Browsed by
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!
Christmas-everything

Christmas-everything

I’m not sure when I saw the first Christmas items appearing in the shops, but it must have been sometime in October at the latest. What amuses me in Norway is that nearly every item can become special Christmas food. From Christmas-sausages to Christmas-crisps to Christmas-milk and Christmas-beer! Usually only the package changes, sometimes they add some extra cinnamon or other Christmas flavours 😉

These photos are not the best quality, they are taken with my iPod while trying to be invisible to the people working in the shop 😛 But I thought it gives a nice impression of Christmas food in Norway 😀

Ok, this is quite normal: special Christmas chocolate collection, with a lot of marzipan Seigmen are winegums shaped like people, in this case men, but there is also a women version - they don't taste as good though!. They are perfect for special editions - at Easter they wear ski's, and at Christmas they wear Christmas hats :)

Christmas-potato salad and Christmas-beetroot salad. Christmas-sausage, but note that this one won't even last until Christmas!

Christmas-crisps. With (unspecified) spices. The Norwegians don't mind about that, they happily put pizza-meat as an ingredient of pizza (does it come from the pizza animal?) Christmas-herring

Christmas-milk. Santa often looks quite different here, not your typical Coca-cola-Santa ;) And of course Christmas-beer!

While I was taking a photo of the Christmas-beer, a couple approached me. They were tourists, and confused about the price of beer. They were wondering if 23 kroner (2.5 pounds/2.94 euros/4 dollars) was the price of one half-litre can of beer, or the whole six-pack… I felt a bit bad giving them the disappointing answer! Alcohol is so expensive here because it’s very heavily taxed. You can buy beer in the supermarket, but only until 20:00 (or 18:00 on Saturday), and for anything stronger you’ll have to visit the Vinmonopolet (literally Wine Monopoly) which is owned by the state. Welcome to Norway 😉

Oldervik

Oldervik

Three weeks ago we had one sunny day in the middle of a very rainy period. Of course we made the most of it, and we went on a trip to Oldervik (about an hour’s drive from Tromsø). We were greeted by a great view towards the Lyngen Alps, with snow on the tops…

The Lyngen Alps

The coast at Oldervik has very special rock formations. I had seen many beautiful photos taken there (here and here for example), but we had never been there ourselves! High time for a visit 🙂 and it didn’t disappoint! Here are some examples of the rock formations…

Rock formations at Oldervik A small bridge crosses the rocks at Oldervik

There are interesting patterns everywhere, it’s a paradise for photographers 😀

Rock patterns Rock patterns Rock patterns

Rock patterns Rock patterns

Another interesting phenomenon at Oldervik are several potholes (jettegryte in Norwegian). They are formed when rocks are moved around by the sea and form a kind of hole. They are very big! Paul is standing in one of them below…

Paul standing in a pothole Another pothole, this one filled with water Here I was about to jump over the pothole

And this one (below left) was even bigger! We couldn’t go in as there was too much water in it. The light had become quite difficult for photos, with a dark foreground and a very bright background, so I experimented with using different exposures to create one image (HDR).

HDR image of the large pothole Another view towards Lyngen

Paul brought his waterproof camera and took some photos in the tidal pools – very nice!

A tidal pool at Oldervik Underwater life

The sky had  very pretty pastel colours when we came back to the car.

A tree and the Lyngen Alps - winter is on its way Beautiful pastel colours!

On the way back, the light was still very beautiful, and I had to ask Paul to stop a few times, I just had to take some pictures!

A view on the way back to Tromsø The setting sun was colouring the snow pink

And our trip came to an end with this spectacular sunset…

Such a beautiful sunset! Perfect end to a perfect day :)

Once home we made pumpkin soup and we had friends over for dinner. A perfect Saturday!

Red Aurora

Red Aurora

On Monday evening I was tired after a busy day, and I was about to go to bed… I knew the aurora was active but it was too cloudy, still I took one last look at the webcam located in the next valley. I noticed it had cleared up and there was RED aurora… something I have only seen once before, and that was in the Netherlands. A big auroral storm was happening, and I couldn’t stay at home! Thanks to Facebook, we also got Eelke and Roy to join us 😀 It was an incredible show! The northern lights were seen all over Norway that night, much further south than they normally do. The sky was filled with pulsating northern lights, and at times we could see deep red colours. We also saw the corona overhead, very impressive.

Northern lights reflected in a puddle - actually I was so excited when we saw the lights that I stepped straight into a puddle that was more than ankle deep.. oops! The corona showing overhead

Red aurora! More red aurora, so pretty

A red beam of aurora Paul posing with the northern lights

The sky was just FILLED with aurora, crazy! One last photo before going home...

We stayed out until 2:30 in the morning… and I only went to bed reluctantly. The lights were active through the rest of the night, until dawn! What a night 🙂