinnie distillery. We had our whiskey passports, which we had to get a stamp in from distilleries all round Scotland. In total we managed to visit 8 distilleries out of a possible 16 that were listed, including the smallest distillery in the world at Edradour, near Pitlochry. I can now tell you exactly how to make whiskey!

After our camping experience we headed back south to Dunkeld for a taste of some highland games. Dunkeld is a beautiful little village and we stayed in a lovely B&B which came complete with 2 little Westie dogs. The owners let us dry the tent out in the garage while we were there which made things a lot easier.
The weather was lovely for the highland games (with the odd summer shower) so Ole and I plonked ourselves down with our packed lunches and watched big strong men in kilts throw things around a bit and enjoyed all the bagpipe music (although after about 5 hours of it it did get a bit much). I was hoping Ole would enter the haggis eating contest or even the 100 yard kilted dash..but he wasn’t overly keen!

After that we drove west to Oban where we stayed for a few nights. We opted to stay in another B&B in Oban. While our view had a lovely view over the harbour, the ‘en suite’ was questionable.

It was basically a cupboard with a shower, toilet and the worlds smallest sink in it. You could sit on the loo and reach forward and touch the shower door on the other side of the bathroom. Also, you couldn’t fit more than 1 hand at a time in the sink. The best bit however, was the fact that when Ole was brushing his teeth, when he bent down to get a mouth full of water from the tap, he had to stick his bum out the bathroom door to bend over that far!
While in Oban we decided to do a wildlife tour over at the Isle of Mull. We found a nice little company who would take us round and also provide us with a packed lunch. I knew I was onto a good thing when one of the options I got for the sandwiches was ‘corned beef’ and the lady didn’t bat an eye lid when I asked for ketchup on it also.
Mull is beautiful and our guide was amazing. Him and Ole were talking non-stop all day about the different bird species and everything bird related. I was happy because I got to see a sea otter and a spotted deer. I found out I am excellent at spotting birds even though I haven’t got a clue what they are. Mull reminded me of Svalbard in a way as almost everyone knew everyone else (the population is about 6000) and while we were on the tour (it was just the two of us and the guide) we stopped off as one of his mates had been out fishing and had caught more mackerel than he knew what to do with so would he like some for his dinner? The tour was only supposed to be a few hours but everyone was having such a good time we almost missed the last ferry home!

From Oban we travelled south, stopping briefly near Carlisle before heading over to my friends wedding at Walworth Castle. Helen and I have known each other since kindergarten and got in touch again a few years ago when my mum bumped into her. In a true romantic tale, the groom and her had been together at school but split up when they were 16 as neither one of them were ready to settle down. They each went their own separate ways and then met up again 15 years later by chance. 2 years later they get married. What makes it even more romantic was that David had kept the letters Helen wrote to him when they originally split up at school saying that if they were meant to be together then someday in the future it would happen.
Throughout all the speeches and vowes I don’t think there was a dry eye. The groom was crying, the bride was, the bridemaids were, all family were at some point and so were most of the rest of us!

Obviously, Middlesborough being Middlesborough I bumped into a bloke at the wedding who I used to work with as a life guard some 12 years ago also! We also made some news friends, both of whom are Swedish and from Gottenburg. Thus there was the small Scandinavian corner at the wedding. It was highly amusing at one point as obviously the ‘time warp’ is not well known outside the UK so they were all very confused by everyone doing this strange dance!! This also happened with Wigfield and ‘Saturday night’.
After the wedding we drove over to see my parents and meet the latest addition to the family: Harry.

After a few days there we drove north back to Edinburgh to fly back to Norway. We did manage to stop off to say hello to a friend of mine from my Leicester days, Hannah. I also got to meet her little boy who has just turned one year old (last time I saw Hannah she was heavily pregnant!)

My first reindeer

2010-10-27T14:55:00.003Z

As some of you know I managed to pass my hunting exam. After completing my additional shooting test (which involves shooting 5 rounds into a ~15cm diameter target at 100m) I was ready to get my first reindeer.

Each hunting team is assigned a certain area that they are allowed to hunt in and also the age of the animal which they can shoot. I was awarded a ‘free animal’ which meant I could take my choice of any age. Our area was Sassendalen, which is about a 20km walk or a 30minute boat ride. Luckily some friends of ours had a boat and were heading in the same direction so we managed to get a lift with them.
We headed out the day before the season started (August 15th) to spend the night in a nearby cabin and then we could start early the next day.
An interesting surprise was that is started to snow that ‘night':

and continued until the morning so we woke up to a good few inches of snow (bearing in mind this was mid-August):

Thankfully it was a beautiful day as we all headed over towards Sassen (Harvey, Marzena, Ole, me and 2 dogs).

We arrived at around 10am (I think) and began looking for reindeer. We finally found a herd of 5 animals at about 3.30pm.

I took the shot and managed to get a large male reindeer. I was a bit upset afterwards and was quite shaky but as, Ole pointed out, it was an instant death and the animal had lived a long and happy life and we were going to eat every bit of him that we could carry back to the boat. The other 4 reindeers that were there ran about 20m when the shot went off and then stopped, looked at us, and then carried on eating.
It was a strange sensation as I can’t really figure out when it stopped being an actual animal in my mind to when it became a carcass. I think it was when we started to butcher it (which was done out in the field). Luckily Ole has done this many times before so he took the lead. This was a good job as it would’ve taken me forever to do it and the weather began to get colder and our hands were getting numb.
After we managed to get him all into our rucksacks (I think about 60kg of meat in total) we headed back to the boat.

The weather had taken a turn for the worse so we couldn’t get the boat close into land. This meant we had to carry everything out to the boat (including 2 dogs) through water that was chest deep!
The ride home was possibly the worst boat ride ever. I get seasick sat on a small zodiac boat. Thus, 2 hours of bouncing up and down over the waves, hungry and smelling of dead reindeer was not fun. People have told me that I should’ve just focused on the horizon but this does not help when all you can see is either all sky or all ocean as the boat moves up and down.
And so, we came safely back to town, smelly, dirty and slightly green, but, carrying my first reindeer

Madagascar

2010-07-30T20:12:00.009Z

Yvonne and I had been planning our trip to Madagascar for ages and were really looking forward to the break.

We were staying on a tiny island called Isl St. Marie off the north east coast of Madagascar.
We had one night on the main island before flying to Isl St. Marie. Madagascar itself is still not a big tourist destination so it still remains pretty much untouched by the tourist industry.
We were picked up at the airport and taken to our hotel. This was the strangest experience. While the outside world of Madagascar is very 'rural' and you can see that peoples quality of life is a lot lower than that of the west, the hotel we were in was not. It was like stepping into a parallel universe, all white marble and gold. The hotel itself was Chinese owned. There were several clues to this:
1) All instructions to all appliances were in Chinese.

2) The main tv channels were Chinese

3) The only restaurant in the hotel was Chinese (and I'm talking proper chinese...menu in chinese with pretty pictures to point at).
The food was lovely though. We did ask if we could have some wonton soup (which wasn't on the menu). However, the waiter told us that unfortunately he didn't speak Chinese and the chef didn't speak anything but Chinese, thus making special requests a tad tricky!)

4) The restaurant doubled as a karaoke bar.

After our brief stay, it was back to the airport for our final plane to Isl St. Marie:
The handy sign to remind you to not bring your bow and arrow on as hand luggage:

The airport waiting room:

The plane:

The take off was great. We were sat pretty much in the cockpit (I think there were about 20 seats in the plane) so we got to see everything. The take off procedure was as follows:
1) Start up engines
2) Make sure all dials are functioning
3) Release handbrake (yes..it had a cute little handbrake)
4) Put handbrake back on and tap dial which doesn't appear to be giving correct readings
5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until dial is working
6) Release handbrake and take off.

The Island was a tropical paradise. There are very few hotels on the island and those that are there are hidden pretty much in the forest. There are (thankfully) no horrible high rise western style hotels.

The moment we got there it started to chuck it down. (It was the end of the monsoon season):

So we travelled through the jungle in this beat up little car with our luggage..wondering exactly what we had got ourselves into. This wasn't helped by the fact that we then got stopped by the police who took the driver out to 'have a word' while looking at us in the backseat. Apparently the guy forgot his drivers license (or something...).

We needn't have worried. The hotel was gorgeous. We were welcomed by the owners with a lovely welcome cocktail in the 'restaurant' overlooking the tropical blue ocean and palm tree lined beach. Our 'room' was a lovely little hut on the edge of the beach looking out across the ocean.

We did so many cool things during the time that we were there and luckily Yvonne took loads of pictures, so a big thank you to Yvonne for that.
I've just included a few highlight photographs below.
The pier extending out from the hotel restaurant

The view from our balcony and the end of the pier

One of the local fisherman

dinner

the hotel mascot, coco:

Our bike ride though the jungle (we started our journey just as school finished for lunch). Many of the children walk up to 10km everyday to get to school:

A quick walk through the mangroves:

The beach:

A quick dip in the ocean to have a swim around the coral reef:

The local market:

And just to prove that I did get my pasty skin exposed briefly (since my trip to Thailand I was really paranoid about getting heat stroke again!):

We had an amazing time, the place was gorgeous, the people were wonderful and friendly and we had some crazy adventures. The main thing we learnt is:

DON'T LEAVE FOOD ON THE FLOOR IN A TROPICAL PLACE...THE WILDLIFE WILL FIND IT...AND FISHING COCKROACHES OUT OF YOUR LUGGAGE IS NOT FUN!!

The worst trip in the world

2010-07-30T18:58:00.003Z

Just when I thought travelling couldn't get worse I was introduced to Johannesburg International Airport.

We flew from Longyearbyen - Oslo - Frankfurt - Johannesburg - Capetown. That trip was fairly ok...(crap entertainment but comfy seats!).
Our welcome to South Africa was fairly bizarre. There were 5 players from the German team for the world cup on our flight so we had to wait while they disembarked (fair enough..no problems). What we weren't expecting was the full on commando task force complete with machine guns which were escorting all VIPs back and forth onto all planes.

I was lucky enough to go to a meeting in Hermanus, near Capetown. The meeting itself was great. It was fantastic to see a lot of old friends that I haven't seen in many years and (as sad as it sounds) talk over with some new science projects.
After the meeting in Capetown we flew back to Johannesburg before heading over to Madagascar for our holiday. I needed a visa to get into Madagascar, which we had been told needed a passport type photograph.
You would think that in Johannesburg INTERNATIONAL airport there would be somewhere..a photobooth to get pictures. Of course not!!

To avoid going into a multiple page rant about all this I will shorten it into bullet points. I had left 4 hours to get a photo:
1) Although there are many 'help' desks nobody actually knows what they are talking about. They also look very much like 'lemon sucking woman' when you ask them for information.
2) We were first sent to the electronic shop which sells cameras - NO
3) The international terminal - NO We were sent back to the domestic terminal
4) The domestic terminal - NO We were sent back to the international terminal
5) The post office - NO
6) The bank (has a printer but can't do it) - NO
7) The shop. This was the closest that we got. They have a machine which can do it..however..it is out of paper. Could i come back in 3 days! (Think of the 'computer says no' sketch in Little Britain and you pretty much get the helpfulness) - NO

In the end we managed to find out that there was a shopping centre down the road from the airport which might be able to do something. At this point we had been running around for about 2 hours. We decided to get a taxi to the shopping centre where we found a photograph shop which luckily did do photographs.

Lesson 1 - don't expect any coherent help in Johannesburg aiport.

Next..to check in. While there were lots of check in desks open there was only one que. In this que there was one set of scales where you had to weigh your bags to make sure they weren't too heavy and get a receipt. While I totally agree with the baggage weight limits, I would like to meet the person who thought up the idea of having only 1 que!!
Also, if you are flying South African airlines on an international flight (as we were on our return trip after our Madagascar holiday), don't go to the international check in terminal..go to the domestic terminal (obviously!)

However, if you are flying a different airline (we were flying Air Madagascar to Madagascar) then go to the international terminal.
Also, once you have checked in, the security check point to get through to the gates is actually hidden in a tunnel behind the check in desks.

The final nail in the coffin
Once we had finally got through security I was in serious need of a drink. The flight was delayed so we went to the bar and sat below the departure board and near to the gate so we could watch the plane come in. Our plane came in, the board didn't change (still no 'boarding' or 'go to gate'). We waited...then suddenly Yvonne (my partner in crime on holiday) noticed lots of people getting on the plane.
Obviously they hadn't updated the boards!!

We raced to what we thought was our gate (A4). We stood excitedly in the que. A conversation then ensued:
Nice old lady: "Excuse me, is this flight going to Perth"
Lisa: "No this flight is going to Madagascar"
Yvonne (to Lisa): "I can't wait..we are finally going on holiday..Madagascar here we come"
Man stood behind us in the que:"Erm....I'm going to Perth"
Man stood in front of us in the que:"I'm going to Perth too"
Lisa and Yvonne: "S**T!!! We are queing for the wrong flight!!"

We were infact queing at gate A5!!

We made it to our plane...just...and were finally on the way to Madagascar!!

Relaxing in the Sun

2010-07-03T16:29:00.004Z

We are back in the world of 24 hour daylight and also in the BBQ season.
We have managed a few BBQs on the beach so far. Sometimes it's just good to sit in the sun and relax whilst pondering life's little questions...

Enjoying the last of the sunsets

2010-07-03T16:06:00.002Z

On one of our cabin trips Rico managed to get an amazing picture of Ole and I as we were stood on the ice edge near the sea admiring the last of the sunsets before we went into 24 hour daylight (Nuna obviously surveying her domain in the foreground!)

The L plates are off

2010-07-03T15:49:00.003Z

Since living up on Svalbard I have been out with Rico and Karoline on many dog sled trips..however..I always had them on the sled with me as the major driver and I would just step up and do the easy bits.

I finally got to take my L-plates off a few months ago. Karoline, Yvonne and I decided to go out on a small trip, each with our own sled and set of dogs. So between us I think we had about 18 dogs.

The start was a tad stressful. There is the equivalent of a hand-break on the dog sled which is an anchor wedged in the snow (hence the term..snow anchor!). As I reached over to take out the anchor I overbalanced and the dogs and sled shot off without me. Luckily Yvonne was on a sled in front and they stopped before they reached her. However, the anchor was now wedged under the sled. I couldn't lift the sled to get it out as the dogs would've took off..so I was a bit stuck. Luckily a very nice man out in his car stopped and held the dogs for me while I got the anchor back into a useable position.
Once we were underway it was very relaxing..it's just hard to describe how relaxing it actually is..moving along in the snow, through the moutains with only the sound of the sled moving across the snow.

The 2nd worst trip ever

2010-07-03T15:11:00.002Z

To Get back from San Fransisco to Longyearbyen I decided to bite the bullet and do it all in one go.

From beginning to end it was just a bit of a disaster.

1)I left my hotel at about 9am to get to the underground station to get the train to the airport. There were 3 huge flights of stairs to get down...the lift and the escalator were both out of order. I had 2 huge suitcases (I tend not to travel light and it had been 3 weeks since I'd left Longyearbyen)
(On a side note..somehow...during my trip..which did involve several planes I somehow managed to lose all my dark underwear...which resulted in Jeff and I having to find a shop in Santa Fe that sold pants...if you want a necklace or a souvenir in Santa Fe great...if you want something practical..not so great!!)

Anyway...so here I am at the top of these huge 3 flights of stairs with 2 suitcases....I can tell you chivalry truely is dead in San Fransisco. I counted at least 5 blokes (including a police man..maybe they aren't allowed to do that sort of thing there though) that past me without offering to help..and I was stopping every 4 steps to get my breath!!

2) After finally getting down the stairs it was not immediately apparent as to which type of ticket I needed to get from the machine. I was about to ask a lady next to me, who was chatting to someone while buying her ticket. Her friend then left and just as I turned round to ask for help she started on this huge Jerry Springer type tirade..'girlfriend don't you be teachin' me how to treat ma man....complete with head moving, booty shaking that you can only get away with if you are american!!

