To get around this conundrum, I actively kept a journal while I was there! I'll just add excerpts that may translate my high latitude attachment... enjoy.
"30+ hours later, here I am, Longyearbyen. What a trip it was to get here, between final exams and getting credit logistics worked out, I finally made it one piece. I'm beginning to think I'll get very little sleep on this trip already..."
"...I'm awake! I woke up amazing refreshed and slightly panicked that maybe I had accidentally slept in. The clock says 3:00 am. Bugger..."
"...Tomorrow is dooms day with rifles, but we get to go swimming in immersion suits too. After the first intro day, I think it's safe to say that the program coordinators selected a pretty dang good group of people with outlandish experiences and backgrounds beyond normal. Let's hope I can keep up..."
"...Today was a beautiful and relatively warm day. I was completely out of it this morning but the lectures were again, amazing, especially the geology and glaciology. The field work today reminded me of a labor camp - we marked 4x4 meter squares and threw all of the contained rocks in a pile to weigh them. All of this occurred on an avalanche slope. It wasn't too terribly entertaining except when a tiny avalanche occurred directly above us..."
"...yay another night of sleep soon. Today was a day of permafrost and avalanches. We took an excursion to Endalen, close to where the Rock Festival was held a few days back. We checked out the permafrost depth and ice wedge research. It was very sunny, cold and the valley stretched for miles with white plateaus at the end and even more impressive mountains and glaciers off in the far distance. Now that is a run-on sentence!..."
"...We started at 8:30 with fog and freezing at the top of Sugarsomething Top. We split into 3 groups - I stuck with the fast group which turned out to be the best thing since we were able to go to so many peaks and finally find the sun along the ridge. My hip's destroyed but it was definitely worth it. There seems to be a fancy dinner awaiting us at the SAS hotel which is perfect after building up a monstrous appetite. We slid a good and fast distance along the snow on the way down, which was probably the best part. And yes, of course there was a snowball fight..."
"....bloody solstice..."
"...A field day! And an improvised one at that. We started off earlier than usual, only to find out a cruise ship was blocking our research ship. But today proved to be really fun in the end. We were late to the biology field work where we found bugs and dug up a lot of dirt. It was also pretty damn cold for a cloudy day. The sun broke out during the oceanography bit and we had a wonderful/stunning ride back in a huge zodiac. The BBQ topped the day off..."
"...We're back from Kapp Linné and it was a pretty fun trip. The boat ride was by far my favorite, and the hiking was fantastic. My hip isn't sore! The geology was amazing - so many millions of ages of rocks and some of the oldest I've ever seen, as well as loads of fossils. We saw the cliff where they found dinosaur tracks too. The hungover boat ride there wasn't nearly as awful as I thought it would be - lots of fun, and lots of photos. I've finally seen an Atlantic Puffin and walruses! Very cool. We had a major hike yesterday. I was carried across a few "raging torrent" rivers but my boots still got soaked. Funny place, we weren't allowed to walk between the buildings alone and without a rifle due to polar bears. We posed in 900 kroner bath robes with a rifle at midnight. We stopped in Barentsburg this afternoon and ate some pretty unique food. The place looked completely run down - once colorful buildings with cracked woods and sooty windows. It's an old Russian mining community. It's hard to imagine living there, I hope they have a choice. The cliffs of Spitsbergen remind me so much of the Aleutians - simply beautiful..."
"...The last evening was the absolute best. My abs are sore from laughing. It's such a shame that the field school was so short. There are quite a few people that I'll never forget from this experience. Bloody hell, it's only 9:00 and my flight's at 1:00. I'm in desperate need of a shower; probably not the best time for wearing long underwear in record high weather at the Olso airport. One of the best memories of the night was getting a great view of Longyearbyen as the sun came out, pretty special. The entire IPY crew had such good energy, it was really difficult to say goodbye. There's a lot to carry on for future experiences I guess. Man, am I out of it. And stink. This journal is ridiculous."
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