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Category: Norway

A Volkswagen!

A Volkswagen!

Volkswagen Caddy

After years and years of dreaming about it, I finally own a Volkswagen! I’ve always been crazy about them, first the Beetle and later also the Camper van…

I took photos of them all over the world (click for a large version):

Volkswagen Beetle Volkswagen Campervan

And own many miniature ones…

Volkswagen Beetle Volkswagen Campervan

And now… we own a 1997 Volkswagen Caddy… HAHA.

Volkswagen Caddy

We actually almost bought a beetle but as they are not very reliable, and with all the snow and ice here, we thought it was a bit too risky… So we went for this bargain van, it’s actually quite nice and it’s possible to sleep in the back so it’s *almost* a camper van 🙂

Other great news: I am an aunt now! My brother Bart and his girlfriend Kaya just had a baby girl a few days ago, her name is Mare. I’ve put a link to their weblog on this page, they have just place some photos 🙂 I’m looking forward to meet my (first ever!) niece… I’m going for a visit in a few weeks.

Have a good weekend!

Reindeer Racing

Reindeer Racing

The reindeer races took place last week. Unfortunately it was a rainy day, the temperatures were above zero – it makes a horrible mess of the snow. Luckily there was enough snow in Tromsø’s main street for the races to take place (I actually think they cheated and got snow from elsewhere!)

The races were really impressive, I had never seen anything like it! Very fast… Here are some photos I took. In the last one you can see that there was also a race for children!

Reindeer Races Tromso 2008 Reindeer Races Tromso 2008

Reindeer Races Tromso 2008 Reindeer Races Tromso 2008

Reindeer Races Tromso 2008 Reindeer Races Tromso 2008

Here’s an experiment, see if I can show a video of the races!

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The races are organized by Sami people, I love their colorful clothes!

Reindeer Races Tromso 2008 Reindeer Races Tromso 2008

By the end of the races we were all cold so we went for some soup/coffee inside a Sami tent, sitting on reindeer skins around the fire… very cosy! As you can see in the photo below those tents are made of wood and reindeer skinds, with a big hole in the top to let the smoke out.

Reindeer Races Tromso 2008

It kept raining on Monday and Tuesday, and then finally temperatures dropped below zero again and we had fresh snow. A lot better than the mess you get when the snow melts and it rains on top of that! Unfortunately today that happened again… blegh. We’ve been trying to find a second hand car this week, no luck so far. Would be great to have one and explore the area aroundTromsø a bit more!

Sunny days

Sunny days

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…

Tromso view Tromso view

Tromso view Tromso view

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!!

Tromso snow zen

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….

camp fire camp fire

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:

out in the snow out in the snow

out in the snow out in the snow

out in the snow out in the snow

out in the snow out in the snow

out in the snow out in the snow

out in the snow out in the snow

out in the snow out in the snow

out in the snow

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!