3) I decided to ask the lady in the help booth..ie..the woman who was employed soley to provide help to people using the trains. Again...you'd think I'd just asked her to smell one of my farts. Looking thoroughly pissed off that I dared talk to her..she proceeded to waffle airport announcement style (ie. you get one word in 10) while not bothering to use the microphone. When I asked her kindly to repeated what she had said as I couldn't hear her..the lemon sucking expression continued. I finally managed to ascertain that I buy ticket x to get to the airport.

4) Armed with my ticket I then headed down the escalator to the platform. Thinking I'd got the hang of this 2 suitcase travelling I got on it with a suitcase in front and one behind me. However when I got to the bottom the front one got jammed at the bottom of the escalator resulting in me being squished between the 2..so I had to throw myself off the end of the escalator hanging onto both suitcases.

5) The train finally turned up and on we got. We had moved for about 1 minute before there was shouting at the other end of the train. We stopped at the next platform and someone got off the train. We waited...and waited....and then..2 policeman turned up since apparently the person who had got off had possibly assaulted someone on the train. After a brief round of questioning (it was quite nice as he called me 'ma'am'..like in the movies)we were off....again.

6) We got to the airport..where Anja was waiting for me. I put my ticket into the machine to get through the barriers (the ticket that the fart smelling, lemon sucking assistant had told me to get)..and the barriers wouldn't open....the ticket was short by 10c!!!!! By this point I was close to breaking..luckily Anja had 10c and threw it over the barrier for me to top up my ticket.

7) Plane journey was ok (I managed about 4 hours sleep) and my luggage arrived.

8) I had 8 hours to kill in Heathrow so to re-new my sanity (this was after walking the usual couple of miles from the aircraft, through customs, to the other terminal and back through security) I decided to buy the Sunday Times and sit down and have some food with a nice pot of tea. I was watching the departure board to keep an eye on things....however,..I was obviously a bit tired as I started looking at the wrong flight. It got to about 15 minds before departure and i was thinking it was strange they hadn't called the flight..until I realised my mistake....luckily I have done the LHR - OSL trip a few times so I know the route....I arrived at the gate..just in time...as a hot, sweaty, 'I haven't showered in days' mess.

9) I got to Oslo and had another 6 hours in Oslo. By this point i was really beginning to lose it..not matter how many times I tried the old 'brush your teeth and freshen up in the toilets' routine. I don't remember much about Oslo..I think i wandered up and down for a while..but by this point my ankle was about twice the size as it should be from all the walking.

10) I finally fell off the plane in Longyearbyen in a semi-hallucinating state (you know that state when you have gone beyond being sleep deprived and come out the other side..) Ole was there lovingly to great me though...and carry me back safely to bed..after my non-stop 31 hour trip!

Where to start.....trip 1

2010-07-03T14:19:00.009Z

...the quick version of things that have happened since my last blog (sorry to all who complained I had let things slip somewhat...)

As you may remember on Saturday 6th March I posted that I had fallen on the ice and had 'sprained' my ankle. 12 weeks later it still wasn't heeled and it was still quite swollen. I was in the UK heading out for a meeting in the US so I decided to try to get someone to have a look at it. After trying everything I finally got into a fracture clinic. They x-rayed it again....and oh look....it was fractured after all...grrrr!!!! I knew I heard something snap!!

The bit of bone that is ringed in the picture...that should be attached to the main bone at both ends...you might have to squint but you can see that it isn't at the top!! I still can't walk properly either :(

It was great to be back in Leicester for a few days and I managed to get a lot of work done (it's amazing what a little motivation can do for the mind). Jane and I had some good girlie time and even a night out down Braunston Gate..complete with champagne cocktails!

From Leicester I headed over to San Fransisco to do some work with my friend and former boss Tony. He now lives and works over in Monlo Park, which is a small town about an hour outside of San Fransisco. It was all very nice, although it did feel very suburban america..I didn't expect it to be quite so..erm...exactly like you see it in the movies. It even had the friendly homeless guy outside the coffee shop wishing everyone 'a good day to y'all.

From there I attended a meeting in Santa Fe. My presentation went very well (at least I think it did..my voice stayed pretty level throughout and I managed to sleep the night before!). Santa Fe was nice..but a bit strange. Admittedly we stayed in the centre of town...but..if you imagine what you think 'Wild West world' would look like in Disneyworld..and you've pretty much got the theme. My 'ex-husband' Jeff was also at the meeting and it was really lovely seeing him again. We had a good few cocktails between us and had time to catch up.
While I'm here I thought I'd just casually mention that I GOT ASKED FOR I.D. TWICE WHILE BUYING ALCOHOL.... :)

After the meeting in Santa Fe I went back to San Fransisco for a few days and managed to have a whole 36 hours in the city to go sightseeing!! A friend of mine who now lives out in Monlo Park managed to come into San Fransisco for the first evening I was there which was great as she knows the 'inside info'.
She showed me an amazing bar in a hotel with the most amazing view of the city and also a really cool part of the city where we shared a few beers and then went out for ethiopian food (kind of like curry, whith a large pitta bread type thing which you used to eat the food with. It was really good food. :)

After Anja left I think I managed to do pretty much the major things in one day (Alcatraz, The Golden Gate Bridge and I think I walked about 20km just around in general)..but I was exhausted!!

at the gates to China Town

the Golden Gate bridge and the view back towards the city

A typical cell at Alcatraz (it really was a depressing place!)

The view of the city from Alcatraz..I think that would've been what made it worse..is that you could see the city and freedom from the island everyday.

A visit from Mum and Dad

2010-03-20T17:28:00.005Z

My mum and dad came to visit last week. It was really strange being at the airport and waiting for them to appear...normally it's me coming through the gate to meet friends. It was great having them up here and by the sounds of things they had a totally fantastic time. I was quite annoyed that my ankle still hadn't heeled (and still hasn't at the moment...even though it's been 3 weeks) so I couldn't take them for any works or drive the car.
We managed to sort out quite a few 'tourist attractions' for while they were here. As we drove back from the airport there were some bearded seals sat out on the sea ice so we raced down there to take a photo (the seals are the small black blobs in the background on the right).

There were also the usual reideers wandering around town including the baby one that was wandering round outside the house (although not when we had a camera handy).

I took them up to EISCAT where the weather was slightly worse than down in the valley and thus I think Dad stayed out of the car for about 30 secs.

Mum braved it for about 30 seconds more before also diving into the car...the weather wasn't even that bad either!

We also managed to take them to meet 'ze beasts' and take the traditional photo of them by the 'beware of the polar bear' sign.

Since they were up here for Solfest week they were here for the traditional sled race down the hill across the fjord from town. I managed to get them both dressed up in scooter suits and suitable layers and then loaded them up onto the back of our snowmobiles to take them to the race.

The whole town pretty much turns out for the races so there are a few hundred snowmobiles heading across the fjord.
It was the first time I had to utter the phrase 'everyone remember where we parked the snow mobiles!'

We went over to visit the dogs who were out taking the kids out for free dog sled rides. Since there weren't too many kids there when we went over Karoline and Lene gave my parents a ride on the sled. I want to say a big thank you to both of them as my parents were completely blown away by the experience.

Having them here also made me appreciate what an amazing place I live in. They spent most of the time looking out of our living room window when there were at the house, admiring the view...that'll be the view I take for granted everyday.
They were just both completely blown away by what I consider to be just normal daily life!

You may have also noticed that my dad has acquired my arctic hat (he has taken it back to the UK as a birthday present). He was thus referred to as 'Borisov' throughout their visit and mum has vowed that he is banned from wearing it in public in the UK..at least when she is with him.

Conservation of the Couch

2010-03-08T17:18:00.003Z

I bought my parents a digital photoframe for Xmas and managed to scan in 400 photos in total onto a data card for it. This involved sneaking old photo albums upstairs to the computer and scanning them everytime I went home for a visit!
The gift went down very well and I have to admit it was lots of fun looking at photographs from when I was younger.

Whilst looking through them all I came across a photograph taken of me, my mum and the dog, Mitzi. Looking at my hairstyle (I loved that perm!) and general dress sense and combining this with the fact that Mitzi was still alive and kicking I estimate this picture was taken circa 1992:

Then, while continuing loading up photographs onto the data card (I had now reached the era of digital cameras) I came across another photograph of me, my mum and this time my cat, Clyde. This photograph was taken Xmas day 2007:

Some might say there is some similarity. I think the only reason we weren't on the same end of the couch was that Cylde was not happy with that arrangement.

It goes to show that no matter how many years it is since you left home, old habit die hard :)

The ice finally wins

2010-03-06T10:30:00.004Z

After weeks of walking carefully across the ice I finally managed to fall over on it. As I stepped down of some snow onto some ice I slipped and went over on my ankle (the 'crunch' sound as it happened was not good!). I'd like to point out that I was stone cold sober at the time and wearing flat shoes. The last time I fell over and sprained my ankle (the same one) I was drunk and in high heels and it didn't hurt half as much!
I was alone when it happened and it was late at night. A woman from the town was passing by out walking her dog when she obviously came across me writhing round on the floor clutching my ankle. This would've been great, had she spoken english and my norwegian classes covered 'I have fallen on the ice and twisted my ankle and it hurts!' I managed to phone my friend Karoline who rescued me and took me to the hosptial.
The took a few Xrays and thankfully it was not broken just badly sprained.

So for the last week I have been on crutches and very powerful pain killers. A sense of humour failure doesn't even cover it. The weather is beautiful, the sun is back and I am stuck inside on the couch! We even had a blue moon last week!
This is the view that we had last week (which I had to look at from inside the house!)

To cheers me up Karoline bought Qimmiq and Talik round to see Aunty Lisa. It's only when you get the dogs inside that you actually realise how big they are!! These two are only the puppies of the pack!

A Norwegian Christmas

2010-02-07T20:49:00.006Z

After a full 40 hours in Germany we flew back to Norway and down to Mandal (Ole’s home town) where we would be spending Xmas. With all the strange weather that was happening in Europe, Madal was covered in a beautiful blanket of snow. Mandal is a beautiful place and with the snow at looked even more magical. This is the town centre:

I had my first experience of Xmas with a big family. Most of Ole’s family lives in the vicinity to or in Mandal itself. I don’t think I have ever eaten so much food in my life: We had:

Pre Christmas Eve dinner at Ole’s Grandparents on his mothers side with 13 people and 2 course (the main course being ribbe (pork ribs) and the desert course consisting of 2 huge cakes and a huge bowl of cream).

Christmas Eve dinner at Ole mothers house: 9 people with a full dinner of pinnekjøtt (dried and salted lambs ribs)

Christmas breakfast at Ole’s mum’s: Full champagne breakfast with all the trimmings.

Chritmas afternoon at Ole’s grandmothers in his father’s side: A traditional afternoon dinner of Risengrøtt (basically rice pudding) with more family (I think about 10 people, I was losing count by this point)

Christmas day afternoon at Ole’s fathers house: A traditional Christmas meal of wild game (which I helped prepare):

I also had my first hunting experience with Ole and his Dad. I couldn’t actually shoot anything with a rifle as I haven’t passed my shooting test. Thus it was my job, along with Rikki (Ole’s dad’s dog) to walk through the forest scaring the deer towards Ole and his Dad. This did however involve a lot of sitting down and waiting as we were still scary to the deer when we were stood still. Luckily I had Miki to talk to and also my mp3 player.
Here is a lovely picture of my afternoon companion:

With all the eating that was going on Ole and decided to take an afternoon stroll at the beach down by his house in Mandal:

I also managed to find my perfect house...although Ole was not so impressed:

Freezing and Rocking in Berlin

2010-02-07T20:12:00.002Z

From the UK we then flew to Berlin to see Rammstein ( you may remember I mentioned that I bought the tickets for this in my 19th June 2009 post).
It was freezing in Berlin (-16 without any arctic gir on was pretty nippy!). We did manage to get a few hours site seeing around Berlin and a quick trip to a Xmas market to have some nice Gluwein.

The concert was amazing. It’s the politest concert I have ever been too. The age range of people there was from about 18 – 60. People were wearing everything from Skin tight leather to Woolen jumpers! There was lots of beer available and people were very polite if they bumped into you while you were watching the band!
The stage show was everything I thought it was going to be and far much more. Huge explosions, fire shooting out from the stage, setting fire to band members. The best part of the show, for me I think, was when about 40 babydolls with ropes around their necks appeared from the top of the stage with green lazer lights emanating from their heads. When they finished playing one of their songs, the dolls all exploded!!
As you can see, some of us were more influenced by the concert than others

A Visit to The Outlaws for Ole

2010-02-07T20:01:00.005Z

I managed to make it home to see my parents for a few days before Xmas. It was also the first time that Ole met ’the outlaws’. Everyone got on well and it was nice to show Ole the type of environment that I grew up in (sunny Middlesbrough and Marske-by-Sea) with the view of ICI and British Steel (or whatever they are called now).

I pointed out where the park bench was that me and me mates used to sit on in the village square and the pubs that we used to go to when we were 'about 18'. Most of them have shut down now..and all the bars have moved to the other end of town.
I also took him to Duck Park where my parents used to my sister and I to feed the ducks.
The ducks are still there all ready to be fed:

We did the traditional visit to Whitby, where we had fish and chips and a walk up to Whitby Abbey:

We also saw possibly the worst polar bear model ever. I appreciate that we are in quite a unique position by living up here…but still:

It did actually light up when it got dark which just added that extra touch of class to it!

I have also started doing interviews with BBC Radio Tees. They have started a feature where they interview people who grew up in the area and have moved away to different parts of the world. They interviewed by Dad a few months ago and he mentioned about my job and where I live. So, next thing I knew I was doing a phone interview from Svalbard with Nick and Diane on BBC Radio Tees. They were really nice and it was just like having a casual chat with your mates over the phone.
When I got back to my parents over Xmas they invited me and my dad in to do a studio interview together and obviously Ole came along as were heading out shopping afterwards. However, before he knew it he was in the studio also, wearing a pair of headphones and speaking into a microphone. I know its a common thing that people hate the sound of their voices when they hear it played back to them so I was quite glad I was in the studio. But…on the drive home they did some quick highlights of it..and before I knew it there was my voice blaring out of the stereo….it wasn’t pleasant!
We have done one more interview since and I think we have a few more lined up.

I got to catch up with some school friends also. Sam, Al, Ole and I went out for a lovely dinner at a little pub in Saltburn one night. We had a really great time just chatting and catching up. It was one of those evenings that before you know it, it’s midnight! We realised at we left that we were the only people left in and the staff were waiting to close!!

(I’d like to point out that the ’bump’ in this photo is merely due to the fact that I was having trouble with my belt on my jeans!)

Getting into the Norwegian Way of Life

2010-02-07T19:35:00.004Z

I managed to pass the test for my hunting license. It wasn’t easy. I had to attend 40 hours of lectures, all in Norwegian (thank god for google translator!). After attending all the lectures we then had a test, where the pass rate was 80%. It’s been a long time since I had to sit and exam and it was made even harder that everything was in Norwegian so it was more about memorising things independently from each other as opposed to following a train of logic (if that makes sense). We had to learn about animal biology, hunting ethics, gun safety, different types of animals along with tracking and hunting techniques.

I have taken up the Norway way of hunting, whereby you don’t hunt for sport but for food and a way to enjoy being in the great outdoors. As I have said to my friends and family, even though I have the license I still have to be able to pull the trigger, and that is going to be one of the hardest things.

