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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!
Mørketid

Mørketid

After a very rainy Saturday, we were craving some fresh air on Sunday, and we went for a walk with Sevim. The mørketid, or dark time, has now begun – the sun doesn’t come above the mountains anymore. By Friday, it won’t come above the horizon at all. In the weather forecast, a cloudless day is indicated by this symbol:

Anyway, we went for a walk along the coast. It was cloudy and windy, but quite warm. We found a lighthouse with a ladder leading up… without any DO NOT signs, we couldn’t resist climbing up! The photo on the right (below) is taken through the top bit and you can see the large lens on the left.

We enjoyed the views from up there for a while! In the photo on the right you can see Paul climbing down. It’s not a very large lighthouse, but it was a fun visit 🙂

Last week, when the weather was frosty and clear, we missed out on some great aurora shows. I was simply too tired after work to go out and look for the lights! Sunday night it cleared up, and Paul decided to drive to a dark place to go for a walk and see if he could get some pictures. The aurora wasn’t very active, but it was continuously visible low on the horizon, and he did come back with some nice photos:

Too bad I had to miss out… but that’s the disadvantage of having a job which is not as flexible with working hours. I really enjoyed my first week at work though, I’m learning a lot and I really like it. Anyway… it’s definitely bedtime for me now!

Ice Crystals

Ice Crystals

Last Saturday we went for a trip with Sevim (who’s now my colleague!) to enjoy the last bit of sunshine. Although the sun will still come above the horizon next weekend, it won’t come above the mountains… The weather was still looking very nice, so we set out to climb Rødtinden on Kvaløya. We were quite slow, as we were fascinated by the beautiful ice crystals everywhere! We kept taking pictures 🙂

They come in so many different shapes, and some were very large. I really regretted not bringing my macro lens on this trip!!

Sometimes we found patches of what looked like snow, but in close up turned out to be a huge pile of ice crystals! We almost forgot to enjoy the view 😉 It was a beautiful day, here is Tromsdalstinden in the last light of the day…

When the sun disappeared behind the mountain, we decided to abandon our plan to reach the top, and turn around. A large part of the mountain was like a swamp turned into a skating rink (but with some steep slopes!) and we didn’t fancy finding our way through that in the dark. At the bottom of the slope, we followed this beautiful river that was all frozen over…

One last photo taken just before we got back to the car. It was a great walk, and I am glad we enjoyed the last bit of sunshine!

I started at my new job today, it went well. I am quite tired now, speaking and listening to Norwegian all day requires so much concentration for me. But it’s going well, and I’m really enjoying it!

Frosty Tromsø

Frosty Tromsø

We came back to Tromsø last night. Today we walked to the south tip of the island (Telegrafbukta) to watch the sunset. We almost missed it – at 12:30 we just saw the last glimpse of sunlight before it disappeared behind the mountains! The weather is cold and clear, and everything is covered in white frost. We walked along the coast for a while, enjoying the beautiful views…

We walked on the jetty seen in the pictures above. I took a photo of these bird footprints. For a sense of scale, click here and remember that Paul has big feet 😉

Everything is covered with thick frost, like this branch that Paul held against the sunset so I could take a photo. The Tromsø palms (or giant hogweed) are now like skeletons, they are quite pretty against the winter sky.

We walked to this beautiful old boathouse, with grass growing on the roof…

After 1.5 hours in the cold, we were more than ready for a hot chocolate at home 🙂 It’s great to be back!

This blog might go a bit quiet, I just found out today that Monday is my first day at my new job!! I have to be there at 8 in the morning too, I’ll have to get used to early mornings again…