The final 2 weeks

(Warning: a long post!)

So, now I am back home in the UK. I’ve missed so many things: the warmth, the trees, a landscape with features, food options that don’t cost the Earth… That being said, despite the rough patches, I’m very glad that I went to Svalbard, and am glad that I have left with such happy memories and new friends.

Exam season was long and boring as ever. I don’t think you can escape that, wherever you study! The first exam was a 5 hour written, and the second was an oral one, where we got questioned for half an hour. I just found out that I got two B’s, enough for a first, so I’m happy!

The first night of freedom, to celebrate, we got drunk and watched Eurovision, with very posh whisky and champagne and ice from a glacier. We already knew who had won as we were watching it a few days late, but it was fun to watch with so many different European nationalities in the room. The next day we celebrated with even more champagne, as it was Norwegian constitution day, and Betty’s birthday! I was kindly invited to Brakke 11 for a communal breakfast, where there was every food you can imagine, and I drank Bolanger champagne out of a thermos flask (the champagne was Elliot’s. We teased him a lot for buying such an expensive drink when he doesn’t like alcohol, but he was kind enough to do it for the group to celebrate). Then, very full and happy, we walked down to join the parade. The whole atmosphere was so cheerful, and safe. You could just not worry about crime of ill intentions, as you might do in most other places of the world where there are large crowds. It was just the whole town celebrating a happy day.

The UK beating Norway by a whole point ;)

The rest of the time was spent playing lots of cards, a couple of big group meals, a visit to Svalsat and three boat trips. The first was a trip that nearly all of UNIS went on, to Barentsburg, a Russian mining settlement. The first excitement of the day was when so many of us stood on the metal bridge to the boats that it bent in half. CCTV has since revealed that there were around 60 of us on it, so no wonder! I dropped about a foot. The funny thing was that once they assessed that no one was hurt, they were very relaxed about it. People stuck on the wrong side just started running across one by one. I think in the UK the whole trip would have been cancelled, psychological trauma counselling offered,  people suing the guide company... a good example of the relaxed attitude of Norwegians.

This bridge should be straight

Anyway, the boat party was a lot of fun as it was nice to look around Barentsburg, which a few of us elected to do instead of the 78% shot (called "see you tomorrow" and definitely illegal in a lot of places). It was easy to tell on the way back who had done this shot and who hadn’t! I think my favourite part was the little church, which seemed so warm and friendly inside, in stark contrast to the cold, mostly empty town outside

The second boat trip was meant to be a trip to see a spot with lots of Walrus’s, but unfortunately, the sea was too rough to get there. This was sad, but I was secretly quite relived as the boat had started to rock a lot!! Instead we got a tour of a few glaciers. The boat itself was brand new, and we were the first tourists to use it. It was so nice and comfortable that we all got rocked to sleep towards the end… 

On Saturday, luckily there was an open day at Svalsat, a satellite monitoring centre where my friend Magnus now works. We were meant to go in March as a class trip, but it was cancelled. It was a beautiful day, and it an interesting place to look around, with lots of big domes with antennae inside.

ayyyy

ayyyyy

Finally, our last trip was to Pyramiden. Initially we were meant to go on an open topped boat, but that trip got cancelled and we ended up on the same boat we went to Barentsburg in. We weren’t feeling very optimistic as we had heard there was still too much ice to dock, but thought we might see a Walrus this time as they’re common to the area, or maybe even a whale. Brandon and I kept watch up on top of the boat all morning. We gave up, had a really nice lunch cooked on a big barbecue, and then one of the crew comes in giving out more food, saying

“You guys are lucky, for there to be a bear”

Us: “What? Where?”

Him: “oh, out there” *vague gestures outside*

Brandon sprinted out so fast he sent Gabrielle’s lunch flying. We rushed out, but saw nothing, and thought at first the guy had been joking, especially as he’d said it so casually. But then we were assured by the guide that yes, there was a bear, hiding behind a piece of ice. Everyone crowded outside, and there it was, poking its head out! We were thrilled that we’d finally managed to see one. For quite a while we watched it hiding, and were very grateful. But we weren’t prepared for what happened next.

As if putting on a show, it strolled out from his hiding place, right along the edge of the ice in front of the glacier. Seals appeared in the water, teasing it, swimming up to edge and then away again. It continued to stroll along, in clear view. It stopped by some broken up ice where a seal popped its head up about a meter away from it, and quickly swam away. Then the most exciting part- it spotted a sleeping baby seal on the edge of the ice up ahead. Very slowly it slid into the water, and as slow as drift ice swam towards the seal. It was genuinely like watching Planet Earth, we couldn't believe it! A couple of meters away, it disappeared under the water, and it was so tense- it stayed underwater for about a minute, but something spooked the seal and got swam away. The bear quickly transformed from a deadly hunter to a puppy as it rolled around to get the water off.
I think we were as close as we could realistically get. Even the captain of the boat and the guides said a view like that was rare, especially to see it hunting. We watched it for over an hour, and it was really so special to see it in its natural habitat like that.

I've made two videos, one of the pre-exam festivities, and one of the wildlife and the bear. I hope you enjoy! This will likely be my last update, so thank you if you've been reading along. I had a blast, and am looking forward to graduating next week!

Trip to the East coast

Hihi,

Schools out forever! My exams are all done. And they went okay! So now I can finally update this blog and edit some videos together. Starting with my trip to the East coast, which was all the way back in April.

We drove to the East coast on snowmobiles, which was a little daunting at first but the controls were easy once you got used to it. I shared the driving with Brandon, and I think it was more fun to be a passenger and watch the scenery go by! At first the weather was pretty bad, but we drove through it and it became a clear sunny day.
We stopped off at a few locations: one was to see some glacier ice, which was a lovely deep blue colour. We chiselled a bit off to have in whiskey later.