I had a birthday…I think we managed to make it to the pub for at least a few drinks. It was also the Christmas party season here so I tied in my birthday with that also. I think Ole and scrubbed up quite well (obviously the bear doesn’t look too bad either):

The 1st aurora of the season

2009-11-22T12:41:00.004Z

As Ole and I were sat pondering whether to watch another movie last night (having just watched that excellent 80s movie 'Inner Space') I remembered that the prediction for aurora was quite high for tonight after looking on spaceweather.com. I have to say this is an excellent website for getting a general overwiew of what is happening 'up there'. I notied that there had been some excellent aurora reported the night before
in Tromsø and (not like I have the link bookmarked or anything) after checking the Longyearbyen magnetometer data I decided then it might be a good time to head outside.

For those of you who are in the space plasma physics world, we went outside at about 21.00UT.

For those of you who aren't in the space plasma physics world, a magnetometer measures how disturbed the Earths magnetic field is. The amount of disturbance is dependant on a number of things but mainly on what the Sun's magnetic field is doing.
To look to see if the Earth's magnetic field is heading into the right formation for some aurora then you look at the blue and the green lines on the graph. When the blue line starts to move downwards (ie. getting to more negative values) at the same time that the green line moves upwards (ie. gets to more positive values) very rapidly then the chance of you seeing aurora outside is very high.

I have to say we did manage to time it right and managed to get out of town just before the aurora exploded onto the sky.
The following pictures were taken about a minute apart. The lights in the back ground in the right hand side of the picture are the lights from the coal mine located about 30km out of town.

The formations we saw were amazing. Ole managed to catch this spiral type formation that suddenly started overhead as everything began heading South:

Bonfire night

2009-11-13T14:57:00.003Z

In continuing my education about english customs I decided to have a 'bonfire night' to celebrate the capture and torture of Guy Fawkes and thus the foiling of the gunpowder plot . I explained to everyone exactly what we were celebrating and I even made a Guy to ceremonially burn (thanks to Eike for the lending of the clothing.)

This thus prompted a detailed discussion about which country had the best forms of medieval torture (the contenders were: England, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and France). In the end we decided that England was quite barbarick but that the Danes also had some good methods (hanging you on a cross with your arms outstretched and then cutting you open and stretching the skin out and nailing it onto your arms to create a nice 'angel' effect.) We also came to the conclusion that the French were actually quite sophisticated with the invention of the Guillotine which ensured that your head came off in one quick blow. In England we were still using the good old axe and executioner which, due to the obvious 'human error' factor, meant it often took a few blows of the axe to get the head off!!

So, after raiding a local dumpster for firewood and informing the firebrigade of our intentions it was off to the beach for a ceremonial burning evening. Thanks to Rico and Karoline for the starting of the BBQ and providing the additional 'fuel' for the fire.
The happy party goers:

And the dying embers of the fire:

Sled driving 101

2009-11-13T14:26:00.003Z

After a happy summer of driving the dogs using the trolley it was time to start on the traditional dog driving....with a sled!
There are definate advantages to being on the sled, mostly that if you fall off it ensures a softer landing. Also, you can really feel that you are out in nature and enjoying the arctic lifestyle far more.
After going through the basics of the sled (attach dogs here, the brake is here, the 'hand brake' aka. snow anchor is here..whatever you do don't let do of the sled when you are out) we were off.

I am still amazed at how well the dogs respond to commands. Admittedly sometimes they like to 'pretend' that they haven't heard you...but most of the time they will follow right (høyre), left (venstre) and follow the track (ta sporet). Nuna (the alpha female lead dog) has got lots of experience. She knows which are the best paths to take to avoid ice and will sometimes take her own path as an alternative to what you say as she can see that it is the easier and safer route.

Since we are getting into the dark season it is often impossible to see past a few 10s of meters as to where you are. Thankfully the dogs always know where we are and can always find their way home. Additionally, they can sense wildlife way before either they or I can see it...which is handy for reindeers and polar bears!

This was especially useful over the weekend as we were out in the valley in thick fog..and even though we were only a few km from home I had absolutely no idea where we were! Nuna and Qimmiq knew exactly where they were and since 'home' means 'feeding time' then we were back in no time!
So here we all are out in the wilderness (and the fog!):

and me practicing my 'polar hero' pose:

Pistols at Dawn

2009-11-13T13:11:00.004Z

Many of my friends up here are part of the pistol shooting club. The shooting is done at an indoor range and has electronic sensor systems on the targets so you can improve your technique without having to walk to the target to see how well you shot every time.
A basic training course was recently advertised that, if you passed, would allow you to become a member of the club. Ole and I signed up for it and so spent all of Saturday at the shooting range learning how the guns work, the health and safety and various other issues. After a short test (I got 12 out of 12…yey!) and a bit of practical training both Ole and I were told we had passed and are now members of the shooting club, complete with certificates.

(I apologise for Ole's t-shirt...I have no-one else to blame but myself as I found it for him!)

I actually had a lot of fun and it was great to compete with each other (I was the better shot most of the time..honest!). One thing I did learn though: it is very hard to load the bullets into the magazine with a long thumb nail…I feel a nail cut might have to be had!!

mmmm...Moose burgers

2009-11-13T13:05:00.003Z

I am beginning to get the hang of Norwegian cuisine. My latest adventure however was a bit strange.
There is a traditional dish here called Karbonader (not carbonara as I originally thought!) which consists of mushy peas, potaotes, gravy with mushrooms and onions and....moose burgers!!

The mushy peas are exactly like the ones you get in the chippy back home so I am very glad to have made that discovery. :)
However, the discovery of the mooseburgers section of the supermarket was slightly...un nerving!

An act of genius

2009-11-13T13:01:00.001Z

Here in Longyearbyen we have one source of power, the power station. The coal is transported down from the mine and then put into the furnace where it gives us electricity. Given the isolation and winter temperatures up here, the power station is of vital importance, so much so that if the power station should not be able to provide power for a time of over 24 hours then the whole town is evacuated to the mainland. So, as the dark season approaches they often have drills to check the system is working correctly and what to do in an emergency. The latest ‘test’ however could possibly qualify for a Darwin award. They were hoping to test some new emergency computers and software for the system. So, the power was switched off and the test started. However, in their infinite wisdom, no-one had pointed out that by switching off the electricity, the way the system was set up at the time meant that they lost the power to the computers!! Like I said….genius!!

R.I.P. Clydicus 2002 – 2009

2009-11-03T11:28:00.001Z

When I moved to Norway my parents agreed to take care of my pet cats, Bonnie and Clyde. Unfortunately 2 weeks ago I got a phone call from my mum to say that my cat, Clyde, had been found dead on the railway tracks behind their house. He had been missing for a few days and he was found by some workman. He was a great cat (if not the most intelligent animal) and he will be greatly missed (although I don’t think he will miss being held up to the webcam by my parents for me to wave at him when I talk to them on skype!) In honour of him I thought I would share my most memorable story of him.
When I first got Clyde he was a very nervous cat and started urinating over the furniture and carpets in my house. I tried everything to make him feel more at home from comfy baskets to aromatherapy for cats. After he had urinated on the furniture for the 5th time one day (including on the bed while I was in it!) I decided more drastic action had to be taken so I locked him in my utility room (obviously giving him food, a comfy basket and a litter tray). In my house the utility room acts like a hallway to the backdoor, ie. it connects the kitchen to the backdoor and you have to pass through it to get into the house.
It got to about 2am and I began feeling really guilty about leaving him in there so I crept downstairs to check on him. This was during the summer time and I was alone so I was obviously naked. When I got into the utility room, I shut the door behind me so he didn’t get back into the house. This was possibly the WORST mistake ever! The utility room has a dead lock on it..so I was now locked, butt naked, in the utility room at 2am without access to the house! Clyde on the other hand thought this was great as he now had a nice warm body to snuggle up to and demand attention off! So together we sat there for about an hour as I pondered what to do. I had no access to any spare keys and no mobile phone and obviously I was naked!! Luckily in the end I managed to finally find a pair of garden shears in the room and hacked my way through the back door. So, to all those people who wondered why I had a picture of the England rugby team on the utility room door, it was because it was hiding where I had hacked through it that night! Obviously I got the door replaced, but I still have the poster and it always makes me smile when I look at it.

So, here's to you Clyde..gone but not forgotton.

Lille Petter Edderkopp

2009-09-22T19:51:00.003Z

I have finally started Norwegian lessons. The school up here provides free Norwegian lessons for all people who want them on the proviso that they are living here for at least 6 months. The lessons are 2.5 hours long, twice a week so the course is quite intense.
The whole lesson is done in Norwegian which means I do struggle somewhat to understand everything fully but I have been at the lessons for 2 weeks now and I am noticing some improvement in my understanding.
The start of each lesson involves a quick sing along to help with our pronunciation. One such song is the Norwegian version of 'incy wincy spider'. And here..for you all to sing along with us, are the lyrics (using the same tune as incy wincy spider).

Lille Petter edderkopp han klatret på min hatt
Så begynte det å regne, og Petter ned han datt
Så kom solen og skinte på min hatt
Da ble det liv i Petterkopp, som klatret på min hatt

In the Norwegian version however, the spider seems to go into someones hat as opposed to up a spout.

The cute and the deadly

2009-09-20T15:10:00.006Z

Living in such an amazing environment means that I get to see some amazing creatures, ranging from the cute and cuddly to the downright terrifying.
As you will have witnessed from my previous entries I am not the best when it comes to photography. I am more of your 'point and click' girl..often with my mobile phone. The general reason being that on most occasions it's just a quick snap of something amusing that I want and on the other occasions there is normally a friend with me who has some form of digital SLR camera while I have my little kodak number that I picked up from Dixons at Heathrow!!

My boyfriend Ole is the most amazing photographer (he has a huge lens which helps also!). He will happily take 100 photographs in quick succession and then sort through them for hours to find the correct one. His main passion is birds and thus with all the wildlife here he often has his camera on him.

So here below are some of the great photographs, and some basic information about, of some of the various wildlife which he has taken during his time here so far. All of them were taken just a few km outside town apart from the ones of the bear and the walruses which were taken on an expedition that he was part of in August which went over to the East coast of Svalbard.

First, the cute:

A happy baby arctic fox midway through changing from his summer coat (brown) to his winter coat (white). This little guy was born early this summer so is about to experience his first winter up here.

The arctic foxes are smaller than the red foxes of England but they are still as cheeky when it comes to foraging for food.

There is big population of arctic terns which come up here for the summer to breed. They spend the other half of the year in the antarctic (these are some seriously 'hard' birds, flying from one end of the planet to the other every 6 months!). They are also very aggressive birds when it comes to protecting their nest sites and babies. They will attack you if you come within 5 to 10 meters of their nests. They do however provide entertainment for us locals as we watch various groups of tourists being dive bombed by these little darlings!
They do have the cutest little chicks though. This is a picture of one which is only a few days old. It's only about 5cm high.

This is a baby great skua who is about a week old and doing his best to avoid cold feet as he runs after mum. He's only about 10 cm tall.

This is a family of brent geese. The babies here about a week old also but slightly larger at 15cm high.

And now onto the deadly:

3 young walruses.

I have never actually seen a walrus but I know they are an animal not to be messed with. They are not overly vicious but they are very curious animals. Normally this would be ok, however these animals are 1 to 2 tonnes of blubber and muscle combined with tusks half a meter long in a full grown adult. This makes playtime a little bit dangerous. They can quite happily sink a zokiak boat, which is the main types of boats used to ferry tourists from the cruise ships to the shore, and also for generally getting around on Svalbard. If the dip in the freezing water doesn't kill you then you still have to deal with 'playing with' the walruses. As such these animals are treated with a great amount of respect.

And finally, the polar bear. Whilst these animals can be also very cute looking they are not cuddly (despite what some of the tourists seem to think when they travel up here!!) They can run up to 40 km/h so by the time one has decided that it doesn't like you it will be on top of you. They are again very curious animals and will not attack without good reason (eg. feeling threatened in some way). Most of the time they have detected your presence way before you have seen them (they can smell you from several km away), had a good sniff of the air and carried on about their business.
These are some of my favourite photographs. This first bear was only a few years old just going about his daily business of looking for tasty seals.. He probably weighs about 70 - 80kg and is about the size of a 2 seater couch.

Bearing in mind this guy is just a teenager and is about about a fifth of his potential full grown size, have you seen the size of his paws!!!?????

And now..my favourite photograph of the collection. This is a picture of a full grown male. He is about 3m long and probably weighs about 500kg!

This photo I think sums up why I love living here....we have this type of scenery and wildlife essentially in our backyard.

Out with Ze Doggies

2009-09-05T15:40:00.006Z

Since moving here I have been spending more and more time out at the dog yard with Rico and Karoline. I am definately getting more confident with the dogs and they are actually paying attention to me when I give them commands. They even recognise me when I come to the dog yard (admittedly if I don't wear my red jacket they get a bit confused!!).

A bit of playtime between Quimmiq and Taliq (brother and sister):

Everybody is happy to see Aunty Lisa:

A quick cuddle time:

And then a happy run round the dog yard:

During the summertime there is no snow so the dogs cannot be trained by pulling sleds or people on skis. As an alternative they pull all sorts of other vehicles ranging from people on bikes all the way up to cars. The dogs need to be kept fit and active over the summer and they love to run. They can run between about 10 - 20km, 3 - 4 times a week with no problem (while pulling some form of vehicle).

For most of the summer I had just provided ballast on the vehicle while other people drove, however a few weeks ago it was time to bit the bullet and get into the driving seat!! To say I was nervous was an understatement. We are out on the road, with traffic and other distractions. The dogs can be exceptionally well behaved as long as you show you are the alpha female (and none of the pack are in heat..that's a whole other ballgame..just be thankful it's not like that for humans!!). The lead dogs respond to verbal commands to tell them which direction to take, høyre for right and venstre for left. My accent is not the best so there were a few times when Nuna (the lead dog) turned round to me with a quizzical (what exactly are you saying woman??!!) look!! However, once I got the hang of it, it was fantastic!!
As you can see I had Karoline for assistance but since these photos were taken I have managed to take them out with Ole also:

Living in the Midnight Sun

2009-09-05T15:19:00.003Z

Lots of people ask me what is it like living in a place where for approx. 5 months of the year the sun never sets. I have to admit it takes a while to get used to. The most annoying things about it is that when you go to bed you have sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. This is of particular annoyance to me as our bedroom window faces west which means at about 11pm the sun creeps round into full view and then shines into the bedroom till about 4am. We have taken the route that most people up here do and that is to cover all the windows in the bedroom with tin foil.

On the plus side you can go out at pretty much anytime and do what you like without fear that it's 'going to get dark soon'. This has lead to one or two bizarre experiences such as deciding to go for a fishing trip at midnight since the weather was so beautiful and the sea was like a mill pond!

It is also very easy to lose track of time when you are out at the pub. Most of the pubs here have some form of black out curtains so it makes you feel like it's night time. Thus, after you have had a few beers and a boogie you stagger outside to be confronted with blinding daylight!! Who'd have thought that sunglasses were the one thing you shouldn't forget when heading for a night out!!
Just to iterate my point here is a photo I took on the long walk home from Huset at about 3am in May:

Out and about on the open sea...ish...

2009-08-22T11:20:00.013Z

Well it's been another hectic few weeks. I had to head back down to Tromsø to attend the EISCAT workshop. It was a chance to get quickly back to the mainland and pick up some vital clothing items....ie. there was a branch of H&M in the town!! It was great to see some friends of mine, some of whom I realised I hadn't seen in 2 years.
It was however, VERY hot, most days it was 25 degrees...which to someone used to single figure temperatures was too much....it didn't help that there was no air-conditioning in the hotel..evidently people thought it wasn't needed in a hotel in the arctic!! I was FORCED to yet again go out and buy another pair of shoes for the week as all I had was a pair of hiking boots! :)
I then managed a whole week at home before heading off again on a scientific workshop on a polish research vessel which was going to sail between the research bases in Svalbard.
Although Longyearbyen is the main town on the island and the only place with an airport where people can fly off the island there are 3 other settlements on the island:

Barentsberg (a russian mining settlement) http://www.ssf.npolar.no/pages/baseBarentsburg.htm

Horsund (a polish research base)

http://hornsund.igf.edu.pl/index_en.php

and Ny Ålesund (a norwegian research settlement)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ny-%C3%85lesund

There were 30 of us in total, one group of upper atmospheric scientists, one group of glaciologists and one group of science managers. It was great to meet lots of new people and also very useful to get contacts at the other bases.
We also had some great experiences...huge glaciers, ice-bergs and of course...a polar bear...thankfully we were on the boat at the time.

