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Missing Svalbard lots. Here is my last thank you post. Thanks KVIKLUNJ, for being better than Kit Kats and keeping stress at bay. Thanks ADI POP for running Friday Gathering, student equipment, and keeping UNIS fun alive. Thank you to UNIS LOGISTICS, for keeping us safe and smart. Thanks SAUNA GROUP. Very nice. Thank you to LINN and MIMMI who baked nice cakes and breads in our kitchen all the time and shared.

Thank you KRIS, for bridging the gap between ANG and the rest of us, and for inspiring me to be more involved in our little community.

Thanks in general to my ~wholesome~ kitchen, for the distractions from school work, late night talks, movies, funny stories (FLO!!!), and moomin bandaids (MIMMI). Thank you ERIK for taking everyone to the ice caves, for your vast knowledge of glaciers, choir music, etymology interest, for showing me smoked reindeer heart, for your infectious positive attitude and genuine friendship. Thanks to EVERYONE that let me tag along their adventures. And of course, thank you to ALL MY GEOPHYSICS PEERS- you know who you are. For being my family for four months, for your friendship, emotional support and never ending silliness. Special thanks to MARIT for having me on her farm when I was sick and traveling, and to her parents ROGER AND RAGNHILD for the amazing moose dinner. And to the Pub Masters. And everyone. Obviously. Thank you. I love you! I will see you all again, at some point, in some place.

I’ll miss rushing to put on the warmest mittens and jackets whenever the aurora showed up, and finding giddy sky-gazing students outside the barrack

Sorry there have been no posts since exam time. Svalbard became quite dark and full of studying students. But in between studying and oversleeping due to the lack of sun, there was a new kind of warmth. This is what the light of the dark season looks like: lots of beer from Spitsbergen Bryggeri, two merry Canadians dancing, watching planet earth II every Sunday, a ginger bread house competition, glow from a bonfire with a view of Sakofagen..

Thank for to Stine and Luisa for being my Turbulence team mates- we wrote a great paper and it would have been a dud without the brilliance of Luisa. Matlab, Latex and Turbulence expert. Even grammar. Which reminds me I got the turbulence questions wrong on the meteorology exam and I don’t want to think about the exam. Also that my grammar is awful. But good team work! Even though I’m still a little bummed my group didn’t make it to the top 3, the gingerbread competition was a lot of fun. Thank you Nanna and Flo, for being excellent and patient gingerbread craftsmen and for letting my paint the Saami hut. Thank you to Sebastian for inviting me to help with the competition and to Kris for helping me with the flyer.

A big thank you to my fellow Washingtonian, Eric Keenan, who put on a great thanksgiving, complete with a Turkey and Goose (still unnamed?), amazing stuffing, wish bones, plenty of mulled wine, and a Celebration of Leif. I made some excellent mashed potatoes with the help of The Professional Masher, Julian (thank you Julian!), as well as garlic lemon herb butter and some biscuits. Trying to explain what a biscuit is to non-Americans remains a challenge. MORE THANKS TO COME

Cool chaos! Or warm chaos. The temperatures have been extra high the last month, leading to an unthawed ground and extra precipitation, which has already caused one landslide. Now we are having an epic storm of gale winds and extreme rainfall (as far as the Arctic Tundra is concerned). It’s all over the Norwegian news. The majority of student housing is located inland, up the valley, and is now more at risk for landslide hazards, so all 90 of us have been evacuated down to the UNIS guest house and newer student housing typically used for the grad students and short term students. I’ve never been evacuated before, and only had 45 minutes to pack what I needed. I grabbed an avocado and jar of honey, not wanting the avo to go to waste and thinking honey was a good comfort food, but at the moment I wish I had just grabbed pasta. Oops. Otherwise I think I’m pretty damn good at packing up quickly. It helps that I keep everything so organized in my room at all times. We have no idea how long we will be here in the alternative housing. All things considered, it’s probably good to have a change of scenery while I write these reports. Now I can go on some walks to the water and around town while still being close to home. The new student housing is very modern and nice (heated floors, induction stoves) but sterile, and being jumbled up separates me from my usual kitchen mates. But maybe the loneliness will keep me busy with my reports...I just hope we stay more than one night- I don’t feel like packing up again tomorrow! And of course, I hope my old barrack isn’t swept away by a mudslide.

In case you forgot ;)

Snow comes down lazily, glittering against the perpetually dark sky. In an open gash in the wall of a building that’s being demolished is the silhouette of a construction worker, taking a break to gaze out at the snow. I’ve been realizing that Longyearbyen is starting to feel like home.

As I was lacing up my boots before leaving home one (dark) morning, I realized that when I first got here the daily ritual of bundling up felt inconvenient, yet now it had become something I enjoyed, something that felt distinctly Svalbard..ian.. I guess this is what happens after three months of living someplace new, no matter how far away from “home” you are. Last night I went on a hike to Larsbreen (a glacier not far from home) with some of my roommates. We could hardly seen anything but our feet on the way there, but eventually we ended up at our destination. We’ve been missing the snow down at sea level so it was good to see some. In the small ice nooks on the side of the glacier, the glitter level was through the roof- I felt like I was in the dwarf mining scene from Snow White.

