Two weeks worth

Sorry guys Ive been lazy, not enough pics to justify but a lot to talk about.
So...
14/02/09 - Valentines day!..with no valentine.
So instead of moping I sweetalked Andrea into teaching me to snowboard. I borrowed Espens boots and Pirkas board.
Andrea was such an awesome teacher. Apparently I learnt really fast and after 3 or so runs could with a lot of effort get up by myself and steer the board down the hill. I was hooked. I guess it helps to learn if your being taught buy a cute instructor you might want to impress. I loved it, so much so I'm buying my own board now!!!

That afternoon there was a huge party and everyone got VERY wasted, particularly the singles it seemed :-p. I had to drag Dale out of the loo, he was thretening to beat me up, but seing as he couldnt stand I didnt take it seriously.

15-18/02/09 We have been frantically preparing for the Icebreaker party. Ash has spent 4 hours a day making decorations. His viking ship loooks awesome.

18-20/02/09- This week we are doing field work trying to observe aurora at the Kjarl Hendix observatory from 5pm until midnight every day. It really messes up your time cycle.
Unfortunately the weather these 3 days are cloudy and results in only 2 mins of aurora in over 21 hours of waiting. We basically watched 10 blank screens of clouds for 7 hours a day.
To stop us from going insane we were made to calibrate all the equipment which meant lots of twiddling knobs, turning off and on lights and going outside in the freezing cold roof and shivering to death while shining a light into a dome. Very educational but I hope its not a view of things to come as a scientist.

21/02/09 - Icebreaker party. Getting there as soon as I could after waking up I spent ages helping arranging the last touches to the party.
The party went amasingly. The decorations were unbelievibly good, it looks so great. The food was awesome with a 30kg cake with over 120 eggs in it for desert. Everyone had awesome costumes. The party was really fun and lasted until 5 am at UNIS.
I had an amasing time. Thank you so much Kristine, I just wish you didn't have to go back on Wednesday. xxx Story of my life!

The next day we had to go down and clean it up. Neals was still there unconscious on a sofa upstairs and there was one hell of a mess. luckily I was in charge of alcohol storage and sound equipment so I was busy with those tasks. I feel a bit bad as I got there a bit later than the others.

24/02/09 Snowmobile! An awesome PHD student Jeff who suffered with us at the observatory has offered to give us his knackered snow scooter. He says its too expensive and old to get the shop to repair it but we can have it and try to fix it up ourselves. It sounds like a cracked engine block or piston shaft, which if we can get a replacement part quite cheep can be fixed with a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It should be a fun project before my new snowboard arrives!!

Aurora as Promiced

As promised here are some pics of the awesome aurora the other night.
Yeah they maybe weren't quite as good as the pics made them look, ash has a stupidly good camera and left the shutters open for ages so more light than can be seen by the eye is taken by the camera. But they were still pretty damn awesome.

In a a completely unrelated incident, yesterday I bought what I thought was frozen pork. When I got back Celia laughed at me for about 5 mins and told me I had just got 1kg of reindeer fat! Luckily the shop accepted it back the next day.


The guys also built an awesome igloo this weekend. I helped...with one brick, and then helped celibate by drinking in it, it was so manly. Typical British builders though, the roof collapsed after just two days!
Good times, and today we went sledging on those tiny bum handle things you sit on, you know what I mean. Anyway James fun the fastest and most fun way to travel was backwards when you cant see a thing!

Scooters, Abandoned mines and Ice Caves

06/02/09 - To be able to go on excursions with UNIS we had to spend the day doing Snow scooter training so we would be safe drivers. It was really great fun. Eric didn't have a license and so rode on my back. We only nearly flipped over once but we managed to right it the way we were told not to because if it didn't work we could have broken our legs of ended up trapped under the scooter, but we were fine.
Makes me wish I could afford to get one of my own now :-( .

In the evening there was an awesome free concert by a famous Norwegian singer in the Huset. It was great,everyone was dancing, such fun.

07/03/09 - We went and visited the ice cave we tried to find last week. The cave had been opened up properly by the tourists. Luckily only a small number had been in, but you could still see they had managed to smash off hunders of stalegtighs already.
It was so beautiful. More ice spikes than you could ever could count. The walls were like icy marble with gorgeous bobbly and wavy. textures.
It was very icy and slippery though, getting bacj was a struggle. We could only go a kelometer down it as it got too slippery and steep and we wouldnt have been able to return. It looked like it went of much further but we needed more equipment for that.

08/02/09- Michiel, Kristian and I on a spur of the moment decided to viset the old abandoned mine on the mountain above our Barracks. It was far harder work than we thaught to get there.
Once inside it was so worth it. Everything was as it was left. Spooky and dark.
There was still old porn on the lockers and stuff, so funny.
It was really big and creepy and so fun to see all the old equipment and where the guys had to work, it must have been a tough life!
The trip down was much easier but the trip tuned out to be far more fun and adventurous than I initially thought. I got back just in time to go to kyak polo. So much for my quiet weekend!

31/01/09 We went on a big skiing adventure today up the big glacier Longyearbryen to try and find the ice caves. Some went by snowmobile but we went hardcore on cross country skis. It took over an hour to trek to the top. The light is really starting to come back. It gets really quite bright on the horizon around noon and every day the light gets brighter and longer.

When we go to the top the snowmobiles arrived and we searched for ages but couldn't find the entrance. Obviously there had been too much snow and it had been covered and or blocked.

So we went back down. Holy crap that was scary, and so fast. By then the light was going and the only way you knew how fast you were traveling was by putting down the ski poles and feeling them being wrenched behind you! As I handn't learnt to stop or turn yet I ended up painfully stopping with my bum and twice with my face. The bum is more preferable!!
I made it back bruised but alive, great fun!

01/02/09 - Amasing northern lights!!!!!!! At last. We have waited 4 weeks for them but my god it was worth it, so beautiful. Ash got lots of pics and they will follow I promice!

I also found out my flat mate has a spare snowboard that I could use and I found another friendly person here who said they could teach me to use it! Cant wait!