This is the smallest of the bases, Hornsund. You can probably just make out the settlement!

The happy girls all vested up (obviously we'd still freeze to death of not fished out wihin a few minutes but at least we'd still float!):

There were also a few obstacles to the boat that dropped us on shore from the mainboat:
As well as the main research vessel itself..the captain however didn't bat an eyelid the whole time...just a day at the office for him:

This glacier is called Hansbreen..to get an idea of scale it's about 80 - 100m high and a few km across.

A large chunk of it also decided to carve off as we were stood about 100m away!
Before carving:

During carving:

After carving:

There were also a few bits of ice on the beach to navigate around:

Ontop of the nearby glacier:

Which when not in auto-pilot was controlled by possibly the relatively smallest steering wheel:

And of course....the polar bear...who was happily minding her own business before a boat load of scientists came sailing by:

At least this time the bear consists of more than a few pixels as my last one did!

And now..it's back to town for hopefully a few months..and I'm currently sat on the couch, with a cup of tea watching Eastenders...what will happen with Sahid and Christian??!!!

It's a hard life in the arctic

2009-07-22T12:59:00.004Z

It’s been beautiful weather up here these last few weeks (+15°C and blue skies) so we have made the most of it and headed out into the fjord for a few fishing trips.
As you can see it was high action on the boat on fishing trip number 1:

Even though it’s nice and warm it’s still only about +4°C in the water so we still had survival suits on. I did allow myself to drop it down to my waist for a while as it was particularly hot. I have to say I did fall asleep briefly on the boat and everyone assured me had I slid off into the water they would have all filmed it and laughed heartily before pulling me out!!
After a hard afternoon fishing (admittedly we didn’t catch a thing!) it was back to Fruene for a celebration lunch:

Fishing trip number 2 was slightly more successful.
Rico has this great little torch like gadget which acts as an echo sounder. The cod we were fishing for likes to be at about 50 – 60 m depth so at least we had some idea of where to fish (plus there was a sailboat in that was fishing also and as soon as we spotted it pulling up fish we ‘drifted’ in their general direction). The boys managed to both get a fish each in quick succession however I was struggling somewhat. Just as my pout was about to reach epic proportions there was a tug on my line. I had managed to catch 2 in one go so I was all smiles again!!
We caught 9 cod between us in about an hour. We had to throw 2 back as they were too small but the rest were between 1 and 2.5kg.

Obviously we had to pose proudly with our catch. As you notice we are still in our survival suits ( I had to wear a large, hence why my crotch is down by my knees somewhere!). They may keep you alive but they are not the most flattering of garments. It’s a good rule of thumb that if you start finding people attractive in them then you need to leave the island!!

Once back to shore it was fish gutting and filleting lesson number 1. Ole kindly did all the fish for us and we now have lots of tasty cod fillets in the freezer. We did however leave a bucket of fish guts outside the house for about 30 mins. By the time I got back to it it was alive with flies. I had to improvise and drugged them all with hairspray before scooping up said guts and flies with my hands (trying hard at this point not to regurgitate my lunch everywhere) and depositing them in 2 carrier bags. I have to say that was the worse thing I have ever had to do (and I’ve helped slaughter reindeers!).

A Sunday Afternoon Stroll

2009-06-28T19:29:00.003Z

As many of you know I am now back on Svalbard and about to start my new job up here at the University. I will update everyone in more detail about everything when I have a bit more time and most of my belongings are here! Everything is currently on a boat somewhere between here and Tromso!!

Since this is my first Sunday afternoon here in a while Ole and I decided to take things easy with a trip to Fruene for some cake and coffee followed by a trip to the supermarket for essential dinner supplies.

After this we went to stretch our legs for a quick walk in the hills, or any excuse to go bird watching as far as Ole is concerned. We took with us Silver and Nuna, 2 wonderful doggies who belong to our friends Rico and Karoline (you have heard me mention them in the past no doubt). It was a nice little stroll despite the mud pools and Nuna and I are enjoying some girlie bonding time (although she was not in a camera posing mood!).

Ole and Silver just walked ahead in a male fashion!

We have to wear harnesses around our hips to which we attach the dog leads to as these are very powerful animals and just love to run and exercise. Mostly when I am walking I am leaning at a 10 degree angle backwards as the dogs are so amazingly strong! They are unbelievably loyal and amazing creatures and I always feel far more safe when out in the wilderness up here than with just a rifle.

Scrambled Eggs with a Difference

2009-06-28T10:09:00.003Z

Last week the local shopping centre was having a small fair to promote local produce. There were lots of interesting things to sample such as fishcakes with bacon and tomato, different types of locally caught fish, seal, whale and seagull eggs.

Ole and I decided to give the seagull eggs a try:

So last Sunday morning we set about making scrambled seagull eggs on toast for breakfast.
Once we cracked them open they (obviously) looked just like chicken eggs with really big yolks. And when they were cooked they just looked like normal scrambled eggs:

They did taste slightly different also and I did feel a bit strange eating them (although I don't really know why). Not sure if we will be having them again but it was good to try them.

Musical Education!!

2009-06-18T21:23:00.000Z

In continuing my education of world music Ole, Rico, Karoline and I are heading to see Rammstein in Germany in December. A few years ago I don’t think you would’ve really got me to a German Rock concert but I am actually quite fond of their music. It’s good driving music and work out music.
Their shows are supposed to be amazing; all flame throwers and fireworks so I am really looking forward to it. And yet again it’s another excuse to buy a new outfit...although I think the personal shoppers may not be able to help me on this one!!

The Master

2009-06-18T20:21:00.003Z

The day after I got back to Tromsø, Ole had his Masters thesis defence.
This consists of a 30 minute presentation to the public about the major findings of his thesis followed by an oral exam. The title of his thesis is:

Food resources of an overwintering populstion of Purple Sandpipers (Calidris maritima) in Sørkjosleira Naturereserve, Northern Norway.

He had 2 friends from his school days visiting for the occasion so after we had watched the presentation (which was really good) I played the part of tour guide and took them to the beer hall (Ølhallen) of the Mack Brewery, the most northerly brewery in the world. This is the only place you can get a beer before 1pm and is thus frequented by mostly either tourists or alcoholics!! Ironically it’s also the drinking establishment that bears the closest resemblance to an English pub! The drinking and celebrating continued well until about 3am the next morning. I however, had to leave everybody in the pub at about 11pm as I had to go to work the next day. Before I left though I treated Ole to a newly created ‘whiskey cosmopolitan’ cocktail, complete with cherry and cocktail umbrella!

The Sisters hit Norfolk

2009-06-18T20:02:00.005Z

I was now onto the final leg of my journey: a trip to my sister's in Norwich. After a 3 hour drive Ole and I made ourselves at home in the local pub down the road from her house. We couldn’t make ourselves at home at my sister’s place yet as her and Alex are trying to sell their house and they were having viewings that evening. Apparently we would detract from the ‘show home’ environment!
The next day Clare, Ole and I hired a small boat and chugged around the Norfolk broads for a few hours. (Ok..we chugged up the river to the pub and back!).
They even let me drive the little boat:

I would also like to point out that my sister is reading The Sun at this point. Clare also decided that many of the birds looked hungry and thus started to feed them.

It was at this point that we were pretty much invaded by about 15 ducks, one of whom decided that the best way to get fed would be to get on the boat itself!!

Unfortunately, Ole had to leave that evening to get back to Tromsø but I think I managed to give him a good, if brief, tour of the UK.

On Monday morning Clare and I decided to have a sisterly day out and visit Great Yarmouth. It was great!! We walked along the pier (where we piled into one of those ‘draw your picture’ photo booths), had fish and chips, looked in all the tacky souvenir shops, and even stopped to witness a performance by the puppet man. This guy is a legend in Norfolk (he even has a facebook following..you can’t get more famous than that!). He looks to be in his 60s and just basically stands on the street with a stereo and some form of bedraggled hand puppet, waffling somewhat incoherently to the music. But as with so many things in the UK, he has been taken into the hearts of the locals and if he makes people smile then fair enough!

A Surprise Visit

2009-06-18T19:53:00.003Z

During my times chatting to Ole on skype he had mentioned that he was missing me somewhat and that once I got back to Tromsø he was taking my passport away (admittedly out of the 6 months we have been together I think I have been away for about 3 of them!). So I told him that if he missed me that much then he could get on a plane and come and see me. Which he did the very next day, having to go via Denmark since it was the only reasonably priced flight available!
Since he had come all the way over I decided to show him the best of what Leicestershire has to offer:

1) A rip to Rutland Water to look at birds (I contributed by spotting 2 rabbits and a snake):

2) A curry at the Nila Palace (where they were very happy to see me again although I think my stomach was struggling to handle the delicious yet spicy food!)

3) A trip to the University (with the obligatory sausage sarnie from the Charles Wilson building and a walk across Vicky Park in the sunshine)

4) A few pints of Ale and dinner at the Cow and Plough

5) A trip to Foxton Locks where we decided that we could cope quite happily living on a long boat!

A big thank you again to Jane for letting me stay with her while I was in Leicester and for my copy of the Sunday Times. It was great to see her and Eddie (and Daisy, Tina and Harry) again and catch up over a bottle of wine or two.

A forgetful friend, a dress disaster but a great time was had!!

2009-06-18T19:47:00.002Z

After Marske I travelled down to Leicester. I arrived there on the Friday night and I had arranged to stay with my friend Graham. However, Graham being Graham had forgotton to mention this to anyone and had been happily ensconced in the Old Horse beer garden for several hours before he remembered I was arriving and thus sent his sister home to ‘sort it out!’. Thankfully she arrived in time and greeted me with a nice bottle of white wine.

I had brought the dress I wore to the confirmation ceremony also but, being the organised person I am, also bought a spare. Thank god I did!!
I am currently enjoying the ‘relationship weight gain’ stage that everyone goes through when you are beginning to relax in each other’s company. (This is followed by the ‘I might go to the bathroom while you are in the house’ and the ‘I might let my bodily hair removal regime be less strict and reduce it to waxing / plucking / shaving only twice a week’ stages). Thus despite assistance from friends there was no way I was getting zipped into the dress and had to resort to the back up!!

It was a fabulous day. The weather was gorgeous (I even managed to get sunburnt), the ceremony was lovely (and I managed to not cry!!) and the food was yummy (with an additional hog roast for an evening snack). The bride looked radiant, there was approximately 2 bottles of wine per person as well as pimms and lemonade at the reception and the evening’s entertainment was superb also with a live band performing all the great dance floor fillers! It was great catching up with most of my friends from Leicester who were also at the wedding. Even though I left Leicester 2 years ago I do still miss them terribly.

Various photos of the day can be found on our favourite stalking website, fbook!

A good bank holiday weekend.

2009-06-18T19:40:00.005Z

Since I am leaving my current job I have been using up my holiday. I thus planned a tour of the UK to visit my parents and cats, visit my sister, visit my friends in Leicester and attend a former office mate’s wedding.
It was lovely to be back up in sunny Marske and enjoy some pampering from the parents and general snuggles from my cats. I also managed to catch up with some school friends. We followed the bank holiday tradition and spent the whole of Sunday afternoon and night in the pub! There are many reasons I love drinking in pubs back up North:

1)It costs £6.00 for a bottle of wine and £15 for a round of drinks for 6 people.
2)You can always rely on some form of local entertainment. On this occasion it was the group of blokes who parked there white escort at the back of the beer garden and regaled us with dance tunes from the early 1990s. Most of the songs we recognised as having danced to in our youth!!

We also decided that we were getting old as once we got a table we didn’t move for 10 hours as were all quite comfy! Also, we were the only females in the place who were wearing jeans and not some very very small dress or fancy dress costume (to be fair some of the girls could pull those outfits off....but some of them really should’ve looked in the mirror before leaving home!!). We all reminisced about the days when we too went out wearing what can be only described as a glorified belt for a skirt and a boob tube!

I also met a friend whom I used to play with when I was little called Andrew and I don’t think I had seen him since we were 16!! It was quite entertaining to think that the last time we were all together we were sat on a park bench somewhere drinking some form of dodgy cider and now people were discussing which infant school would be best for their kids!!

A few days later I went for an afternoon out with my friend Sam and her little boy Charlie. It was during this outing that I assisted in my first ever nappy change! When I say assist I mean that I stood there next to Sam handing her wet wipes and a clean nappy and holding a plastic bag for her to put all poo-stained items into.

I feel I am getting better with this child stuff everyday now!!

A trip south and more Norwegian Culture Exposure!

2009-06-18T19:20:00.008Z

Ole had invited me to his sister Maria's confirmation ceremony in his home town of Mandal, which is located on the southern tip of Norway (you can practically see Denmark on a good day from the beach!!)

View Larger Map

In Norway it is quite usual for teenagers to take part in a coming of age ceremony (normally when they are about 15 years old) called a confirmation .This used to be an entirely religious ceremony (and the religious form of the ceremony still exists) but during the last century the Norwegian Humanist Association modernised things so that people can promise to be good, upstanding people and generally hope to lead a good and fulfilling life without mentioning Him upstairs. I think this is a good idea as it allows young people to keep the traditions alive without feeling pressured to get involved in something religious if they are not that way inclined. It was also a chance for me to meet Ole’s family. This in turn gave me several excuses to buy a new outfit. So it was that while I was in the UK in March I ran into Debenhams back to the personal shoppers who had already proved their weight in gold and gave them the remit for the outfit:

1) I was meeting my boyfriend’s family for the 1st time and thus had to look gorgeous yet sophisticated.
2) I was going to be attending a confirmation ceremony where everyone would be dressed up posh
3) I had just purchased some amazing beige high heels in New Look in the sale which I had to wear!

The woman did say that it was a tough assignment but she was up for the challenge. After a slow start (a beige linen suit which added about 15 years onto me!!) we finally found a gorgeous strapless dress with a bit of netting underneath the skirt part causing it to have a bit of a 1950s prom dress look.

There were about 20 people who were being confirmed in the ceremony (mainly girls) and the best way I can describe the day was ‘it was like a wedding without the groom!’ Most of the girls wore the traditional Norwegian dress called a Bunad .

There are different designs depending on which municipality you live in. Many young Norwegians will wear their national dress with a sense of pride at any traditional celebratory occasion (at least 70% of the women who attended the ceremony were also in their national dress and about 30% of the men), which I again think is quite amazing. I can’t think of many English teenagers doing the same things, although the only English National Dress I can think of is a Morris Dancer!

After the ceremony, Ole’s family had organised a private party for family and friends. This was held at a lovely old country house which was built buy Lord Salvesen who lived from 1857 – 1942 and, in 1905, was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland.

The wedding similarities continued here. There was a sit down meal with a top table containing the ‘bride’ and family members. There were speeches by the father, mother and siblings of the ‘bride’ about how lovely the ‘bride’ was on this special day and an additional thank you by the ‘bride’ to everyone. This was followed by confirmation cake (or as it turned out multiple cakes!)

I think Ole and I scrubbed up quite well and he even managed to get a photo of me sort of smiling!

It was a lovely day and great getting to meet Ole’s ENTIRE family (we are talking to 2nd cousin level here). Mandal is a beautiful place. There was a lovely little harbour area and cobbled streets with little cafes . We spent the rest of the weekend enjoying the scenery and generally relaxing. It is a 3 hour plane ride due south from Tromsø so while it was all snow and sludge up here it was green grass and flowers and sunshine in Mandal!

