The most Northern October Fest ever....

This last week, i have learned how to make bread all by myself and if i don't say so myself, its pretty amazing!! I got the recipe from the Jamie Oliver website and i am so happy with it!! Bread is quite expensive here and it is so much cheaper to make your own so this will save me a bit of money!!

This week was pretty quiet apart from our usual dinner night on Thursday!! The German boys once again cooked us a brilliant meal and we sat around and had chats! A guy from Iceland played the guitar for us and it was so nice to chill out!

This weekend started off as usual with Friday Gathering! :) Its funny how much you look forward to this! This week someone brought a 8 week old husky with them. It was so cute and its coat was so thick! I actually think i feel in love! There was also a power cut though, which was a bit scary because the sun has gone down so Longyear was in compete darkness! All the fire doors shut as well so it felt like a horror film- all these students locked in the canteen at Uni! :-S It thankfully only lasted half an hour or so and it was quite nice sitting around the fire in darkness!

On Saturday afternoon, we had a bit of a girlie day out! We went shopping and i bought a cool new fluffy hat which i am very impressed with! After we went for cake to a really nice cafe, it has the best selection of cakes and ice-cream so i was happy!!

On Saturday night, a group of us went to "October Fest!" There was live music and German beer and it was so much fun!! It was nice to interact with the locals as well! Everyone was up dancing and singing along to the songs which made a very good atmosphere!

Pyramiden!

A group of UNIS students payed to go on a boated trip to Pyramiden. It was such an amazing experience because we got to see a massive glacier beside Pyramiden! We left longyear at half 8 and it was a really rough journey once we got out of the fjord. I was really sea-sick and this was made worst when someone was actually sea-sick on me and my nice new jacket... still annoyed so we wont talk about that! When we reached the glacier, it was so huge! It was 500m high mostly, although some parts were 800m. There was bits of broken off ice in the water in front of the glacier and there was lots of seals in the surrounding water. We had a BBQ lunch out on the deck which was really tasty! It was hot dogs and chicken with lots of salad!






We then got a guided tour around Pyramiden by a Russian tour guide. The town is now a ghost town because no one lives there anymore. The people that used to live there use to mine the coal for there own purposes and not for economic reasons. It was mainly Russian miners that lived there and you could see this clearly by the designs around the area. The town was evacuated in 1998 but all the buildings including a sports hall, hotel, swimming pool and lots of houses (one was called the "crazy" house... they say it was because it was the place where all the children played...). We got to see inside the sports hall and the hotel (which had lots of rooms, a bar and a sauna). The people that used to live there imported soil from Russia so they could grow grass on the land because you cant grow much grass on the soil from Svalbard. The grass is still there, which made it look like we were actually not on Svalbard when we were there.

















We also got to see an Arctic fox! It was very interested in our bags and someones can of beer that we left outside while we were inside the sports hall! It stayed near us for a while before it got scared and ran off (without the beer!).

The last week....

This last week in Svalbard has been one to remember! I dint have many lectures and there was always something going on! On Thursday night we had lots of people round for a German meal and some wine! It was very tasty and the boys cooked so we got to chill out! On Friday night, i went to Friday Gathering... i am pretty sure this one was the best one yet! We lit the fire and chilled out and later on (after a few drinks) i taught some people how to ceilidh dance! We had Scottish music on and it was such a giggle!























After Friday Gathering we went to the nightclub, and we were the only folk in in till half one!! It was great because we got to request all our fave tunes and we got the dance floor to ourselves! :D On Saturday we rented a rifle from UNIS and went for a hike up to the glacier behind where i live! It was amazing- it had changed so much from the last time i saw it, which was only a few weeks ago! We ended up having a massive snowball fight at the glacier because the snow was really thick!

On Saturday night, we stayed in and made home-made pizza and brownies! :D It was mostly a success apart from we didn't put the pizza on greece prof paper before we put it into the oven, so we ended up with a pizza stuck to the bottom of the tray :-S We had a quiet night in because the next day we went of a boat trip to Pyramiden!

