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Published: August 23rd 2008
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I met up with my Aussie friends, Clinton and Jayjay, and our English friend Sarah at a hostel near London Bridge and spent a few days sight seeing around the city.
We then flew to Dublin to stay at Kevin's (Jayjay's friend) house where I met Gry (Jayjay's other friend) who came to meet us from Oslo. We spent a few days sight seeing around Dublin then a couple of nights at Kevin's parent's little cottage in Howth which is a beautiful little fishing village on the coast of Dublin. We went on a cliff walk there that was absolutely freezing but the view was stunning. As we were walking along the wharf there was a group of people standing on the edge of the jetty so we went over to check it out. When we got there we saw one of the guys had a bag of fish and was throwing them in to the water to three wild seals. I was so excited. I've got lots of photos and and an video.
After that we flew to Oslo where we stayed with Jayjay's other friends Steine and Mari. The next day Steine drove us to the airport which was a bit out of town and as we got out of the city I could see it had been snowing over night. I was soooo excited as I'd never seen it before. I've got all these blurry photos out of the car window.
We got to the airport ok but the guy at security took my shampoo, conditioner and shower gel because I'm a silly billy and tried to take it on the plane. So my plan to blind the pilot with shampoo and take over the plain whilst my friends pored shower gel down the aisles to stop the flight attendants running to stop me were ruined. So I resorted to holding an old lady hostage with my nail file. Anyway.....
We were a bit worried when we saw our plane as the front of it was badly scratched which isn't usually a good sign. After driving along the ground for so long we started to wonder if the plane was driving all the way to Tromso, we then stopped for ten minutes while they hosed all the snow off and finally took off in to the grey. We arrived in Tromso after yet another short but dodgy flight (OMG they wouldn't even serve me a glass of water! Damn budget airlines). We had to spend an extra 1/2hr in the air whilst they poured salt over the runway to clear the ice and I couldn't see anything on the way in as the clouds continued all the way to the ground but we arrived safely!
When we got out of the plain everywhere was covered in snow. I was just taking random photos of everything. I withdrew 200Kroner (about $40au) from my account and we got the bus in to town.
The town is so beautiful. The centre is on a small island amongst the fjords and set in front of a backdrop of small but beautiful mountains. Christmas lights were strung across above the cobbled streets and everything was covered with a thick layer of snow.
We got off the bus and started looking for the tourist office. Gry had been trying to organise us a couple of nights in a nice hotel as her friend works there and could get us a room ridiculously cheap. However it was full so we had to find somewhere else to sleep which I was kind of relieved about as I'd prefer to stay in somewhere cosier and more sociable. As we walked along in the twilight it started to snow and I was so excited I just started running around laughing (I got a few funny looks from the locals). Kevin showed me how to make a snow ball and I threw one at Jayjay and missed:-/
We ended up staying in a little cabin on a camping ground at the base of the mountain with a beautiful stream running right beside our cabin. It was like something out of a movie scene. Later that night much of the stream froze over. I look a few pics but they didn't turn out very well as it was snowing so heavily.
By the time we had checked in and dumped our bags it was dark (about 1pm). We decided to get a few hours sleep and set the alarm for 6pm as we were told this was when you could first potentially see the Northern Lights.
When we woke up we put our 16 layers of clothing on and went outside to be greeted with a perfectly clear sky across which was a brilliant band of green light. I was so amazed as the lady at the tourist office said we'd be lucky to see anything with the weather being so overcast. It didn't last long however as the clouds moved over again.
We decided to get out of the light and find a good position at the top of the nearby mountain in case the clouds cleared again by following a path reluctantly pointed out by the lady at reception. So we set off like silly Australians in to the approaching snow storm.
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