May 31st, 2010.
Day 1 of IGS conference.
What a peculiar day. It started out being wide awake every other hour from midnight until five, progressing with an unanticipated Norway-bound phone call at 5:30, and ending… I guess it still hasn’t ended if I’m still writing now.
I “perfected” my presentation and poster at six a.m. After seeing today’s talks, it drastically needs more perfections.
It was nice to see familiar faces around; otherwise, I would have felt like one of those out-of-place kids, not that I’m not.
We found the correct bus and arrived to the conference in due time, minutes to spare really.
We survived the first full day of the conference in the end, took the right direction to the bus stop with a guru scientist questioning my friend and I’s opposite hand signals. We made it fine, took the stop with an intriguing music concert that ended in a strike, joined the strike since it was going in our direction, saw the closed Polaria and the boat on fake ice enclosed in a glass cage, and lastly arrived to a train bar. It had train seats inside, red with faded gold numbers. I was 42 and 43. The bartender was wearing a light blue train personnel’s suit. We didn’t get the bartender’s train jokes until realizing that we were, indeed, in a train bar. A very friendly drunk Norwegian, well… not as drunk as he was about to be, bought us vodka shots because he “loved” my friend’s accent. The locals are always so friendly! Our new friend left immediately to pick up his electric guitar out of a taxi van. We relaxed and confirmed at how surreal everything was while watching snow fall. They played okie cowboy music on the radio and random electric guitar wails came from the new friend sitting in the back. Locals slowly filled the bar, we thanked our new Norwegian friend with multiple hugs and went out into the rain (it had stopped snowing). I made it to Amalie and it was still daylight.
1:27 p.m. Seattle time. 10:27 p.m. Tromso.
Sign off.
June 7th, 2010. I need to call my brother! It’s his birthday.
Later on in the week, we discovered that the train bar, was considered one of the sketchiest bars in town and that “only fisherman and sailors go there” during their times in port. That explains much of what we encountered early on in the evening.
The conference became a blur in the end but was riddled with fantastic speakers. I managed to survive my presentation although I accidentally kept looking at the hour hand instead of the minute hand to pace myself. I finished right on time.
Cod fishing was Wednesday. They take a wooden device with tough string wrapped around it with a lure/hook attached at the end. No bait was needed; the dumb fish were caught immediately, along with the million other fishing lines from everyone else on the same side of the boat. It was fun, cold, drizzly, but we didn’t get to keep the fish. Beer was free – the lowest rate in town has been ~10 USD. Fish chowder was served and the random internationals grouped around outside to make fun of Sarah Palin. We ended up at the Driv, the student bar, for a last drink. I was knackered.
We went to Sommarøy Thursday evening, an island that would have been spectacular in the sunshine. Aqua-marine waters in depths that a person could wade in. If only there was a kayak available… After filling our bellies with authentic Norwegian food (whale) and listening to the many versions of “cheers” (different languages), we went for a wander around the waterways and over the hill past the children’s obstacle course. Spread before us was a place with glaciated peaks with the “real” ocean breaking waves kilometers away. I’ve got to sail here one day.
Friday night was another odd and awesome night. After failing the last exam of my undergraduate career, we went out to find our friend’s house. He was out sealing off the coast of Greenland, but told us to drop by anyway to meet friendly people and find out fun things to do. So we did. We found ourselves transported to a countryside with horses and potatoes. We knocked on all three doors of the house which we were hoping was his… finally an answer at the last door.
We ended up spending the evening with the local grad students, eating, drinking, and speaking mixed languages. We finished up our meal with a drink of coffee and a splash of their home-made brew; I think it was everclear. We even learned new rude phrases which we shouldn’t use in the south.
We then went to a concert; not being the folk music that we thought it was, it was a bit of a surprise to hear Bach being played by a small orchestra. It was pleasant to mellow out because soon after we made our way back into town where it had become party central up and down the streets. And the kebabs! They come out of the woodwork; cheap tasty food. These trucks are even called “Good Food.” Why aren’t these food options here during the daytime? 75 kroner, each.
We ended our night with a drink at Circa – one of the more popular, relaxed bars of Tromsø.
Saturday, I recovered from the night before, worked on my thesis, and ate a delicious chicken sandwich at Blå Rock. It was raining and snowing again.
The next day, I finished my thesis and went for a proper play in the snow on top of a mountain. It was wonderful!! The sun broke through the clouds in random spurts and highlighted the surrounding hills. We saw a paraglider doing turns at insane speeds and then remaining afloat. It was a nice way to spend a final day, especially with the amount of rain and snow fall throughout the week.
Now I am in the Oslo airport, wondering what the next 24 hours will entail in Bergen.
June 28th
I’m excellent at updating this thing.
Bergen was beautiful weather; I got my first tan of the year. I toured around with the scruffy kiwi, the ultimate assistant expedition leader, and got a fantastic deal of delicious food, absorptive historical information and saw some of the most beautiful parts of the town including a short musician’s house on the coast. Landing into the area was a reality check of absolute beauty (it really does exist!). Glaciated islands eased their way up through the ocean, specked with trees, hidden fishing huts with flowered roofs and dinghies spotting the ocean. The water was a mix of a milky turquoise and dark royal blue – seawater and fresh water. I landed as the sun was basking low on the horizon so the lighting made the scene even more idyllic. Of course, I took no pictures.
I left Bergen and arrived to the bustling city of Oslo. Turns out that I got to stay in one of the flashest hotels I’ve ever been to in Norway, directly across from the Opera House, which, just so you know, has a very high albedo. The hotel had an opera theme and the stairwell that nobody took except for me was decorated accordingly. The view from my room overlooked the city center with 1/5 the Oslo Central Station. Trains in Oslo are cool, fast, and very comfortable.
The IPY conference was a fair contrast with IGS. For one, it was magnitudes larger and the rest of the differences ought not to be mentioned.
Afterward the conference, however, was loads of fun. Other than coming to the fact that I’ve played more video games in Norway than I ever have in my life doesn’t mean much, but Norway is genuinely a very fun country. I began my final* night with a delicious Vietnamese cuisine and drinks. It progressed to a slobbering IPY field school reunion at Mono, a trendy bar in downtown Oslo, and ended into the unknown. None of us remember how it ended. But it was great!
The next day was spent in bed, recovering. Granted, the World Cup was on so it wasn’t entirely wasted on being hungover in bed, plus a healthy shower and a meal at 9 pm helped in the end.
The next-next day was more interesting. That day was my tourist day! We were blinded by the Opera House and then went to the sculpture park to mimic the statues. I think this may be one of my hidden talents – mimicking statues, that is. Along the way I knocked on the door of the Nobel door (after Alfred Nobel, Nobel peace prize, etc.). Then we jumped and I broke my foot.
We left that evening, ~22:30ish via train and traveled on a 8ish hour journey into the night towards Stavanger. In the beginning, I was facing forward on the train. When I woke up 8 hours later, I was facing backwards and panicked that we had missed our stop. I can be a dummy sometimes.
Our lovely Norwegian friend had arranged for us to crash at his family’s place for the entire week – we couldn’t have been luckier. It was a dreamland – placed snugly into the fjord with a view of glaciated hills across the fjord.
We hiked Preikestolen, went fishing again and caught cod, mackerel, and a single mystery fish, saw the oil museum in town, visited Kvitsøy and Storhaugen, had a glorious sailtrip to an island, and partook in the family’s solstice party. There were 12 nationalities attending the soiree.
It was very hard to leave Norway this time again because of friends and the country. The next flight was to London Heathrow where a mad adventure of Scilly sailing was about to occur.
This will certainly take more time to type up...