"We are closer to the North Pole than the nearest McDonalds" :D

The last few weeks have been jam packed with field courses and social events. I am starting to get used to the darkness being here after having 24 hours of sunlight!! When the sun started going below the horizon, the sky always turned a lovely pink colour! Now it is just black at night! It has also been snowing pretty heavy here which is awesome for walking down to Uni in the morning. Also when it snows it is a great distraction from class because there are huge windows in all our lecture rooms- yesterday when I looked out the window I saw a car being towed by lots of huskies! I am also still getting used to looking out my window and seeing a glacier everyday! :)

These last few weeks I went to “Friday gathering” as I do every week... this is such a good way to end the week! This week Friday gathering was cancelled because the canteen was being used so we had a big party in barrack four which is nick named “the party barrack”… because all they do is party and they never sleep!! On Saturday night we had a big diner party in our barrack, the Norwegian couple that I live with made the starter, the German couple made the main course and me and two girls made apple crumble for desert! We cooked for 11 people and everything went perfect! Every Thursday, the Germans that I am living with make a German dish called “spatzle”… It is like really thick home-made egg noodles with lots of cheese and it is so tasty. There is always way over 10 of us and after we watch a film!

My Hydrology class has an on-going joke about David Hasslehoff (for some strange reason!), so on Monday night we decided to prank the party barrack (barrack 4) by putting pictures of David Hasslehoff all over there barrack! We planned this all day and watched Baywatch before we did it!! At four in morning we got up and sneaked over, all wearing black clothes and put posters of David everywhere! We put them on there toilet seats, on the windows, in there cereal, in the freezer and in there coffee cups! We also got a photo frame and put a picture of him in and kissed it so there were big red lips on the photo! We also put up big posters saying “You have been hoffed!!”… I think we have way too much time on our hands over here!!! They are still trying to work out who it was; I’m not looking forward to what they will do when they find out!

Although there is lots of silly things going on at UNIS, there is also lots of other interesting things… The UN Secretary General made an appearance at UNIS. He was giving a seminar on Climate change and afterwards he was open for questions. I think everyone was too scared to ask a question because only three questions were asked! There were big video cameras and lots of photographers all over UNIS when he was here and when he was giving his speech there was flashes going off everywhere!

Trip to Svea

As part of the AT207-pollution in the Arctic course, we went on a field trip to “Svea” for 5 days. Svea is a small mining village and it is the largest working mine on Svalbard. To get to Svea, we went by a small plane (used to transport the miners to work)- this was by far the second best part of the trip because the plane is really low and everyone got a window seat so we got to see all the glaciers and mountains on the way over. The first best thing about the trip was getting to see a polar bear!!! (I’ll get back to that later)

Our field work involved us doing soil spills on the beach and finding out how quickly they dispersed. When we arrived we had to get straight to work on the beach, this took a few hours and we didn’t get our dinner in till 11 at night! The next day we got split up into groups and got given jobs to do. My first job was polar bear watch!... I really don’t know why I got landed doing it because I can’t aim very well!! When I was standing on the highest point to get a good view my lecturer came up to me and asked “what would you do if a polar bear came right no?” I said I would shoot it and he asked “with what?”… I then realised I had been on polar bear watch with no ammo!! Woops!! Surprisingly he let me go on guard again the next day… god knows why!!

During the last few days of the trip we got told that there were three polar bears in the area and we had to be very careful. On Thursday night, another group had to go out late at night to take samples and they were greeted with a polar bear, it was far enough away for them to make it to the car without too much harm, but they were all very shaky when they got back! I wanted to get the car out to look for it but my lecturer said no and took the car keys to bed with him! The polar bear then went up onto the hill behind where we were staying and we all got a chance to see it. It was really far away so it was only a small white dot on the hill without the binoculars! Even still, this actually made my whole trip! :D

On the last night, we had a really fancy meal and some wine! This was a brilliant way to end the trip and we could all relax after our hard work! On the last day there wasn’t enough room on the flight home so two people from my barrack and me had to stay behind with a rifle and entertain ourselves for a few hours! We got access into the miners café, which was really cool because we got lots of nice food and a massive wide-screen tv! We went for a short hike up to one of the old mines as well but not too far as we were a bit scared the polar bear would find us!

Kap Linne Field course AT209

As part of our Hydrology and climate change class, we went to Kap Linne for three days. We got there by speed boat and we passed lots of “ghost towns” which was really interesting! There were villages from old mining days and they have just been left the way they were. They now looked all bashed and run down due to the bad weather.

We stayed at “basecamp” which was so nice inside! Basecamp is accommodation for the most remote areas in the world. It had a sauna, library and lovely rooms and it was really cosy decorated with big sofas and fires. The food was really posh- we had lobster soup one night for starters, and we had a fancy fish dish with a port sauce! I tried to eat as much as I could but I would of preferred pub food!