A Few Updates on Life

2009-05-08T13:14:00.012Z

Since the last blog several things have occurred that I should mention:
1) The flat is now beginning to feel like home. We have a lovely view from our balcony (sorry the picture is out of focus)

We have the midnight sun now so we can enjoy the sunshine all night. We also made out first joint purpose which was....a washing machine...!!
2) I managed a trip down south for a meeting which took place in North East Germany (and hence why I was in Hamburg airport at the last update). It was in a lovely seaside resort called Kuehlungsborn. I didn't get to see much of the place however as I was only there for 1.5 days and spent 1.4 days of those in meetings are asleep!! I was there long enough to note that a glass of wine was only 2 euros (happy happy day!!)
From there I flew back via Copenhagen to visit my friend Thue. We met up on Svalbard last year where he had struck me as a very ‘rugged’ character.His clothes were falling apart and his hair was wild to say the least!!He had promised to prove to me that he was in fact a true stylish gentleman and not a crazy arctic bloke.It started off well….through family contacts he had managed to get somewhere for us to stay right in the city centre in this huge old house. The city itself is beautiful…lots of old buildings, cobbled streets and lovely churches. I also discovered that high heels in churches make a lot of noise and thus had to tiptoe around several of them!

We did in fact have a very lovely cultural weekend which included the ballet in a beautiful weekend which included the ballet in a beautiful theatre in the city centre:

and a visit to the national museum. We had to have two attempts at a visit to the museum however as in my excitement to have 'normal' food again I ordered some greek yogurt in a restaurant for breakfast on Saturday. Now, I love greek yogurt and have never had a problem with it in the past..however, I got at least a litre of the stuff to eat..and I hadn’t really had any dairy products in a while….the result of this was that by the time we got to the museum I really wasn’t very well and managed to deposit the contents of my stomach quite spectacularly in the museum bathroom!

3) In a sublime act of communication and planning on behalf of myself and Ole we had managed to both invite friends to visit over the same weekend.Fitting 4 people into a 1 bedroom flat was a challenge but I think we managed quite well.The girls had the main room with mattresses and the boys had the bedroom.We came to this arrangement as it was generally agreed that the girls would be out of bed a good few hours before the boys....a prediction that was entirely proved correct!!
We did manage a night out on the town also...Norwegian style, ie. We all got drunk before we left the house at around 12.30am for town..getting back home at a respectable 3.30am.Ole’s friend Jan introduced us to the alcoholic, liquid version of Fishermans friend just to get us in the mood. He did however end up the worst off out of all of us and didn’t quite have to be carried home but wasn’t far short!

All in all it was a very enjoyable weekend and it was great to see Jane...I just wish I could've produced the Sun and the Northern Lights!!

4) And finally:
After spending almost 3 whole months in our new flat, Ole and I are moving up to Svalbard I have accepted a post-doc position at the University up there. The post is for 3 yers which will hopefully be long enough for me to have a great time without going completely mad and turning into some form of arctic hermit. It's also really nice to know that after almost 2 years living in limbo I will finally be somewhere long enough to begin to call it home!!

Back home to Norway..again!

2009-03-25T15:30:00.005Z

I arrived back in Norway at the start of March and as of last weekend have managed to unpack everything in the new flat and put all the various bits and bobs in their correct place. When I arrived back Ole had proved that he is truly a red-blooded male and had unpacked the following:
1) The bed
2) The kitchen utensils
3) A chair
4) The entertainment system

As you can see from the pictures:

He did come up with an award winning defence of this however whereby he professed that he wanted to unpack our things together in a token romantic gesture...ahhh
Photos of the flat in it's current domestic state will follow.

We also did a monster shop to stock up on the essentials. It was at this point that I discovered our interesting freezer resident:

Yes it's not everyday that you open the freezer to be confronted by two fluffy feet sticking out of it. It turned out to be a hare aquired on a recent hunting expedition that was a storing for a friend. There are also two birds in there but I am yet to find them!So it's hopefully back to some form of 'normal' life which I have to say I am looking forward to immensely.(Having said that I am currently updating this blog from Hamburg airport on my travels!)

Skiing in France

2009-03-25T15:29:00.000Z

As mentioned I managed to fit in a small skiing holiday in France with my volleyball friends from the UK. It was great seeing everyone again and I even got to spend a day or 2 in Leicester to visit everyone in the RSPP group.
The skiing holiday was lots of fun although since I had failed to do pretty much any exercise in preparation for the trip my thighs were struggling somewhat ‘en piste’. I struggled quite a bit to keep up with the rest of the group, who in comparison were a very fit bunch indeed!! Nevertheless I had a very good time and managed to intersperse my skiing with numerous hot chocolate stops (or should that be intersperse my hot chocolate breaks with skiing?!). After 2 days of skiing, my legs did finally give way half way down a red run. I failed to come to a stop as I had intended and managed to lose both my skis, poles and travel gracefully through the air before landing in a heap on the floor about 20 feet from where I took off. I managed to injure my knee (although no ligament damage and annoyingly no bruise to show for it!!) which meant I had to rest for 2 days and then had lost the ability to turn left on a pair of skis which meant skiing downhill was a tad troublesome! I was however very lucky in comparison to my friend Grace who unfortunately managed to break her leg in 2 places. She had an operation in France and returned safely to the UK some days after us and is very much on the mend thankfully.
While we were there most of the group either purchased a protective helmet or were already wearing one. In light of the recent unfortunate incident with Natasha Richardson it has made me realize what a valuable and often overlooked piece of equipment this is. I know if I ever go skiing again I will be purchasing one..it really isn’t worth the risk just because you think you might look stupid! I also noticed that they were becoming more and more popular with people with a good percentage of people wearing them.
I did get to spend a weekend in Leicester when I got back from France during which time I managed to do all the essentials: a) go for a curry b) spend a Sunday reading the Sunday Times c) go shopping once again in Debenhams with the personal shoppers who yet again proved their weight in gold!

Moving In and Moving On

2009-03-25T15:23:00.003Z

I managed to spend a full 35 days in Norway before I had to get on a plane again.However, during that time I managed to find a new place to live. The place I was in was right in the city centre and perfect for popping into town and to the various administration places that I had to go to since moving to Norway BUT it was back to sharing a house and after living in my own place for many years I was finding it very hard to going back to ‘student’ conditions.I had made a New Year’s resolution that I would try and find a place of my own when I got back to Norway.This however proved to be easier said than done…unless I was willing to pay a small fortune for either somewhere large enough to swing a small kitten (under 35 square meters with the living room / kitchen / bedroom all packed into 1 room for the bargain price of £600 a month) or somewhere a good 30km outside of town in a field! Co-incidentally Ole was also looking for a new place to live so after much consideration we decided to pool our resources and move in together in a decent sized apartment.This obviously prompted a few raised eyebrows given the short amount of time we have been together (or as my friend David put it ‘Yey!! Moving in together after a socially questionable amount of time’).However we moved into our lovely new apartment (all laminate floors, heated bathroom floor, balcony overlooking the fjord and mountains and even a dishwasher) on March 1st (actually Ole and his friend moved everything into the apartment as unfortunately I was on a skiing holiday in France!).It is so nice to be in our own place with all our own furniture.

Happy Memories

2009-03-19T08:13:00.004Z

I am currently in the process of setting up a new computer (running windows vista on a Mac was not a good idea...I don't need any comments on this either...believe me I've heard them all!)

As I was trawling through my files I came across this old movie that I made of my dog Mitzi to remember her after she died and it just made me smile to remember her. So I thought I would share it with everyone. Enjoy!

Proof of Cosmopolitan's wide reach

2009-02-18T13:33:00.002Z

This weekend we popped into one of the bar's where Ole works for a coffee. I was very happy since I had managed to purchase this months brain switch off magazine...aka Cosmopolitan. Now, Ole was quite happy to give the magazine the same amount of slurr as Jeff happily did when I lived with him.
I would like you to note however that he did pick it up and have a read...and did even heartily laugh out loud at some of the more amusing articles. :)
Proof that he is a true 21st century bloke:

A trip to Finland

2009-02-18T13:20:00.005Z

Last week was the Annual Review Meeting for EISCAT. The meeting this year was in Pallas, Finland (B) which was about a 6 hour drive from Tromso (A).
The meeting was actually at a small ski-resort however the actual ski-lifts didn't open till the day after we left. :(
The nice receptionist however did tell me that the cross-country ski tracks were open and they would lend me some skis.
Now, I'm going to be honest..I'm not the fittest person in the world...and I discovered that cross-country skiing (without attached to dogs this time and thankfully no polar bears!) really does hurt the thighs!!
If was a great afternoon out for me though all alone in the forest. It was -15 and clear blue skies and completely still and quiet in the forest. I think by the end of the run I had even managed some form of technique!
The meeting itself was held in a small meeting room at the resort. The room and facilities were all very nice..however they did have a strange fascination with owls....there was an entire array of stuffed ones which glared at us throughout the whole meeting:

After a beautiful sunrise we left for home.

We were only in Pallas for about 36 hours before another 6 hour drive back to Tromso. The temperature difference by just driving a few hours in land is amazing. When we left Pallas it was -27...when we arrived back in Tromso it was +2!!

Back home to Norway

2009-02-07T16:27:00.003Z

I am now back in Norway. I have moved from Svalbard down to Tromso which is right at the top of mainland Norway and still above the arctic circle. Tromso is a really lovely city (by Norwegian standards it is a city...I would call it more of a town). However it is ridiculously expensive. People have already heard me mention this, but here is a quick example of prices:
4 quid for a carton of tropicana orange juice
3 quid for a loaf of crusty bread
9 quid for a G&T in the pub
10 quid for a bottle of wine in the offie!
I did however find out last night that Cod is quite cheap so it's not all doom and gloom!

Being back here also means that I am not back with my lovely boyfriend Ole. I had missed him a lot while I was away so it's great to be back here with him:

I am also working on pronoucing his name correctly: 'O' as in the 'oo' out of 'moo' and 'le' as in the french 'le chien'! I have been told I am getting better at it...slowly.
We managed a lovely walk along the shoreline both this weekend and last weekend in the snow. Ole is a twitcher (my name is Lisa and my boyfriend is a twitcher...I am not ashamed to admit it...I'm a physicist so I haven't really got a leg to stand on!!) so while he was looking at all the birds I was trying to find interesting animals in the rock pools (without falling into the fjord).

A Rant about Dubai Airport

2009-02-07T16:19:00.003Z

Both the trip to and from Krabi was rather long (7 hours to Dubai, 6 hours in Dubai, 6 hours to Bangkok, 4 hours in Bangkok and then another 1.5 hours to Krabi). I have to say...Dubai airport is possibly the worst airport in the world if you are in transit. There is nothing but endless Duty Free (which I admit if you are there for an hour or so is great!) and nowhere to lie down (apart from those stupid rows of seats with arms on them so you can't lie across them). Also there was absolutely nowhere to get any decent food. The selection was: McDonalds, Starbucks and Haagen Daas Cafe. I tried to get some sleep on some slightly reclining chairs but I kept slipping down and sliding gently off the bottom of it so at about 4am I gave up and had a bucket of coffee at Starbucks!
I am currently drafting a letter to the designer of the place who, in an interview I was listening to on the radio on the flight, was marvelling how the airport was designed entirely for travelers comfort. Bull s**t..it is designed to try and get you to part with as much cash in Duty Free as possible!!
On the other hand I would highly recommed Emirate to fly with. The food was gorgeous, teh blankets nice and warm and the entertainment system amazing!! The choice of games to play with (there were 50) and movies to watch in the console in the seat back was great. I did however get a bit carried away with playing solitaire and was still playing as we came into land..I was not going to be beaten..I played about 20 games and never managed to finish it!! In my defence I hadn't slept in almost 24 hours by this point!! They also had the camera on the front of the plane so you could play 'spot the runway' as you came into land. :)

A Holiday to Thailand

2009-02-07T15:55:00.004Z

Way back in August myself and 3 friends booked a 3 week holiday to Thailand for this January. My friend Anne and were going as the lesbian couple since we got fed up paying single supplements when we want to go on holiday! We were meeting our friends Rico and Karoline in Tonsai, close to Krabi. I had been ordered by pretty much everyone I know to have a proper holiday and relax...and not take my laptop. So on the 3rd January I left Newcastle airport sans Laptop (the first time we have been parted in almost a year!).
Tonsai was the most amazing place. There were no high rise hotels. It was all just wooden huts and small chalets in the jungle. The only way you could get to Tonsai was by long boat:

There were about 5 bars on the beach, again all locally run bars in the open air where you just sat out in hammocks or on the sand enjoying the sound of the sea lapping up against the shore. Quite a few of the bars also had tightropes strung between 2 trees (thankfully only about a meter off the ground) which anyone could have a go on. The amount of people who had a go on this was directly proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed and obviously it was mainly guys who felt the need to try it out. Anne and I obviously tried it out...I think i managed 2 steps before falling off!!
There was a full moon when we were there so there was a full moon party out on the beach where we just all danced round in the sand till about 4am. There was also a tradition of releasing canvas lanterns. These were very simple things, just a canvas sheet wrapped round a flame with a small resevoir of fuel in it which was lit to produce the flame...a very simple, miniature hot air balloon:
Tonsai is a mecca for rock climbers so 90% of people were walking round wearing harnesses and shimmying up cliff faces all day. This did have certain benefits in the fact that there were 6-packs everywhere..I have never seen so many gorgeous stomachs in all my life!!
They climb quite high up and are not the easiest to spot sometimes..so here is my version of 'Where's wally?':
So while Anne and friends spent all day climbing I sat on the beach under a tree doing absolutely bugger all!! Luckily a friend of ours happening to be traveling through Thailand at the same time so he joined me for the week although he could handle sitting in the sun so he sat about 5 meters in front of me frying gently away!
I did go out on a couple of boat trips doing some snorkling over the coral reefs which was amazing. As well as the most beautiful fish of all different shades of the rainbow I managed to spot a sea snake, a moray eel and a bored looking lobster. I also went out with some climbers while they did some free climbing. This was on cliff faces right over the deep water so they didn't need safety harnesses...if you got tried you just let go. Some of the climbers are just so strong, lifting themselves into the most amazing positions. I felt quite unfit trying to get myself most unelegantly back into the boat after going swimming!!
During one boat trip we managed to get ourselves stranded on a desert island for a few hours due to a miscalculation of tidies. It was however the most beautiful place:
We luckily still had a good supply of beer with us so we just sat back and watched the sunset and waited for the tide to come in to cover the coral so we could get out to the boat:
I managed to enjoy a Thai massage ot two....ok five. By the end of my holiday I was on first name terms with the nice ladies in the massage place and even got a nice leaving present off them.

All in all I have to say it was the best holiday I have had in a very long time..and I managed to finally switch off and relax! :)

A Brief Visit to Leicester

2009-02-07T15:35:00.004Z

Jeff and I headed down to see some of his friends in London for New Year. On the way we briefly stopped off in Leicester to see my mate Jane and her little boy Eddie. It was really great to see them both and obviously to have the obligatory gossip and catch up with Jane. Eddie and I had lots of fun making reindeer cookies although it did end up in both of us and a significant part of the kitchen covered in flour!
Obviously Eddie, being 5 years old, got some really cool stuff for Xmas so Jeff and I immediately sat down to play with the toys! Firstly we had the transformer (yes they are undergoing a bit of a comeback) which was a fighter jet:

I did try and transform Mr. Transformer a few times however I did have to admit defeat and hand it over to Jeff. I think I have reached that age when kids toys are too complicated for me! It did however take Jeff a good 20 mins to figure out to go from a fighter jet to a robot!
Of course even though Eddie had gone to bed and we were now on the wine the toy playing did not stop. We decided that Mr. Transformer obviously had to have a battle with another robot thing:
before the defeated robot got rescued by the rescue helicopter crew:
After that we moved onto making toys out of a kit with various straws and connector parts (I can't remember what the official title of the kit was..something like kinex...I'm sure someone can let me know). We both managed to follow the instructions to mke the racing car..however after that it got a bit more complicated. And this of course started an arguement between Jeff and I as to which bit to put where to make the coolest toy...in the end we agreed on an insect type construction:
And finally the other cool toy was a kit to make balloon animals. Jane had already admitted defeat on this one so obviously I had to try!! I had almost made a mouse when I over twisted his back legs part and his whole body exploded! I did manage to save the head though..which we then attached to another part of a robot. It kind of reminded me of a clanger...although slightly scarier!!

