Blogs from Norway, Europe - page 165

Sunday 31st August Slept like a baby on the ship last night - an apt analogy: the continual rocking of the ship akin to a rocking cradle. I like ships - you can poke flying and the misery of airports, boats are the way to go. Sea is quite calm this morning, no more than ½-1 metre swell and it is a fair day. Sunnies are a necessity on deck, which is where I am sat writing this. To be fair it wasn't too bad last night either, so I must have misheard the tannoy. Nothing like that crossing of the Bay of Biscay where even the staff said it was really bad, Shame in a way. I guess I am a sick mother, but watching people try and remain dignified while wobbling down the aisles ... read more

My last couple days on Svalbard were solid. I went on a pricey boat tour that took me across the fjord to a set of glaciers that meet at the oceans edge. As we approached the glaciers there were seals laying on small icebergs just enjoying life. From the glaciers we cruised back across the fjord to the small town of Barentsburg. The town has a population of 600 and all consist of contract workers for the local coal mine. The coal mine is owned by a Russian company, and thus all of the workers are from Russia. This creates what is essentially a small Russian town located in Norway. The town had a rather bleak look to it, with mainly block buildings, and what I learned was "typical" Russian style. The town was complete with ... read more

For some reason, I still haven't gotten a package slip in my mailbox telling me to pick up my laptop. I am getting very antsy over here! I should have posted more in the last few days but I haven't for a few reasons. (a) All my classes are up and running which means I actually have work to do, and (b) back to the lack of a computer in my room. Whenever I want to use the internet I have to plan a time during my day at school, or come all the way to campus. Plus I would rather go through all my pictures in my own room rather than awkwardly displaying pictures of Dan's goofy grin to the whole computer lab (Hahaha, just kidding. More like my goofy grin.). So you understand. I ... read more

After a successful tour of Iceland, I checked in at the airport for my flight to Svalbard. Some of you may need to look this one up. My first clue that I was heading somewhere off the beaten path was when the lady at the check in counter had no idea where it was. My second clue was that on a plane that seats 200 , there was maybe 50 passengers. After a 3 hour flight to Oslo, a 4 hour layover, and then another 3 hour flight I was landing in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. The plane landed at 11:30 p.m, but being this far north the sun was still up. The first views I had of Svalbard was of soaring snow capped mountains as far as I could see. I made it to my guesthouse and ... read more

I have officially been in Norway over two weeks and I feel like I am finally getting into a groove of everyday living. Classes are in full swing (except for my Norwegian Language course which starts on Sept 1) and I am so amazed with the SUST program and all of the aspects of Norwegian life we are exposed to. After two weeks of classes we have already been on four field exercises. First we did a walk-about the immigrant neighborhood of Grønland. That experience reminded me a lot of similar field work I did in my urban geography course at Macalester. Being able to look critically at an urban landscape was refreshing and really fun. Grønland is a great neighborhood with many Pakistani, Polish and Somali immigrants. The food there is delicious, inexpensive (a surprise ... read more