Happy Christmas!

We have had five fantastic Christmas celebration in Svalbard. Two years we have been in the town, one year in Svea and twice had a cosy Christmas in a cabin. This year we decided to do something totally different. We took a little bag and our dog with us and flew to Tromsø. We got a change to borrow our friends house in Kvaløya - thanks for her! Here we have couple of hours twilight in the middle of the day and Christmas peace over us. And that's about everything we need for a Happy Christmas!

Merry Christmas for all of you!

Chrismas is arriving also in Svea

Christmas has arrived even in Svea. Christmas decorations and good Christmas meals are giving a sense of occasion, even though people working as normally. A coal town is busy even in these holidays. We left Svea before Christmas but many are celebrating in Svea while they working.

Evening with Ginger breads

Even though all Norway included Svalbard has been suffering for butter shortage we had our yearly Ginger bread baking evening for girls. Luckily people in Svalbard are used to squirrel away amazing things in their freezers - included butter. 1,5 kg fat, 2 kg sugar, 5 kg flour, 1 dl spices and little cognac became a delicious dough with Swedish Ginger bread recipe. Recipe is Swedish because tradition were started by a partly Swedish girl. And tradition is still going on even though the first Ginger bread bakers have been moving away from Svalbard.

A total moon eclipse

We were lucky to see a total moon eclipse again. Last year it was in an early morning and then it was freezing cold and good breeze. This year we were lucky. The total eclipse was a Saturday afternoon and even it was quite cold it was actually totally ok because there weren't any wind. We had a little skiing trip in Andventdalen, just to go little bit out of the town lights. There were unbelievable amount of cars on Adventdalen way! Lot of people had taken a trip with a car to take pictures of the reddish moon.

Sinisalo dress on use again

I just couldn't keep my fingers out of the scooter any more. It was full moon couple of weeks ago and just couple of minus degrees in Celcius. I found quickly my scooter dress, helmet and other scooter equipment. I had a check on the engine room and then it was time to start to scooter.  It was really nice to take a direction into Adventdalen and just see mountains bathing on the shimmering moon light. I was happy to have my powerful friend on use again.

Light in darkness

In Longyearbyen darkness isn't feeling that dark because I know what there is in darkness, I know what I could see. In Svea I'm not that known with surrounding around Svea and somehow darkness is feeling more dark here. Strange...

But even we're getting some light in darkness before Christmas. There is some Christmas lights installed around the ports and on buildings and some candles are giving cosy light on the breaks. We can't lose the feeling of coming Christmas even though we're working far a way from home.

Google is celebrating

Suddenly Google was having summerly celebration. Congratulations Finland!

November is over

We were getting almost every kind of weather in November. We got rainy days with some plus degrees in Celcius. Everything was slippery and that with high wind caused some cancellations on the airplane traffic. Some people got a creepy experience when SAS-flight ended up crosswise on the airstrip after landing. But we had also really nice days with temperature around -20 degrees Celcius. On those kind of beautiful days it's still possible to see a shimmer of the sun over Sukkertoppen and behind the glaciers.

We have already a good amount of snow. Some people have started their scooters and every time I hear a sound of a scooter my fingers start to itch. But we're waiting still a bit before we start our scooters.

This year advent was really early, already in the end of November. Suddenly we got a Christmas feeling over the town. It's really nice to be walking on the main road and to see all Christmas stars and other kind of lights on the windows. It's always nice to get some light on the darkness.