When we arrived we went for a short hike to look at different features around the area, this was our relaxing walk as the next day was going to be a killer! Kap Linne is completely different to longyear- it had a lot more greenery and big lakes, whereas Longyear is a lot dryer and I have only seen one lake here. When we got back from the hike, one of the British lads in my class jumped into the freezing cold water for a laugh- he must be mad!!! I didn’t even have the courage to put one of my toes in… maybe next time!!

The next day we went for a 30km hike which this took us from 8 in the morning in till 7 at night. It was such a lovely day for it and everyone had a brilliant time! It wasn’t a hike following a track so we were on steep parts sometimes then on flat ground and crossing rivers as well which made it really interesting! This class has a really good group of people and we had such a giggle all day in till the last hour, I actually thought I was going to die of sore feet!

When we got back from our long hike, we had a lovely meal and all sat around the table talking with our lecturer (Carl). He bought us red wine so we were all chuffed to bits! One girl in my class from England had all these really crazy stories that had us all crying with laughter so we sat all night and listened to them! No-one else told any stories because next to hers, they just weren’t crazy enough! We all ended up having an early night and the next day I woke up not being able to walk properly because my legs hurt that much! Carl had organised another hike but I physically couldn’t move so I stayed behind with a few others and fell asleep on the couch. When they all came back after one hour because it was raining, I slept through them all talking and laughing for three hours!

First week in Svalbard

Friday the 7th of August and I have arrived on Svalbard! It was along day- leaving Oban at six in the morning and not arriving in till half 11 at night on Svalbard. As the plane lands, you can see lots of mountains and the view is amazing. The sun is shinning and the mountains are covered with snow (and no trees!!).

I am greeted off the plane by a friendly face- Carl. He is also a student from SAMS and has spent an entire year up here so it has been a while since I last saw him. He drove me and the other students to the barracks or “Brakkes” in Noweigian. The Barrackses are old mining accommodation that is now used for student accommodation. The accommodation is very clean and warm, everyone gets there own bedroom and you share a bathroom with one other person! The kitchen and living area is shared between 5-7 people.

Not long after arriving, My lecturer from back home called Finlo arrives on Svalbard. He took Carl and I out for burgers and beer, which was brilliant to catch up! I had a really good night, especially laughing at the two lecturers that Fin was with, they were completely mad and had us in stitches all night! Colin is also over so I got a chance to see him too, it is nice that I am so far away from home but I am still seeing people that I would normally see in Oban!

The first two weeks here have been jam packed with things going on! The events started with “safety course”. This occurred over two days and we learnt first aid and how to set up camps. We also had to jump into a fjord in a survival suit (mine leaked!!). We got told how to jump in without our heads going under the water; I seamed to misunderstand this concept and ended up with water up my nose… twice. We also learned how to use rifles, first how to load and half- load and then how to aim and fire. After many rounds of trying to hit the target, it was clear that I was no good! I didn’t even get the area around the target! The lecturer decided that I was useless and said my job would be to scare the polar bear off!

In my spare time, I went on hikes around the area and up some of the mountains! All the major mountains have books at the top for you to sign- I now have my name in two!! The views from the top were amazing and it was well worth the tiring walk! Another hike that I did was fossil hunting to a glacier behind the student accommodation. It was a lovely day and it was absolutely beautiful. Even though it was only a short walk away, you need to take a riffle with you because it is too dangerous not to.

After having some successful hikes, a few of the girls from my Barrack decided to go for a hike up a mountain together. This turned out to be a very bad idea as we got into a bit of difficulty! The mountain was very steep and had loose rocks everywhere so every time we moved the rocks below our feet would fall down the slope. In the end we had to turn back and go back down the mountain as going to the very top would have been a very bad idea. I was so scared so i basically bum-slide all the way down the mountain! We then realised when we got back that we were on the wrong mountain so the next time we agreed to take a map and a compass for a start!
















I am organising the “Friday gatherings” which is cosy time in front of the fire at UNIS after work on Friday. Me and three other girls buy all the alcohol and put it out at five o’clock. It is nice to sit and have a beer and chill out around the fire. I think it’s a great idea that SAMS could adopt! The first gathering went on very late and we had to stay in till the end to clean up. On the way home, there was a great surprise sitting the car park… a kebab van, in the Arctic, who knew!? This made me very happy indeed!