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