It’s getting pretty cozy in Longyearbyen: )

For Halloween I organized a campfire, dressed up in some black robes, made a savory galette with caramelized onions, cheddar and apples. Some foxes were shrieking during the bonfire, which was nice and spooky. Erik, my roommate, bought 20 chocolate bars, but that had nothing to do with Halloween I guess. Mimmi put on the lord of the rings soundtrack and baked a cake.

Before the fire I realized I am still not that great at making them, so I asked Erik if he was good. “My middle name means fire-user in old Norse.” “It does? Really” “Really” It does.

I decided to take a two hour nap last night and this is what happened while I was sleeping. Photos by Paw Larsen. Pah!!!

It was an exceptionally warm morning for mid October, 78 degrees north. I couldn’t really guess at the time what the temperature was, all I knew was that it was “warm.” I thought I would get used to using Celsius by remembering what X degrees Celsius is in Y degrees Fahrenheit. But as it turns out, all I know at best is what 5 degrees C feels like, and what 2 and -1 degree feel like, etc., without knowing what it might be in F. I actually thought 0 degrees was the same in both for a couple weeks. Oops. 32 is a dumb number anyway. So, on this warm, 4.5 C/ 40 F degree morning, I took off my gloves and hat, and walked brisk with anticipation to school for the first sjokolade skoleboller (read: cream filled dark chocolate topped donut thing) of the dark season.

Some of you may already know, but I’ve had a pretty awful sleep schedule since being in Svalbard. I’d say for the past two months or more now I’ve been going to sleep around 2-3 a.m. every night. A lot of people have had this problem too, now both during the midnight sun and the polar night, so we really don’t know what it could be from. We have had class in the afternoon lately so I’ve been getting a full nights sleep in regardless of what time I get to sleep, but this week we started class at 9:15 am. Given that the sun basically almost gone, and it was my first early morning in the dark, I was a little worried for how I would feel this morning. But I felt really great (after my mere 4 hours of sleep)! I think I will fare better in the dark than in the midnight sun. It tricks you into thinking you are being extra productive, by giving the (false) impression that you are up earlier and working later than normal. A sense of nocturnal busyness. After finally sorting out a coffee situation suitable for a Seattleite (mokapot + lavazza), I am finally regularly caffeinated before rushing off on my 35 minute walk to school. The moon is a thin crescent hanging behind me, glowin’ in its’ halo, the air is still and damp. Students on bicycles fly past me, near silent, like leaves down a narrow mountain stream.

a smashed helmet, a bread I baked, a smashed ice puddle

There’s not enough snow this time of year in Svalbard to go dog-sledding, but you can go on a cart with wheels. We chose the perfect day to go- no rain for a couple days kept the roads not too muddy- a clear dusk in the arctic autumn. While the tour guides picked which dogs to run, we got to walk around and HUG the 92 huskies on the property. The actually jumped up and asked for hugs, clinging to you like a small child would (ok maybe a bit stronger) with their front legs, sometimes even fighting over you with their neighbor (I ended up with a happy dog on each arm). We then helped get the dogs on the lines, and took off on a journey through the valley. Apparently it was cold enough for my camera to die, so I didn’t get pictures during the ride, but I’ve provided two that Boo took.

I knew immediately I would never forget this moment. That crisp air! Periwinkle blue sky! Wide open valley! THE DOGS! I soaked it in pretty good, but I would do it again and again, in a heartbeat, if I could.

So many blues and blacks, so many hues from just my bedroom window, the full moon rising over gruvefjellet...the other night I was woken by the building shaking and humming as a search helicopter flew by. I watched it scan the mountains with it’s eye-of-sauron sized spot light, hovering on the steep slopes of our valley. Turns out it was scanning for landslides, since we had one over the weekend close to town. It took me a 1 chapter of the return of the kind, 1 cup of tea and 3 cookies before I could go back to sleep.

out on a walk before school, during the last week of sun, taking some recordings of the sounds that I hear every day

As the days are getting shorter (less than 5 hours of light!) I have been taking less pictures and working more on reports. Missing home and friends. I promise a post will come soon.

The mines are shut down to the public due to instability, the free-bike-renting season is done, and we only have about 20 days left of sun. Every day the sunset comes 20 minutes earlier! I sent out my first batch of postcards today, slipped on ice, and bought micro-spikes for my shoes. Did you know the students live 2 miles inland from town?

Normally on the walk to school I can smell the firewood burning at Svalbard Hotel, fresh bread (yeast!) baking at Fruene, and today:

The Smell of Snow! How do you explain the smell of snow? http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2016/01/podcast-physics-and-smell-of-snow.html This physics podcast explains it’s not actually a smell at all, but a lack of smell, and a change in atmospheric conditions that makes our sense of smell more acute. Well…whatever, it’s still a very distinct (and highly revered) smell in my book.

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