first week in longyearbyen

Hello everyone!!

I've never considered starting a blog, but since I am living in the arctic for 5 months, (and because my mom told me to) I decided to start one so you all in the real world can have some idea of what I am up to.

I arrived here in Longyearbyen, Svalbard about a week ago. My journey was long, but pretty painless. The only hold up was at the airport in Oslo, where after waiting on the plane for about two hours, we had to switch planes because the de-icer wasn't working, which is a key part when flying to the arctic. The last daylight I saw was when we stopped in Tromso, Norway, and ever since we landed in Longyearbyen it has been dark! The darkness is really weird. It hasn't bothered me too much yet, but I have never have any idea what time it is without looking at a clock, and it would be nice to know what this place looks like. I guess I can wait a few more weeks though!

Anyways, Longyearbyen is a cute little town nestled in between a bunch of mountains and right in front of a fjord. There are a bunch of outdoorsy type stores, a grocery store, restaurants, a hospital, bank, post office, library, museum, police station, government headquarters, UNIS (the school I go to), an elementary school, workout club with a pool, and a bunch of houses. There are a few roads and everything is very well lit with street lights. It's about 3km long, with the school on one side of town and our barracks on the other side, so it's quite a long walk to school and back each day.

I am here doing two courses in arctic geology, but they do not start until next week. All this week we are doing safety courses. We are split into small groups for the week (there are 10 other students in my group) and we do two courses each day, 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the afternoon. The courses are great! I have learned so much, and they are all really interesting. Each lesson starts out with a lecture and usually a powerpoint, followed by practical exercises and practice. On Monday we had some lectures on the history of Svalbard, basic safety and good clothing to wear for field work and traveling. On Tuesday my group did sea ice training in the morning. During the winter you travel over sea ice quite often either by snow machine (called snow scooters here), skis, or by foot. We learned all about the different weights they can handle and the properties of the ice, etc. After the lecture we all got dressed up in snow scooter outfits, which are full body suits, big boots and big mittens. We then got into tractors (they are kind of like snow cats) and headed out to a frozen lake near town. The instructors drilled holes into the lake, and then we jumped in! It was a rush jumping into the freezing water, but with adrenaline pumping and the urge to climb out it really wasn't too bad. We had ice picks that hung around our neck so we could pull ourselves out of the water. In the afternoon my group did a camping exercise. We practiced setting up tents, small gas stoves, and trip wires with flairs around camping areas to warn us if a polar bear wanders into a camp site. On Wednesday my group did glacier safety in the morning. We learned how to set up crevasse rescue systems in case someone fell in one while traveling over a glacier. In the afternoon we did avalanche safety and practiced finding buried beacons out in front of the school with our own beacons, probes and shovels. Today (Thursday) we practiced navigation with GPS in the morning. They have a really cool computer program here called OziExplorer. There are topo maps of Svalbard in the program on the computer and you can map out the route you want to take on the map, then plug a GPS device into the computer and it will lead you on the chosen route. We tested our routes outside and also practiced making calls from satellite phones. In the afternoon we went on a bus up one of the mountains to the shooting range to do target practice. We used Ruger .30-06 rifles, and shot about 20 rounds each. Tomorrow my group is doing CPR and first aide training. On Saturday we are all heading up to a glacier near the barracks to test all of our new skills out in simulated emergency exercises.

So that is an idea of what I have been up to so far up here! Other than that, everyone here is very friendly. 50% of the students and most of the staff are from Norway, so a lot of Norwegian is spoken. It can be a little hard sometimes, but people are trying to teach me a bit of Norwegian, and usually someone will fill me in on what everyone else is saying. Most of the other students are also from Europe; I have met people from Denmark, Finland, France, England, Wales, Germany, Austria, as well as a few from "the states" as they call it here, and Canada.

I think that will be all for now... time for some dinner and maybe skiing later, although I am so worn out from class and sledding late last night! I will try to post often and put some pictures up!

Hope everyone is having a great winter so far!!! Sara