Christmas Fun!

2009-02-07T10:03:00.005Z

I had a great end to 2008 with my ex-housemate/husband Jeff joining me for a traditional English Christmas at my parents place.We spent an exciting Boxing Day wandering round the seaside town of Whitby complete with fish and chips and ice cream on the end of the pier in about +7C!!

I also managed a mini-school reunion with some of the girls I went to school with, some of which I haven’t seen in almost 15 years!!It was great to catch up with everyone and reminisce about all the stupid things we used to get up to as kids (most of which the mothers among us said they would kill their kids if they found out they were up to similar mischief!!) and how we were all now sensible adults with lots of responsibilities (well….we were until about the 5th bottle of rosé was drank!)Most of the photos are available on facebook so I suspect most of you will have seen them. Some things hadn’t changed and my mother kindly agreed to pick me up from the pub at 11pm (at least now I didn’t have to act like I was sober for fear of being grounded!We were all a little worse for wear by this point (we had been in the pub since 2pm!) so everyone decided to join me to say hello to my mum (who they agreed was the coolest mum ever!). It was also interesting to see some of the boys who we used to lust after at school…I have to say they have not aged well….all beer guts and balding!!

December update

2008-12-09T17:50:00.003Z

December started off in the traditional manner with everyone gathering down at the dock to say goodbye to the last ship that heads back to the mainland before the winter season, The Nordsyssel. Back in the 1960's, before the airport was built, this was much more of a poignant ceremony as it signified the fact that Longyearbyen would be completely cut off from the rest of the world till the spring, when the sea ice had melted. After a brief ceremony everyone headed into town in a procession with the little kids all carrying fire torches (health and safety would never allow this in the UK!!) where there is free glogg to drink and we switch on the lights on the Xmas tree.
This year was particularly genius as the act of turning on 20 fairy light on the tree managed to overload the power station and plunged the whole town into darkness for about an hour!!

I also finally managed to get my snowmobile out for a run. There was some really amazing aurora on Sunday afternoon (the best I have seen up here) so Jeff, Yvonne and I took the snowmobiles out for about an hour. I also had a passenger in the form of my new bloke, Ole (some of you may know this..some of you may not..but now everyone does!). There was also almost a full moon so we could finally see some of the mountains either side of the valley. Ole had his camera and managed to get a few decent shots of us and the mountains (although he didn't have a tripod so the images are slightly blurry!)

Yet again though it is another example of how the beauty of this place can just take your breath away. This shot was taken about 2 minutes drive out of town!

Chocolate Heaven!

2008-11-26T14:37:00.002Z

If you ever wanted to know what 2kg of dairy milk looks like..here you go:

So far the chocolate has proved most useful also and has been used as payment for a variety of favours from both the logistics and IT support boys. So far I am almost through the 1st kilo but still have another kilo to go!
A big thank you to Tony who brought me the chocolate up from Heathrow. :)

Puppy Update

2008-11-26T14:25:00.003Z

After a lovely week in Tromso meeting up with friends and having a fabulous time I am now back up on Svalbard.

You may remember back in January Nuna gave birth to 6 little puppies and I posted a picture on my blog of me holding one of them. Well..they have grown somewhat in the last few months and are now part of a dog team with their very own website, the link to which is on the side of this website (called Happy Svalbard Doggies):

Two of the dogs now live on the mainland and 4 of them remain up here. Rico and Karoline kept two of the puppies themselves, a male and a female called Taliq and Qimmiq. They are both lovely dogs with Qimmiq basically being the diva of the group and Taliq being the cute little fuzz ball who is such a sissy!! I am looking forward to hopefully going out on some sled trips in the next few weeks when we get some more snow up here.

Weekend at Dirk’s cabin

2008-11-13T16:06:00.002Z

Since I put in so much overtime on the recent SPEAR campaign I decided to take some time off and come down to Tromso. I hadn’t seen the sun in almost 2 months so I was really looking forward to feeling the sun on my face again. I also just wanted to do ‘normal’ things again for a while…wander round the shops..go out for food (where the choice is more than pizza and burger)…go and sit in cafes and read English magazines (I can’t get them on Svalbard..and yes I currently pay about £6 for Cosmopolitan!). The trip however didn’t get off to the best start..we couldn’t land in Tromso due to fog so we had to divert to Evenes. This was only a 15 minute diversion in the plane. However this being Norway, with big fjord and no real main roads..it took us 5 hours to get back to Tromso by coach!!
Anyway..after that small diversion I did make it to my final destination by Saturday morning…which was my friend Dirk’s cabin which is about an hour’s drive out of Tromso.

I first met Dirk on Svalbard about a year ago…for one of my first sauna’s..where he was at the time wearing a thong made out of reindeer skin (long story)..which he proceeded to make the most of by jiggling up and down in my face!! He has a cabin just outside Tromso…right by the Fjord…and with all mod cons…electricity and running water! :) So we spent a lovely weekend just slobbing around the cabin, enjoying the sunshine, eating good food and playing on his X-box (what was wrong with just one joystick on the control pads…I couldn’t get the hang of two of them!!). I had a very nice morning with a cup of tea sat in the sunshine and enjoying the view:

We also went for a small hike to the beach. It was at this point that I think I realised that I have maybe on Svalbard too long:

1) I was commenting on how warm it was outside even though it was only +5°C

2) When we got to the sea I just felt an uncontrollable urge to strip off and run into it...which of course I did:

(added pink box to protect my modesty!!)

So a big thank you to Dirk for a lovely stress relieving weekend. I’m now back in Tromso for a few days to hopefully get re-civilised!

A parting gift

2008-11-13T16:02:00.002Z

As mention Thue and Stig finally left Svalbard after 2 years up there. To say they have left their mark on the place would be an understatement..I think they will both go down in urban legend for some of the things they have got up to during their time on Svalbard (most of which I will not repeat here).
I will mention one incident though…they are the only people as far as I know who have had the search and rescue helicopter scrambled for them…twice!! There is a rule up here that whenever you go out of town you tell someone what time you will be back. Unless you have a satellite phone with you there is no means of communication back to town when you are out in the wilderness. If you are thus not back by your designated time then Sysselman (the governors office) will be alerted and they will scramble the search and rescue helicopter. The first time this happened to the two boys they were just delayed and were found not too far out of town in Sassendalen (which is about a 40 minute drive out of town by snow mobile). The second time, which was just over a month ago, I was the person who they told what time they would be out till. They had gone out in a small boat to a cabin on the far side of the fjord. I gave them an extra hour before we alerted the governors office. I decided that I would rather the boys hated me for sending out the helicopter if they were ok rather than risk that something had happened..you do not survive very long in arctic waters. It takes about an hour from when the call is made for the helicopter to make it into the air. So Rico and I sat up nursing a large whiskey each waiting to hear word. It turned out they had made it to their destination but the boat had developed engine trouble so Thue couldn’t return. They did later tell me that they just sat there, resigned to the fact that the helicopter was going to come. When Thue did finally appear at about 1am I didn’t know whether to hug him or punch him..thankfully I decided to go for the latter.

To commemorate this great achievement by these two I managed to make them a nice little certificate. Fred, the head of safety and logistics at UNIS even signed it for me:

So..goodbye boys…as everyone knows I am going to miss you. Hopefully we’ll meet again..somewhere.

Cabin Trip to Bjorndalen

2008-11-13T15:59:00.002Z

We managed our trip to the student cabin at Bjorndalen over the Halloween weekend. The occasion was to mark the leaving of two friends of mine, Thue and Stig. 8 of us managed to make it over to the cabin which was only about a 2km walk. Thue provided the food in the form of a gorgeous reindeer casserole that he made with the last of the reindeer that he had managed to get in the hunting season this year. There was obvious lots of drinking involved..with most of us realizing that this was of course a marathon and not a sprint…apart from Stig. Bless the poor mite, he is only a youngster (24 years old), and he somehow managed to be too drunk to actually stay awake by about 10pm! So obviously being the sensible adults that we are we got a marker pen and made the most of it:

That photo pretty much sums up the mentality of the night as a whole. This was of course aided by the fact that we found a packet of 50 balloons which were made full use of. We have begun to realize the higher the overall intellect of the group the more in the gutter the conversation appears to be. I hate to spoil people’s illusions but we do not sit around discussing people’s research interests (ok…so it happens very occasionally). So you can all imagine what happens when you get a group of primarily academics together, add alcohol, music and a large quantity of balloons….photographs do exist but to protect the innocent they are safely encrypted away somewhere..god help us if any of us make it into a position of power!!

The cabin is very basic with no running water or electricity so it’s outside to use the toilet (making sure one always does to the right hand side of the cabin). There is then the obvious danger of the wildlife of Svalbard making a meal of you..so protection is needed. No matter how many times I go to the loo in the wilderness I am never going to get used to ‘squatting and drip drying’ while clutching a rifle. Your mind also starts playing tricks on you and you start to see things moving in the shadows. This is not helped by the fact that to a polarbear we stink to high heaven and they can smell us several miles away. I was also informed out that a bear could quite happily get through the cabin wall if it really wanted to..as has happened to a friend of mine. Luckily they weren’t in the cabin at the time, but they returned later in the day to find a bear sized hole in the wall!!

The Wound

2008-11-03T18:35:00.002Z

Just a quick update. We finally took the bandage off the cut where my mole used to be to examine how things were doing. A big thanks to all people who have so far been employed in the cleaning of the wound (Karoline, Jeff and Thue). The general consensus is that the doctor did a really good job and it's healing well. I now have movement back in my arm although which is making life slightly easier!!
And I thought you would all enjoy the wound itself:

Blues weekend and saying goodbye to ‘an old friend’

2008-10-28T22:23:00.001Z

This Friday at the weekly sauna I managed to fall over in my sprint to get inside from the naked rolling in the snow and making sure my feet didn’t freeze to the metal grate on the floor. Somehow I also managed to slice through the rather large mole I have on my left shoulder! Most of you will have seen this at some point but for those that don’t know I have had this mole since I was born and it was about 4 cm in diameter and raised about half a cm off my skin. Anyway, I managed to patch it up ok but thought that I should get it looked at by the doctor here at the hospital to make sure it was ok. So I popped in for a check up Monday, where the doctor took one look at it and said ‘oh well we may as well take it off, just pop yourself next door onto the operating table and we’ll do it now!!’ Bearing in mind I had been building up to having this thing removed for about the last 10 years but had always been put off by the NHS waiting lists and problems I had encountered trying to get it done in the UK….it was quite surprising to have it just suggested at a local check up! So I ended up on the operating table where it was nicely sliced out in about 10 minutes before I was happily sent on my way with 6 stitches in my shoulder! I was re-assured later by a friend that the same doctor had also stitched a wound on her dog and he did a really good job of it so I had nothing to worry about……..I love Svalbard sometimes!! No messing around, no fuss, no form filling in etc….it’s great!!! And…I am now moleless!!!

This weekend was also the big concert in the yearly dark season blues festival the happens here on Svalbard. It’s the most Northerly Blues festival in the world and attracts acts and guests from all over the world. I had a great time on Saturday night out with friends listening to some really cool bands as well as some local bands. It was really great to see some of my friends singing and playing in the bands also. A big thank you to the nice gentleman (you know who you are) who finally treated me to a gorgeous bottle of champagne. We had lots of fun enjoying the bottle until about 4am when we decided maybe it really was time to leave!! I also met a guy from Leicester who funnily enough lives just up the road from me in Leicester..so we reminisced about good old Leicester!

And this weekend we are heading out for a cabin trip with some friends for a goodbye party for two very good friends of mine who have been here for 2 years and have certainly made their mark in Svalbard and UNIS folklore!! Hopefully we will make some good stories this weekend also.

Good to be alive

2008-10-28T22:13:00.003Z

The Friday before last I woke up and looked out the curtains and this was the view at 8.30am:

And if that doesn’t make you glad to be alive then I don’t know what does. Ok, I live in a place with one supermarket, one coffee house, one clothes shop and no curry house or shoe shops….but when you consider what I do get then all in all I am willing to live without those and many other things.

It was still beautiful when we got to work so I took a quick photograph of the town also from my office:

We are losing daylight very quickly here and the sun no longer comes above the horizon so the sky turns this deep blue colour. In a few weeks it will be 24 hour darkness. The temperature has also started to drop significantly and it was -20°C today and is predicted to head down to -30°C on Thursday (just in time for our cabin trip out of town!).

As you can see we are also heading into winter here and there is definitely snow on the ground (although or not enough for snowmobiling yet!). This also means that it's back to the naked rolling in the snow during our Friday sauna sessions...yay....so we all had a good (and very rapid) first run out and roll around in the snow ..feel those cleansed pores!

Sushi Friday

2008-10-28T22:05:00.003Z

When I was down in Tromso at the start of September I picked up a few essential sushi items in preparation for a sushi evening up here in Longyearbyen. There are quite a few of us who enjoy sushi and the fish counter in the supermarket does some nice fish on Thursday’s and the guy at the fish counter is always very helpful slicing up the fish very delicately.

So we cracked open a few bottles of wine and had a very enjoyable sushi evening at Anne’s house. And I think Karoline and Anne did a great job of making the sushi:

I also tried to help out in providing my own form of entertainment for them:

They also introduced us all to the ‘wasabi paste surprise’, whereby in a few of the delicate dishes there was a hidden kick of wasabi (basically the Japanese equivalent of English mustard or horseradish sauce!). If anyone had been passing outside they would’ve just heard a group of people exclaiming very loudly ‘Oh God!! Oh God!!!’ followed by lots of heavy breathing….and thus the phrase Wasabi orgasm was introduced to the party!! I was assisted in achieving my wasabi orgasm by Anne and Karoline holding me down and then squirting wasabi paste into my mouth….however they missed somewhat and I ended up with it all over my face and in my hair!!

On the Saturday night I went round for dinner at my friend, Thue’s place where he had cooked up some of the reindeer he had shot the previous month. I have to say the man is a good cook and we had a really lovely dinner. And then of course it being Saturday night we all ended up at Huset where I once again danced the night away although 3 coffee’s with bailey’s and 3 red bull and vodka’s did mean that I didn’t get more than about 2 hours sleep that night!!

The next day I attempted to prepare the reindeer skin that I had brought back from when I went hunting last month. I had left it outside so it had frozen so for the previous 2 days it had been lying in my porch thawing out. I managed to get it roughly attached to a rack to stretch the skin. I would however strongly advise anyone against trying to trim the dead flesh off a reindeer skin with a hangover!! I think I last about 30 mins before I had to admit that I really couldn’t continue!!

The family of gin

2008-10-15T07:58:00.003Z

After the recent divorce party I did notice that my collection of gin has increased somewhat. I guess this is what happens when you leave 2 large bottles of gin together overnight and when two bottles of gin love each other very much....you get baby bottles of gin!! yey :)

I also thought I would include an amazing shot of 'the office' that Darren took the other day:
To give you an idea of scale the dish on the right is 42m in diameter and the one on the left is 32m in diameter and Sarah and I are currently working very hard in the little building in between...and not just sat drinking endless cups of tea!