Then we stopped for lunch in the middle of a large flat area so no bears could sneak up on us. The blue on the cliffs looked almost like graffiti

Then we stopped at the coast and looked out for bears. Not before I nearly toppled us though, and then got us stuck. It's quite hard to go uphill with two people to a snowmobile as the weight isn't very well distributed, as I learned. I sort of did a wheely and then veered of course as I tried to stay upright. The guide and everyone else disappeared for a bit and then we really hoped we wouldn't see a bear. Chris took this photo of us... bit embarrassing. We had to be dug out.

Anyway, we survived and took a break, and then after driving on the sea ice for a bit started to head back. This was my favourite part as we were on a long, flat bit where we could go really fast. You couldn't see anything for miles except the white snow and the blue sky and it felt like the end of the world. Eventually we came to a frozen waterfall, and took another stop there.

We got home tired, cold, and with terrible hair, but it was a great day and I'm really glad I went.

As ever, a little video of the day! I really hope youtube doesn't notice the copyrighted music...

Soon will be a post about more recent events!

Emma x

Still alive

Hihi,

Just to say, no posts recently as exam season is officially here, and so I am my bi-annually stressed self. But not for too much longer!! in 12 days I will be free from my degree.

I cannot wait.

Emma xx

Joe visit, with snowmobiling and huskeys!

Hihi,

Two weeks ago now I got on the bus at 00:15 to the airport to wait for Joe to arrive. I packed a sandwich and food and some warm clothes if he needed it, got to the airport and waited... and waited... and waited... eventually I spotted him wandering along- he hadn't realised the entire airport was made up of one room, and thought I'd be somewhere other than the baggage claim area, so had been busy taking pictures of the display airport bear :P I had set up the camera to have a "reunited" scene, but it was not to be. Anyway, we got his luggage and set off on the bus back to Nybyen, excited but tired. The week began!   

I am anxiously waiting to the right somewhere thinking he's missed the flight or something

Monday morning he was left to sleep whilst I was scheduled to have a trip to SvalSat, but this got cancelled anyway. I went home early and we went on a bus tour, the same one that I went on with dad and Kate. Another lovely day, and we got to get closer to EISCAT this time. Not all the way as the gate was shut, but still, close enough! It was nice to see it in the day time. Also got closer to the seed vault on this tour. In the evening we cooked creamy pesto pasta and brownies, which lasted the whole week and were very nice!

We did the whole tour eyes shut, apparently

On Tuesday Joe came with me to lectures, which wasn't too bad for him as we were in the computer room in the morning where we could chat a bit, and had quite a relaxed lecture with Kjellmar in the afternoon. Afterwards we walked home and had about an hour to get ready for the next adventure; snowmobiling to some ice caves! I was a little apprehensive of driving, so Joe went first, but it was great! I think I preferred being the passenger as I got to sit back and look around at the amazing scenery. We were wrapped up warm enough, the only issue I had is that my visor kept freezing over. I gave up in the end and just put it up. Driving the snowmobile was fun, even if I did nearly topple us at the end (steering is very hard when you're going slowly)

On Wednesday after lectures we went to the beach, and then got picked up at the Radison to do some Huskey sledding! This was very fun, and very full on! First we got to spend some time meeting the dogs, who were all very excited about everything. They jumped up a lot and were very strong, but they were all tied to their respective posts so it wasn't too overwhelming. A lot seemed to just want a cuddle, especially Peanut, who just sort of sat on me for a while.

I'm still a cat person but Peanut swayed me

After about 20 minutes we got assigned our dog teams, and had to collect and harness them all ourselves. The scary bit was between taking off their chain and putting their harness on, as this is when they could run away if they realised/ wanted to. Luckily we got assigned a great team of dogs, led by Charlie! I drove first, though it took a while to get going as the team in fronts dogs were less well behaved, and got the harness crossed so they ran slowly that whole half of the journey. Meant a lot of balancing on one leg as I had to keep the brake on basically the whole way, which was hard when going over ramps, aha. Didn't tip though, until the way back when Joe was driving. We were going lot faster as the team in front were detangled, hit a bad patch of snow and toppled! We were both fine as luckily the anchor for parking fell into the ground.
It was after this that I started to get very cold, probably he coldest I've ever been in my life. It was an especially cold day and for some reason we hadn't been given/ been told to put on a face mask, which didn't help. I didn't realise how cold I was until we stopped and I was shivering to my core, and jumping around didn't help. I got put in the car to warm up instead of rounding up the dogs, but luckily felt well enough after some hot squash to meet the puppies.

On Thursday we went to dancing, which was beginners waltz and jive. I think I will stick to lindy hop! On Friday we went to the airship museum where we read a lot of summary files, and up to the church. We noticed the visitors book had a fresh signature from the queen of Norway, who we realised must have visited only a few hours before us.

Afterwards was supposed to be Friday gathering, but it was cancelled for some reason. Regardless, the majority of my class plus two lecturers played chess and drank wine, so we had fun anyway! Afterwards we went to Svalbar and had a burger, and it was a nice night.

The next day we visited Svalbard museum and some of the shops. We looked at the skin and furs shop, which was interesting but sad. They had a whole bison torso in there, somehow. The museum also had a lot of animal skins, but not ones that were for sale.

At the end of the day we had a nice dinner at the Radison. For starters I had a king crab soup, and Joe tried some reindeer, and then we both had duck for main course. Delicious!

On Sunday we just chilled out, played black stories, swapped photos, and most importantly watched the finale of Westworld. Saying goodbye was sad but it was a really good week, and we really lucked out on the weather!! Not long now until I'll be home again.

No video this time as Joe has promised to do it... so who knows when that will appear ;P

Until next time,

Emma x