After all the snowstorms, this week was mostly sunny! The views from the flat are so amazing, often distracting me from my work… We had some big icicles too, though they have all melted away now. It’s getting much lighter now, and sometimes there are very cool lenticular clouds forming over the mountains. The last photo shows the last sunlight on the mountain…

Something interesting I discovered on my way to town… a snow zen garden 🙂 I have no idea what’s underneath it and what causes this pattern, but it’s pretty cool!!

Last night we went to a birthday party on Kvaløya, the next island. We decided to take the bus instead of biking, hmm… Due to a series of misunderstandings and mistakes, we got a whole tour of the island and it took us 2 hours to get there!! The birthday party was actually a BBQ!! It was at a really cute wooden house near the water and they made a big campfire and BBQ. Lots of fun! The aurora was out too, with a very impressive display. Due to previous experiences in Alaska, I was not too surprised to have an outdoor party in the snow, but it’s always a really nice experience. If you stay close to the fire that is 😉 On our way home in the bus people around us were complaining they could smell fire… ooooops….

Today I bought my first serious mountaineering gear: crampons! We decided to walk up the hill to the cable car station which was really nice, lots of great views, thigh deep snow in places (where snowshoes would have been a better choice!), a very windy top with an amazing sunset, the sky turning pink everywhere. On the way back we took the quick/steep way down right underneath the cable car, so we could just sit down and slide… easy 🙂 It was getting dark and it was cool to see all the lights of Tromsø from there. A very nice day! We took lots of photos, here’s a selection:

That’s all! Tomorrow are the reindeer races in the city centre, I’m looking forward to that! I’ll try to post some photos of that soon!