SPEAR Campaign

2008-10-13T16:25:00.003Z

Well….it’s finally here…after weeks of planning my first SPEAR campaign whilst working for UNIS we are now sat up at the radar site heating the ionosphere! It’s so good to have my friends Darren and Sarah here so I can show them around and what a great place Longyearbyen is.

Happy scientists in the SPEAR container

On the roof of the Auroral Observatory with the 42m EISCAT dish behind us

We spent the weekend partying (obviously) as well as heating the ionosphere. There was a band playing in town at Svalbar so we all went along. Most of town was in the bar so it was nice for them to meet everyone and experience a proper night out on Svalbard. The band were Norwegian but we managed to look like we knew some of their songs.

http://valentourettes2.wordpress.com/

Happy drunken people (Sarah and I did not go for matching tops deliberately..but great fashion minds to think alike!)

We also went to the local ‘look out for the drunken miners’ pub called Karlsberger where Sarah was introduced to aquavit and Norwegian alcohol prices!!

Magne with his credit card which he managed to leave behind in the pub!

As we left Karlsberger to head for a dance at Huset I somehow managed to fall over…possibly due to the fact that I was wearing 3 inch heels with no grips and it was icy!! Anyway….I managed to get back on my feet and then spent the whole night strutting my stuff on the dancefloor with Sarah (who agrees that Huset is definitely an ‘interesting’ place) before walking the 4km home at about 5am.

However, I then woke up the next morning to find my ankle all green and about the size of a tennis ball. I tried to ignore it for a few hours but by that point I couldn’t put any weight on it so it was down to the hospital for an X-ray. It turns out that I haven’t broken it but I have in fact torn the ligaments and am thus on crutches for a week…boo!!

The swelling has gone down quite considerably but I thought you would all enjoy a picture never the less:

One thing that I am most impressed at though is that my crutches have retractable ice spikes on them….how cool is that??!!!

On the downside…I am rubbish at using them and it takes me forever to get anywhere!!

Ice Breaker Party

2008-10-13T16:20:00.003Z

The day after the divorce party we had some more dressing up to do as it was the icebreaker party at UNIS!!
The theme this year was high school..and on our ticket we all got given a group to dress up as: Cheerleaders (which funnily enough most of the boys got..any excuse for men to get dressed up in women’s clothing!), Jocks, Outsiders, Teachers, Gansters and Geeks.
Yvonne and I were both in the Outsiders group so we decided to go as a goth pair. Jeff very kindly donated his black leather belt for us to slice up to make a dog collar with spikes for me and also some wrist bracelets complete with nail spikes. He also donated a black t-shirt for me to cut up. So it was on with the black and white make up and big hair and then off to UNIS.

Thankfully hardly anyone recognized either of us…although it was a bit like paparazzi with lots of people taking pictures of the big scary ladies all in black with one leading the other round on a dog lead!! I have to say Yvonne was much better at glaring at people than I was….I kept breaking into smiles which apparently was not in character. However, these youngsters today don’t know how to throw a party and us older generation (when I say older I mean mid to late 20’s) left the party by about 10pm as we were all bored and went to the pub for a pint!! Thankfully no-one recognize us in the pub either..although I think we did scare a few groups of tourists!!

Rico and Jeff both went as geeks and Silje as a gangsta:

Jeff has a camera strapped to his head all night which fed into a tv screen strapped to his chest.

I also learnt that one should not thoroughly moisturize ones body all over before donning a pair of pvc trousers….there was some chaffing it has to be said!!

Happy Divorce!!

2008-10-13T16:00:00.005Z

Still attached to the old ball and chain

Two weekends ago Jeff and I officially ‘divorced’. He has been the best friend a girl could wish for over the summer and he has helped me over possibly the most difficult period of my life. To celebrate the fact that I have finally managed to get my own place to live and he is now back in his bed and off the couch (he only has a 1 bedroom flat!) we decided to have a party complete with divorce vows and cutting of divorce cake before Jeff dutifully threw me out on my ear and the party moved to my new place.

The Divorce Cake...complete with to scale icons with 'Barbie' me on the right and 'Lego spaceman' Jeff on the left

We will take any excuse to dress up so everyone arrived in formal dress with even a few guys in full tuxedos.

A few of the distinguished gentlemen

Vigdis looking gorgeous and possibly Seb had had a bit too much to drink already!

Silje and Stig

We managed to thus fit 25 well dressed people into a 36m² flat which I think is quite impressive.

The cutting of the divorce cake

Happily Divorced!

We also managed to get divorce presents which consisted of a blow up sheep (complete with a tin of lube and some porn magazines) for Jeff and a very tasteful pocket sized diamante encrusted vibrator for me. The most amusing part was what happened when the vibrator was introduced to the sheep!!

The ceremony was videoed and is now on youtube (complete with vibrating sheep and cries from Anna throughout of ‘It’s a vibrating sheep!!!!’:

http://www.youtube.com/user/schmeerenburgh666

(the additional video is what happened when I challenged the head of the logistics department at UNIS to an aquavit drinking contest over the summer..not my finest hour I have to say!!)

And then it was on to quaffing the good stuff......
or so I thought......

However, after we moved to my flat a certain Norsk gentleman named Magne decided to celebrate fully and thus sliced the top off the champagne bottle before spraying it all over my ceiling!! He had had a significant amount of cognac or vodka by this point....so lets just say that I thought it was quite fitting that he spend the next day with possibly the worst hangover of his life!!

And so I am now happily divorced..... :)

Svalbard Exploration

2008-09-30T20:06:00.015Z

Well…I made it back from Montreal to Svalbard in one piece and managed a whole 3 hours in the UK in Heathrow during which time I made full use of cheese and pickle sandwiches and Cadburys chocolate!

I finally took some time off at the end of August…to be employed doing another job: I was part of the health and safety team on a 10 day geology expedition around Svalbard! I had a wonderful time. It was really nice just switching my brain off for 10 days and doing manual labour and getting out and about and also seeing many different parts of Svalbard that I haven’t seen before. We visited several different locations around the island:

The expedition was based on a boat called M/S Nordstjernen:

(which normally works the route from Bergen up the Norwegian coast to Tromso) and had about 90 students on it.

Every day the students would go on shore and study the various rock formations. My basic job was to accompany the student parties and make sure they didn’t wander off or injure themselves and most importantly not get eaten by polar bears! In the end we only saw one bear and he was on the beach while we were on the boat.

I did learn though why the geology here is so unique: when all the land masses were still moving around millions of years ago, Svalbard slammed up against the side of Greenland. As a result all the layers and cool geology that is buried deep underground in the rest of the world is up at the surface here on Svalbard so people can actually see the different formations (I’m sure one of my geology mates will come on and correct this if it is wrong!).

There is a really cool mountain here which we went to visit where you can see the layers in the rock really clearly. This mountain is special though because it has actually been bent over on itself:

So we had lots of enjoyable days drinking coffee and enjoying the outdoors with the crew of the boat, who were a really nice bunch of guys!

I also got to see a lot of glaciers and more wildlife such as whales and seals and of course didn’t manage to get a decent shot of most of them apart from one of a curious seal who was hanging around for about an hour watching us sat on the beach!

But thankfully a lot of my fellow bear protectors had got some good shots so here are some for you to enjoy..and yes aren’t our survival suits just lovely!!:

We also visited the Russian settlement of Barentsburg which is about 60km from Longyearbyen. It has about 300 people living there and it is like being caught in some form of post-apocalyptic state. You can only get there by boat, helicopter or on foot as there are no roads or airport. There are no shops there and there is a mine which is belching out thick black smoke into the atmosphere. There are paintings on the walls everywhere of happy Russian citizens doing their bit for their country and it's all a bit eeire:

At least you always know where the bar is:

Karoline and I also had to take full advantage of the old abandoned hovercraft that is in the harbour:

As it also happens, I had to get down to Tromso to sort some things out a few weeks ago. However all the flights were full so it didn’t look like I was going to make it. Until, I kindly asked the captain of the Nordstjernen if I could get a lift down to the mainland as they were heading down after spending the summer season up here. He kindly agreed to let me ‘stow away’ for a few days so I headed back for Tromso across the Arctic Ocean…they even let me sit on the bridge for a little while and I hopefully didn’t annoy them too much with asking too many geeky questions about their radar systems! It only took us 1.5 days to get down to the mainland and thankfully it was smooth sailing all the way. It was great fun meeting the crew and getting to know them.

I also got to experience my first dark skies up here since April and even got a display of the aurora. It was just amazing sat on the front of the boat enjoying the aurora and listening to my music….

While in Tromso I visited my friend Sijlie, who works at Polaria. One of her jobs is to feed the bearded seals and keep them entertained when they perform the two shows they do each day. They have 3 seals in total, each weighing about 230kg each. It was really amazing watching them doing various tricks during the 30 minute show. The seals are incredibly intelligent so the shows keep them entertained also. I also got to meet the seals after the show and I was amazed that they would respond to me also when I gave them the correct hand signals. I even got a big sloppy kiss off one of them…so I can now proudly (or not) announce that the last thing to kiss me was in fact a bearded seal!!

We also managed a good night out in Tromso where I got to meet a friend of mine who I met last time I was in Tromso although I suspect he was a bit over powered by a British girl who had had possibly too many G&T’s giving him a big ‘hello haven’t seen you in ages’ hug! We also managed to get photographed by the local paper having a good night out http://www.nordlys.no/nyheter/bildeserier/byfjes/article3784777.ece?token=&start=3&serie=0

I am now back up home on Svalbard and am at the moment planning for my divorce party next weekend. Over the summer I have been staying with my friend Jeff at his place and as such we have become pretty much like some old married couple (separate beds of course..ok I got the bed and he got the couch). I now have my own place up here so to celebrate / commiserate the end of an era we are having a divorce party complete with cake and reading of vows. Jeff will then turf me out and the party will move to my place. Basically it’s just an excuse to dress up and have a party but it’ll be a good laugh.

It’s also finally started to snow here again and the temperature is beginning to drop so you can feel winter is on the way. We finally have the sun setting so I can see the stars again, although we lose about 6 mins a day of daylight so it won’t be long before the sun goes below the horizon and we won’t see it again till February.

Separated at Birth

2008-08-12T15:36:00.002Z

While in Montreal a friend of mine, Jonny Rae, met up with his old PhD supervisor, Prof. Mark Lester. If ever there is a case of ‘separated at birth’ then this is it….I don’t know which alarmed me more..the matching facial growths or the matching outfits (Ladies – More evidence of ‘geophysical beige’ at work!):

Family Bonding Baddeley style

2008-08-12T14:44:00.004Z

I finally managed to download some photos from when I was back at home visiting my family and my cats. When I moved to Sweden my parents kindly agreed to take care of my lovely cats, Bonnie and Clyde, whom I had rescued from the RSPCA centre a few years ago. I still make monthly maintenance payments for them and get to wave at them on the web cam once a week. While I was at home it was the annual British Steel Family Gala Day

so my sister and I took my dad for an afternoon out. It was all very traditional (ie. it was raining but we still bought an ice-cream). My dad however, managed to stand in something smelly from a dogs backside! So when we got home it was all hands to the deck in the ultimate test of family bonding (at this point the cats were looking very confused!)

Mum armed the watering can…Clare grabbed the brush..and Dad held the offending item to be cleaned..although it was a lot more difficult than it looked as everyone was falling about laughing too much!

The cats seem to be doing ok though. I do really miss them...although I don't miss getting a claw up the nose at 5am when Clyde wants feeding...or the fact that I could never leave anything out to defrost on the counter top in the kitchen without it disappearing....or that Clyde used to bring me live frogs and drop them on my bed at 2am..but honest...I do miss them! :)

Summer update

2008-08-01T14:30:00.017Z

Well it’s been a few months since my last update so I’ll try and give a brief run down of some of the highlights that has been happening.

The rest of May was beautiful. Lots of lovely sunshine and the snow lasted for quite late into the season meaning that I managed one final snow mobile trip out to a cabin on May 17th with my friends Jurg, Claudia and Jeff. The weather was glorious so we sat outside enjoying a BBQ before chilling out with a few hands of poker.

Our cabin:

The snow mobile tracks back into the valley:

The happy campers:
The cabin and our snow mobiles:

I spent some time up at the site running some experiments but even then the weather was still lovely. I must admit we have the best view from the office. This photo was taken from the auroral observatory which is located further up the mountain behind the radar station. You can see the 32m EISCAT dish which is where I was running the experiments:

As you know the 21^st May (summer solstice) is a big party day in Norway. Here in Longyearbyen they have a big party on the beach with music and a big bonfire. I had been on the mainland working at the Tromso site and didn’t arrive on the plane till 8.30pm. In my eagerness to get off the plane I hadn’t realized that my wallet had fallen out of my handbag and I thus left it on the plane. I realized about an hour later when I got home so went back out the airport to retrieve it. However (and this is one of the things that I love about Svalbard) when I arrived at the airport I was told I would have to come back tomorrow morning as the engineer with the key to the plane had gone home!!

So it was back to the beach to party the night away. It is also tradition that you are allowed to strip off and head into the sea for a dip. So in keeping with tradition (and possibly due to the fact that when else am I going to go for a swim in the arctic) Thue, Yvonne and I decided to take part in the tradition. Yvonne and I kept a minimal amount of clothing however Thue decided ‘in for a penny in for a pound’ and stripped off to his birthday suit for the occasion (maybe it’s something to do with being Danish?!). I have to say it felt really warm in the sea (it was probably about +2 degrees and I must admit I do look a bit blue in the photo) but I am assured this was just the first signs of hypothermia setting in! So here we all are in the water in the midnight sun:

I spent most of June in various locations. I spent the start of June at Tromso running experiments on the radar there before heading to the UK for a week for a visit. It was great being back in England for a little while. I even managed to meet up with some friends that I haven’t seen since I left school. One of them, Sam, is now happily married with a lovely little boy called Charlie. We had a lovely evening catching up over a bottle of wine before she was heading off on holiday with the family.

I also managed to bump into a friend, Helen, who I used to be best mates with in infant school. We met up for a curry in the local curry house with her younger brother (who I haven’t seen since he was about 12 years old!!) for a good old catch up also. And since it was Saturday night and we were in Redcar (the small seaside town where many of my younger underage drinking and clubbing days were spent) we decided to reminisce and go out for a few beers. It was while we were stood in one of the pubs watching some poor unfortunate young lad throw up most of the alcohol he had consumed that night all over the floor while clinging to the fruit machine that we knew we were back in good ol’ Redcar! So for the perfect trip down memory lane we decided to visit the nightclub that I hadn’t been in for about 12 years….Redcar’s finest establishment – The Deck!! I have to say it hasn’t changed a bit…you still stick to the floor, the DJ is still exactly the same and the music is also the same. It was all in all a brilliant night out though and I managed to make it home safe and sound back to my parents for about 3am (with some degree of dignity and not falling through the front door!)

After a week in the UK I headed over to Montreal in Canada for the COSPAR conference. I had been invited by the organizers to give a scientific talk about the SPEAR radar system. It was a long week with lots of interesting talks to attend. It was also good to meet up with colleagues and friends, many of whom I haven’t seen in many years. Montreal is a beautiful city and was far more European than I had expected with a real café culture of sitting out in the evenings and enjoying the warm weather with some good food and wine. It was good to see my mate Matt again whom I haven’t seen since we met up at a conference in Nice in 2003. We had good evening putting the world to rights over a few pitchers of beer in a bar somewhere and before we knew it is was 3am and time to wander the streets home. It was also good to see Ian, whom again I haven’t seen in a good 4 years. We spent the last Sunday before I flew back to Norway at the botanical gardens in the Insectarium looking at huge spiders and scorpions and ants and various other insects! I also bumped into people whom I haven’t seen since they were on Svalbard many years ago.

