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Author: Hanneke

I started my first blog when I left the Netherlands (my home country) for an internship in Alaska in 2004, to keep my friends and family updated on my adventures over there. Little did I know it would be more than 13 years before I'd move back to the Netherlands! I spent a year in Toulouse (France) before starting a PhD in meteorology at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UK) in 2005. That's when I started this current blog, first in Dutch but I soon switched to English. I really enjoyed life in the UK, and was actually planning to stay there after my PhD, but "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" and I ended up moving to Tromsø in Northern Norway in 2009. Tromsø is a photographer's dream, surrounded by spectacular mountains, with the light ever changing from the midnight sun in summer to the dark days compensated by aurora-filled nights in winter. I learnt Norwegian and got a job as a weather forecaster - I got thrown in at the deep end, doing radio interviews and speaking with fishermen with way-too-strong dialects straight from the beginning, before I was anywhere near fluent in Norwegian :D I survived though, and slowly started to do some research on the side. I got more and more involved in research projects and in August 2015 I moved 2000 km south, to Oslo where I started working 100% as a researcher. A year after moving to Oslo, I met Michiel at a music festival in Brussels :) and we started to travel very frequently between Oslo and Rotterdam, where he lives. You can't do that forever though, and I soon realized I found the perfect "excuse" to finally move back home, something I had been considering many times before. So since July 2017, I'm living in Rotterdam! I'm actually taking some time off before finding a new job, and I'm looking forward to lots of adventures in the near future - so stay tuned!
Sunshine at last!

Sunshine at last!

I was in Tromsø for 10 days, and mostly had non-stop rain! Last weekend we did not even venture out of the flat, except to go to the cinema on Sunday evening. I do like rainy days, but it was getting a bit much… then on my last day in Tromsø we woke up to sunny skies! My flight was in the late afternoon, so we had time to go for a walk around Prestvannet, the lake on top of Tromsø island. It was beautiful with the autumn colours and the reflections in the lake! Tromsdalstinden is now covered in snow, and even the lower mountains have a dusting of snow on top…

There were a lot of young seagulls around the lake – I tried to capture their reflections when they were landing on the water…

We walked all around the lake and really enjoyed the sunshine. We weren’t the only ones, we met lots of other people out for a walk with their camera’s!

And a last photo of us before another goodbye at the airport…

It was a bit easier this time because it won’t be long – we are meeting up in the Netherlands next week! We’ll be there for a week, then we both fly to London and stay in the UK for 10 days. I’m really looking forward to it!

But the best ticket I bought lately is a London – Tromsø one for early January – when I’m finally coming to Tromsø to STAY 🙂

Autumn colours in Tromsø

Autumn colours in Tromsø

I arrived in Tromsø last Saturday, and from the plane I already noticed the very stunning autumn colours – everything is red and yellow! We went for a walk on Sunday, next to a river. It was beautiful… It was very windy but the wind was quite warm and it was nice to be out and smell the autumn!

I’ve been hoping for sunshine to get even better photos of the trees, but the weather has been very autumnal too: storm and rain. The trees are now losing their leaves as well. We’re really enjoying our new flat, it’s even more cosy when you can hear the rain beating on the roof. Since today, we have internet at home so I was finally able to post some pictures 🙂 We were hoping to go on a multi-day hiking trip this weekend, but not if it continues to rain like this…

Either way, I hope I can post more pictures soon. Paul also has a lot of good pictures from his cruise, I’ll see if I can get him to upload some on this blog!

Silence on the blog

Silence on the blog

I’ve been in Norwich for 2 weeks now and mostly been working hard. This is my last month as a paid PhD student, then I have another year to finish and submit. I hope to submit sooner than that though! I’m feeling the pressure now… but trying not to get stressed while writing as much as I can.

I don’t have a camera at the moment… Paul took my SLR on his cruise, and my compact camera is being repaired at the moment. It had a small hair (or rather a bit of dust) inside the camera that shows up on every photo, very annoying. It’s costing me half of what I originally paid for the camera… But I’m quite attached to my camera and this model is not made anymore. So I decided it was worth it… it’s taking forever though and it’s quite strange for me to be without any camera!

In a week’s time I’m going to Tromsø for 10 days. Paul will be back from his cruise (if they don’t get stuck in the ice again!), and then we’ll finally have some time to get used to our new home and also to find some furniture for it. I’m looking forward to it! New updates will have to wait until I’m there, and until I can find an internet connection – might be another 1-2 weeks…

And because I can’t write a blog without any images, here’s a funny cartoon that Gert-Jan sent me. It’s from a Dutch paper, so I have translated it into English… 🙂