Happy New Year!

It's time to back up our Zarges-boxes and go back to the cabin. We'll spend our New Year there, little bit out of the town and fireworks. So, Happy New Year for all of you!

Northern lights as Christmas decoration

Christmas was peaceful in Svalbard. We were lucky with weather and in the Christmas day we got a spectacular polar light show. It's not that often with pink and violet beside green colour, so it was really amazing look those colourful lights dancing all over the sky.

We dog owners skied to the cabin with our dogs and other people used scooters. They also took all of our totally full packed Zarges-boxes and other stuff with them. Huskies got a nice snow hole to sleep under the cabin and we others had it cosy inside the warm cabin.

In one day I needed to go to town to work for some hours. For that I just borrowed a scooter and drove to the town and later back. In one afternoon we got visitors from the town by scooters. They had also a dog with them, but she sat at a scooter with people. That's really practical :)

We had everything in the cabin without water and electricity: A real Christmas. Far away from busy world, out of commercialism. That is what Christmas is for me :)

Merry Christmas!

Christmas at a cabin

We will spend our Christmas at a cabin with some of our friends and dogs. We try to take some parts of Christmas traditions from all the countries which are somehow represented. There will be some traditions from Norway, Danmark, Sweden, Finland and Germany. In our Christmas dinner there will be some typical Christmas food from all of those countries. We are not yet sure will it be amount of meat or sugar which will kill us... Otherwise we just waiting for quiet and nice Christmas outside of the "busy" town.

Eclipse of the moon

Our visitor was really waiting forward to come to Svalbard and sleep loo-oong on her holiday. Good plan... but of course the astronomical happening of the year needed to be early in the morning. We had a total lunar eclipse and as it was at a shortest day (or, however, we don't have any day anyhow) of the year, you just couldn't sleep it over. And it was worth of it to follow it :)

We spend about two hours outside following the moon. It was around -18 Celsius and strong breeze. I had my Sorel Glacier and puffy down jacket on, but I was kind of totally frozen when we came inside - we were not moving much but mostly just standing in one place. Sorel Glacier is advertising that they are are comfortable to use up to -70 Celcius, but I would not be even dreaming to use them on those temperatures (we start on that fact, that I'm not dreaming about being outside on that temperature). I lost feeling on my toes just on that couple of hours time.

Christmas preparations

I'm back in Longyearbyen. It was nice to see twilight in Tromsø - now I'm ready to continue in totally dark again. Or, actually almost... it's soon full moon, so that will be giving magical light again.

We're having a visitor at the house over Christmas. We're preparing for a real Christmas with making decorations, baking and just having good time. Christmas with little excitement is allowed even for grown ups :)

Tromsø - the port to Arctic

Now I'm in a town visit in Tromsø, a town in Northern Norway. It is just a week to Christmas and all the town is having a Christmas-feeling over it. It's actually pretty nice to have a short trip to a "real town", have look around and do some shopping. And after a week it's again nice to fly home out of that all haste in the town and go home in our own little world. The sun isn't rising in Tromsø either, but in midday there is some hours twilight. For me it looks like a real daylight :)

Polaria

One of the nicest place to visit in Tromsø is Polaria.  There is a nice exhibition about Arctic, including Arctic Aquarium with bearded seals. Also the film "Svalbard - Arctic Wilderness" is worth to see. In the film you're following little auks and with them you're flying over the imaging landscapes over Svalbard. When I'm seeing that film I just need to think how lucky I'm that I can be living there.

Night of shooting stars cancelled

It was night for Geminids meteor shower. It has been lately really bright falling stars, so I guess they have been part of that meteor shower. But exactly that night when Geminids were supposed to be peaking it was overcast. Year ago we had a fantastic trip up to Sarkofagen under the heavenly fireworks, so my friend was comforting me that it's just too much asked to have that kind of night every year. So, instead of shooting stars we had lot of fun with shooting dogs :)

Seven weeks under fluorescenst lamps

We had a busy week and far too late nights. On some mornings I set the wake up time one hour later than usually. One morning I woke up, went to living room and continued sleeping at the sofa one hour extra. On the other morning I just turn light down when light woke me up little bit earlier and continued sleeping until I really needed wake up after three snooze. Even thought it's not easy to leave the bed in the mornings, I still think it's cosy to wake up when there is light in the room :)

Paradise flowers

Our dracaena or corn plant started to flower - in the darkest time of the year without any natural light. That plant is a having strange habit to do that. All of our house is smelling like a flower shop - smell of those flowers is so indescribable intensive that you can't avoid it in any room. It feels almost heady to go to the living room, when door has been closed there. Something unexpected in the high Arctic :)

Cold and nice

It's so nice when it's not blowing. It's now around -22 and just very light wind. We were skiing with dogs in Adventdalen. Dogs were working just fantastic - even my own dog, which best side isn't pulling :D There isn't any moon now, so stars are twinkling amazingly bright. Milky Way was very clear. And my favourite constellation Orion was just over the horizon. There were some northern light, but not any superior. But falling stars gives always some extra points :)

Smart people... or not

People are saying, that dark time is cosy here in Longyearbyen. Tourists have disappeared and life has calmed down after a hectic summer. I agree this :) And people are saying, that it's cosy, when there is a bad weather outside - then you're having a good excuse to stay inside, have candles on the tables and have it cosy with a glass of wine. Agree that also... in principle.

It's -18 degrees Celsius, with strong breeze effective temperature is -31 degrees Celsius. There isn't excuses for not to go for a little trip with dogs - not especially on weekend, when we're having good time! But also our four-pawed friends need in this kind of wind some warm windproof clothes as well - we're not having any thick-fured polar dogs. With their jackets on they don't mind at all about coldness :) And we don't mind that either, as we're fully packed in with wool, down and fur.

But other things... some smart people pack their boats in after summer season. Some other people are so busy, that they won't get it done. And then finally, when they're having time for that, it just need to be done on that -31 degrees effective temperature, strong breeze, and of course when there is pitch dark. Life would have been just too easy to do those kind of things in better kind of conditions...

Our new Culture House is opened

Now our new Culture House is officially opened. Couple of weeks ago, before official opening, we had there a theatrical performance "The Experiment". It was a story about a human experience. A special thing was that all story was by nonsensical Russian, made-up language which sounded like Russian. Even though I didn't understand the language I was feeling that I followed the story all the time. Storyline was actually pretty tragic but you just couldn't help laughing. And then you were feeling guilty that you were laughing when people in the story was actually having a horrible experience. The performance was just so cool!

I wasn't in the official opening ceremony, but what I have been waiting for most, was a concert by Vamp, a famous Norwegian band. Vamp is playing kind of folk music, nicely spiced with rock. The concert was just brilliant! It's really nice, that we get those kind of things also up here :)

Tir n'a Noir with lyric by Vamp

A beautiful song by Vamp.

Six weeks with wake-up light

My sixth week with the wake-up light was pretty variable. Twice I woke about five minutes before planned times. Once I managed somehow (don't ask how!) to take sound so low that I didn't wake up for that at all and because I didn't have my back-up alarm I woke one hour later. Twice I decided to give me half an hour extra time - and I got pretty irritated, because to bottoms are really tricky to handle without seeing them :/

And question about to being refreshed when waken up... I don't know if the point for me is to wake up refreshed, but it's nice to wake up for room where is light. To turn light on in mornings is always so painful for eyes, so it' just nice to avoid that. Already because of that reason I like my wake-up light really much.

I wonder if that light is waking me up only, if I happen to be on a light sleep phase. If I'm in deep sleep, it's not just catching me from there. If one sleep cycle is around 90 minutes, then it's just little bit with luck if I happen to be on so light sleep that I can be woken by light. Maybe that light should be connected with sleep phase wake-up clock so that it starts to light within that half an hour window which is given. Mhhh, maybe that's getting little bit too advanced...

Gratulerer med dagen!

Our best greetings for you on your special day! We hope you had a happy day and happiness will follow you through your life together!

Always out when possible

A line between enjoying life and being totally crazy is pretty thin. Found it out again today...

Norwegians say, that there isn't bad kind of weather, just bad kind of clothing. And they also say when you're out on a trip you're never ill-humoured. Yeps, logical enough...

Of course we needed to go for dogsledging... dogs need some training, anyhow. It was -12 Celcius degrees, strong breeze, gusts near to gale - and I don't need to tell it was dark as well. To being totally honest, I saw about nothing on our tour on Adventdalen. Wind took snow up, skies were sliding quite badly. On some places there were so much snowdrift that dogs got some problems. I was wrapped with some layers with wool, having on top clothes filled with down and a fur cap on my head. I was following to working dogs... and thinking that it was actually pretty nice to be out with dogs. And I was thinking I have to be totally crazy to be thinking so!