So I am now back on Svalbard where summer is in full swing. There is a snow formation on one of the mountains outside town which looks like a champagne flute and when the snow has melted enough the the glass part detaches from stem then it is official summertime here:

As of 2 days ago we are officially in summer and as you can see we have green grass and flowers and everything..not bad for the arctic!

Unfortunately, summer means tourist season! We get an average of about 4 big cruise ships a week docking here on their way around the world or around the arctic. These are huge vessels carrying up to 2000 passengers and crew so when they invade a town of about 1500 people it tends to make a difference somewhat!!

I know people have been on board a ship for a while but surely they must remember that walking down a middle of a road is not a good idea…you may get hit by a car!! Honestly, some of these tourists are completely clueless.

So for now I am going to enjoy the summer months up here and am going to attempt to do some camping (please all pick yourselves up off the floor from laughing and sheer shock…I am going to have to spend a night in a tent at some point..without a hairdryer or my stilletos!!). I am building up to an overnight trip somewhere with some friends so watch this space for news of if the epic adventure takes place!

Road Trip!!!

2008-05-19T20:00:00.008Z

I finally got round to moving my things over from Sweden to my new place in Norway. Having given up trying to hire someone to do it I decided to grab the bull by the balls and hired a big truck and a trailer and drove to Sweden to pick my things up. Luckily I had my good friend Jeff with me since I realized I had possibly taken on a bit much when we got to the garage to pick up the trailer and I had absolutely no idea how to attach it to the truck!!

So off we set from downtown Tromso (only going the wrong way down a one way street once). We were delighted to find that we had a cd player in the truck….and I was even more amused to find that whoever hired the vehicle last had left a cd in for us entitled ‘Various’. It became apparent however that this music was not exactly to Jeff’s taste (we agree to disagree on music)

and it was only when he threatened to throw the cd out of the window (who knew Alanis Morresette could create such feelings) that we put on some ‘angry boy’ music.

So after 5 hours of driving we arrived at our destination. It was really strange seeing all my things again after many months. We set about packing things up and then headed off to the local thai place to have some food. Thankfully they still remembered me in there so when I ask for it hot there is some chillie added to it (Sarah – I don’t think it would register on your taste buds!). I managed to somehow order something to drink that was luminous green:

We then emerged from the restaurant determined to find a drinking establishment…this is a mining town for god sake and the one thing I know miners can do is drink!! However, after wandering round for a good hour the only thing we came across was some drunk polish guy in a shell suit!! The place is a ghost town!! On the way home we decided to pop into a local hotel bar…which is where we found most of the remaining population and enjoyed a few beers in there.

We spent the next day packing again and managed to get everything pretty much done. I was determined to find a night club in this town if it was the last thing I did..plus it was probably going to be my last night there….ever…so I wanted to go out in style.

After suitably polishing off a bottle of wine and a few beers we thus went back to the bar we found the previous night which was jumping to the sounds of cheesy 90s dance music and a band which consisted of 2 youths and their guitars. They did do a splendid rendition of ‘Country Roads’…around about the same point that Jeff put his head on the bar and shouted ‘Shoot me now!!’

We met some people in the bar who told us that the nightclub was actually in the hotel…so up we went (through about 10 cops..obviously the police have little else to do other than man the doors of the nightclub!) to the club. I had a very pleasant evening dancing round like a loon as always and a big thank you to the nice man with the 6 pack who provided me with my very own ‘Nobody puts baby in a corner!’ moment and twirled me round the dancefloor to ‘I’ve Had the Time of My Life’. I finally fell through my front door at 4.30am. This made getting up to continue packing and driving back to Norway at 9am the next day slightly difficult. I had possibly the worst breakfast burger ever (oh McD’s how I miss you!!)…before climbing into the truck for the long journey home with all my worldly possessions:

A big thanks to Jeff for driving for driving both directions. Also a big thanks to Eggy McEgg our allotted mascot for the journey who sat dutifully on the dashboard. For reasons best known to only Jeff he decided to save one egg when he cooked scrambled eggs on Saturday morning and thus we when we left Sweden we did it with an unused egg in tow….and naturally this became the mascot!

We finally made it back to Norway (where it had not stopped raining) and unloaded the trailer into my new house. I got to spend the 1^st night in my own bed in almost a year…and I slept fantastically!!

A Brief stop in Blighty

2008-05-19T19:35:00.013Z

Due to unforeseen circumstances I ended up back in the UK for a week in April. A big thank you to Ade and Sarah (or should I call then Mr. and Mrs Grocott now!!!) for letting me stay with them for a few days. And also a big thank you to everyone who came out for a curry to the Nila one evening..of how I have missed the curry house. So in honour of that evening here is a few pictures of lovely curry and of course the immortal pickle tray:

I even managed to visit my sister and her husband (I don’ t think I am ever going to get used to calling him that!) and after a night in the local pub they introduced me to the Nintendo Wii…..and I am hooked!! I thought people would appreciate a few pictures of the different styles used by the various parties (all of whom were slightly intoxicated at the time) at Wii bowling.

As you can see Alex goes for the full on ‘get down and kneel boy’ style of bowling.

My sister uses a technique that I am yet to fully be able to describe…so I think I will just call it eclectic!!

And obviously…my perfect poise:

And for all those interested…I won! ;)

They also imparted their wisdom on how to have a happy marriage: let all disputes be decided by Nintendo Wii boxing. As you can see from this little sequence they really are getting into it:

Back to Svalbard

2008-04-09T15:21:00.008Z

And so I am now back on Svalbard where the weather is just amazing at the moment: -20°C but beautiful and sunny almost every day. We are almost back into midnight sun time here with it reaching a kind of twilight at midnight. The puppies are growing up fast and are now slightly larger bundles of fur and paws..but incredibly cute.

We have been taking Nuna and Silver out for a walk in the valley out of town along with some of the puppies:

Jeff and I also managed a brief trip out of town on the snow mobiles up to a mountain called Flower Pass which overlooks Templefjorden. It was a beautiful evening and we just sat there for a while enjoying the amazing scenery with some hot chocolate and biscuits and the fact that we were completely out of mobile phone coverage!

And now...hopefully I will remember to keep my blog updated more often!!

Holiday time!

2008-04-09T15:10:00.015Z

I spent a fantastic week skiing in Wengen, Switzerland in the annual Edwards ski trip. I managed to make it back to Heathrow from Norway at 6.30pm on the Friday before flying out at 5am on Saturday morning from Birmingham. By the time we landed in Berne (which is basically a runway in a field of cows) I was a little of unsure of exactly what time zone I was in! I was a bit nervous since it had been almost 2 years since I had been on a pair of downhill skis..this was not helped by the fact that the guys all buggered off and left me, promising to meet me at the bottom of the run! I managed about 5 meters before my first crash since I had still not remembered how to drive the damn things! However, after about the 1^st km it was beginning to come back to me. A big thank you also to Kenny the ski instructor who I met at the bottom of the run and managed to point out on the map exactly where the hell I was. In a stroke of genius, the rest of the guys had decided to change their minds as to which lift they were heading to but not told me about it!! We were out pretty much 1^st thing every morning onto freshly bashed snow and beautiful sunny skies. We were skiing in the shadow of the north face of the Eiger.

That is one scary mountain….and just stood looking at it I can see why it has claimed so many lives. We also attempted to do the Olympic downhill run which the professionals manage to complete in a little over 2 minutes. Our best skiers in the group managed it in 5 minutes…and I actually got lost and ended up doing a different run by mistake! I did manage to do the start of the Schilthorn run which was down from the rotating restaurant that was used as Blofell’s base in ‘On her Majesty’s Secret Service’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schilthorn

The one downside to this was that I did the 1^st 10 meters or so head first after not seeing a lump of snow due to the poor visibility!

So here for your enjoyment are a few additional photos:

Thankfully our hotel had a nice pool and spa where we could re-cooperate after a hard days skiing. We particularly enjoyed the Jacuzzi type facility which allowed to you lay down completely flat. However, you had to be careful not to enjoy yourself too much in the spa because ‘Herr Flick’ (as she became known) would come out and tell you off for having too much fun and making a noise!
After my trip to Switzerland I had a full 72 hours in the UK over the Easter weekend. A big thank you to my mate Jane for providing me with somewhere to stay and a lovely roast chicken dinner. I managed to just about fit the essentials in while being in the UK: have a curry, spend an obscene amount of money on clothes in Debenhams (I can highly recommend their personal shopper service…..I just sat around drinking tea and trying lots of lovely clothes on while someone else ran round the store finding lovely clothes for me!) and meet up with a few friends for a drink or two and a general catch up.

my 5 seconds of fame!

2008-04-09T15:08:00.000Z

Many of you will have seen my brief television appearance. This was all to do with the recent funding crisis in the UK where, for reasons best known to themselves, the Science and Technology Facilities Council have decided to pull funding for of all ground based facilities used in the study of the Earth’s upper atmosphere. To say this is a huge blow to the field of solar terrestrial physics is an understatement. Many of my close friends and colleagues are now in danger of losing their jobs after working hard all their lives to get where they are. The situation is currently still unclear but there are various enquires that are ongoing. As part of the publicity surrounding this Sky News filmed a piece outlining this current crisis in the UK…in which they interviewed me. I would like to point out that when this was filmed I was not aware they were going to film me (they hold the camera really close to you!) and I was also drugged up to the eyeballs on cold and flu drugs as I was not very well. This could possibly explain why during the interview I seemed to slip into some form of West Country accent!! Thanks also to the guys who managed to get a clip of my interview onto their phone and continually played the particular ‘saterlites’ clip whenever the chance arose!

For those who wish to see the clip in question I can refer you to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0E4yi8lc0A

Just when you thought you’d seen it all….

We are currently involved in a promotional campaign with Doritos crisps. Doritos have set a challenge to the budding advertisers in the UK to design a commercial for their crisps. Part of the prize (as well as 20 grand!) is to have this advert transmitted to a nearby star which is believed to have planets in orbit around it that could contain life! This will be the 1^st advert ever broadcast into space! So, in June of this year one of our radars will transmit the lucky winners advert out into the cosmos to any alien life that is out there and wishing to enjoy some tasty crisps. For those of you out there interested please feel free to have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ee4iFLsHw

http://www.doritos.co.uk/

In a completely geeky way, I am rather impressed that my place of work has been broadcast across the airways with the X-files theme tune in the background! :) Obviously if we suddenly get invaded by an alien civilization who came across us due to this advert then you all know who to blame!

Solfest Week

2008-04-09T14:45:00.008Z

Yet again I have left it far too long to update my blog…sorry all!

Solfest week occurred here on the first week of March to celebrate the return of the sun. The week basically involves lots of events around town and general excuses to either get dressed up or to have a drink or some combination of both! One of the traditions is a sled race down a hillside outside of town. The sleds have to be home made and can be of any design as long as they make it from the top to the bottom of the hill. This year the geophysics group at the university decided to make a sled in the shape of a 2 stage rocket; the front part of the rocket containing the girls, and the back part containing the boys. So it was early one Sunday morning that I found myself at the top of a hill….fixing piece of sled that had already fallen off on the journey up wondering if we were going to make it to the bottom of the hill in one piece. We had no form of steering this beast at all and absolutely no brakes! Despite this I can report that the girls part of the sled did make it to the bottom of the hill, although we did crash into the crash barrier at the bottom and there was some scattering of the crowd (I’m the one in black hanging off the back backwards..don’t ask!):

The boys however didn’t fare overly well….from what I have seen from the video footage their part of the sled started to disintegrate quite rapidly and took a course off the side of the track….at this point the boys decided to abandon ship, thus demolishing if even further!!

Here are some of the other entries:

As part of Solfest week there were a lot of bands playing up here, one of which are called the Howlin’ Huskies. This is a group of guys who work over at the mine at Svea who got together about 2 years ago. They play a mix of blues and blues rock and I have to say are rather good. So it was that I spent another enjoyable evening being flung round the dance floor by some guy from Stavanger and singing along to ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ with various friends…some of whom by this point were drinking rum and coke by the pitcher (who needs glasses) and were not adverse to retrieving 50 Kroner notes from various parts of my persona. I remember there was a camera there that evening but I am yet to see the photos! Another band that played that week was Schmeerenburgh. This is the band that my mate Jeff plays in and they tend to be more hard rock and punk. I did however miss this concert as I had to go down to the mainland to run the radars but here are a few pictures:

I did later find out that my underwear had made it to the concert courtesy of my housemate Yvonne! We had been asked to fling our underwear at the bass player of the band while he was on stage and in my absence Yvonne had kindly obliged…and thankfully used a decent pair also…I don’t think my comfy ‘I’m having a bad day’ M&S knickers would’ve quite cut the mustard!

The Sun is Back!!

2008-03-04T11:34:00.003Z

Hurrah!! Last Friday Jeff, Yvonne and I decided to travel over the far side of the valley to the radio station where we could see the sun over the tops of the mountains. It was a beautiful crisp day and we just sat there and enjoyed the feeling of the sun on our faces.

Yvonne had her camera with her and managed to take some really nice photos of us all...and has handily put them on her blog again where I can now direct you:

http://yinsvalbard.blogspot.com/2008/02/more-sun.html

Polar Bear!!

2008-02-18T18:11:00.003Z

Well…after people saying that it was very unlikely I would ever see a bear while I was here, what happened on Saturday…..I saw a polar bear! My friend Karoline and I were out skiing with some dogs just in Adventdahlen (the valley near town) a few km outside of Longyearbyen when suddenly one appeared about 200m in front of us! Thankfully it just stopped and had a look at us before carrying on wandering past. I have to say I was rather frightened (even though we had the rifle with us) and was very grateful that we had the dogs with us also..although we got off the skies pretty quickly as I didn’t fancy being dragged towards the polar bear by one of them! We even made it into the local paper as we had to call the governors office to inform them that there was a bear in the neighbourhood.

http://www.svalbardposten.no/nyhet.cfm?nyhetid=1222

Obviously it was at this point that the batteries in my camera decided to fail (and in all honesty the last thing that was on my mind was taking a photo..it was more along the lines of..ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!)

Given the situation we decided it was probably best if we headed back home…so after checking it had wandered suitably up the valley away from us we headed back to the dog yard. We did manage to head home and get the camera with the very long lens…but by the time we got back to the main road going through the valley the bear was a good few km away. So now…I give you…..the best shot of the bear (and if you zoom in you can notice it is actually a bear as opposed to just some yellow pixels! It's roughly in the middle of the photo for those that are struggling):

And of course me pointing to the bear…which was over the far side of the valley over by the foot of the mountains.

Skiing and Arctic Hair!

2008-02-15T09:59:00.004Z

My new skis finally arrived here..a mere 2 months after I ordered them!! To christen them I decided to go out for a short trip down Adventdahlen with Washie. After last time’s disastrous run with both Mammot and Washie I decided to stick to using 1 dog. It was a beautiful evening but very cold (about -15°C) so of course my hair started to freeze.

I am beginning to realize something….nothing that lives in the arctic regions has long hair…and this is an example of Darwinism at it’s finest…long hair and the arctic do not mix! For a start whenever I put on my thermal balaclava for any trips, no matter how firmly I tie my hair back (you may notice from the photos the latest attempt is to put my hair in bunched plaits) it always escapes. This means that I have hair sticking out all over my face, up my nose and across my eyes. Not only is this incredibly itchy but it also makes it hard to see where you are going! And..because I am wearing quite thick mittens and it is generally quite cold outside it is impossible to maneuver the hair back out the way. Many’s the time I have come to the end of a snow mobile trip sporting what looks like a blonde moustache where my hair has migrated round my balaclava and is now sticking out from beneath my chin, up over my face!

When we left on our trip yesterday my hair was neatly tied back in a pony tail under my woolly hat. The resulting pictures indicate what it looked like after we got back...there was no wind..the evening was perfectly still....so how did I end up with Albert Einstein hair??!!: