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Category: Norway

Skiing

Skiing

Yesterday we went skiing for a couple of hours, on the ski tracks on Tromso island. It’s very beautiful, you forget that you are in a city (not that Tromso is such a metropolis 😉 ). Everybody lives around the edges of the island and the middle is basically a big skiing area in winter.

It was a fun day! Hard work but it was great to be outside like that. The most difficult part is downhill cause it’s very difficult to brake on those kind of skies. We fell a lot! We went with two guys from Paul’s work and I was the slowest one – I would sometimes find myself at the top of a downhill, with three guys standing at the bottom looking at me and waiting for me to fall (as they all did…) – nasty guys 😉 Luckily I managed to stay upright better than they did, hehe.

There were lots of people enjoying the “good” (as in “no snow storm”) weather. It was fun to see people skiing with dogs! I had never seen this before, but they attach a rope to their middle and the other end around their dog, and use them to tow them uphill. All kinds of dogs too, we saw poodles and even little puppy’s! We also watched a competition at the ski jump, very impressive!! Paul has a better zoom on his camera so he managed to get some nice pictures of the jumpers. Here are some photos…

Skiing Skiing Skiing Skiing

Skiing Skiing

Skiing Skiing

At night we went to the concert and reception organized by the Dutch embassy. We figured it would be quite smart, so I was wearing a dress and high heels, not very practical in this town! We had to get a taxi to town, it takes a whole 5 minutes… 😉

The concert was really nice, it was the soloists of the New Dutch Academy playing “early music”, meaning classical from the 18th century, played on instruments that are not very common anymore – a lute, a flute, an early (and very small) version of the cello. Simon Murphy (the director) explained a lot about the music and he was really funny – it made the concert a lot more accesible I think. Very nice!

The reception afterwards was good too, I was impressed how many Dutch people live in (and around) Tromso! Some for over 30 years… I even met a woman who comes from a village less than 4 km from where I grew up! Unfortunately there were no bitterballen (even though everybody seemed to be hoping for them!) but they did serve jenever.

Today we didn’t do much, my muscles are hurting too much from yesterday!! We did ski a little bit around the lake. It’s been snowing again today. I’m looking forward to next weekend – there will be reindeer races in the city center! I’ll try to get some good photos of course 🙂

Tromsø , Norwich… & northern lights

Tromsø , Norwich… & northern lights

Hello!!

Time for an update!! It’s taken me forever, I know. I’ve been busy, have been back to Norwich for a while. It’s a bit weird to go straight from winter to spring…

Tromsdalen Norwich

It was nice to be back at UEA for a bit and see everybody there. Unfortunately I had a nasty cold and spend half my time in bed, but I still managed to see everybody and really enjoyed it. I didn’t take many photos so thanks to Karla for those nice ones 🙂

Norwich Norwich

I did take a photo on a very misty morning… this is my favourite tree on campus 🙂

UEA Norwich

I came back to Tromsø in the middle of a snow storm, rough landing! It has been snowing a lot for a couple of days. It’s amazing how much snow there is… there’s a car I can see from the flat that hasn’t been moved for a while and it’s completely buried now! Big icicles are growing on our balcony, we took one inside…

Tromsø

We bought spike tires for our bikes a few weeks ago. They are incredible! I was very sceptical on how well they would work, but it’s just like cycling on a normal road with no ice… The most dangerous thing is getting off your bike when you have forgotten how icy the road is! But I find cycling here very exhausting, too many hills!! 😉

Tromsø Tromsø

The northern lights are pretty active tonight, I took these photos from our balcony! It’s great to be able to take photos like that, though I’d like to go somewhere darker at some point. It’s a pity photos can never truly show what the northern lights are like… it was moving a lot, with beams shooting across the sky and sometimes showing pink and red… very impressive!

Tromsø Tromsø

Tromsø Tromsø

We’re going skiing tomorrow! We rented skies for the whole weekend, should be fun 🙂 My only cross country skiing experience was 4 years ago for an hour… it was exhausting! I’m more into downhill skiing… so we’ll see how this goes. I was glad to see that they come with very comfortable shoes!

Also we’re going to a concert and reception organized by the Dutch ambassador… I’m curious to meet all the Dutch who live here, apparently there are many! (I’m hoping for bitterballen at the reception hehe)

Hopefully I can upload some photos of the weekend soon!

First week (and a bit) in Tromsø

First week (and a bit) in Tromsø

Hello!

Sorry for my lack of updates recently, December was extremely busy! We’ve been in Tromsø for more than a week now. We spent the first two nights in a hotel. These photos were taken on New Year’s Eve. The sun doesn’t come above the horizon but there are still some hours of twilight with very beautiful light:

Tromsø Tromsø Tromsø

At night we took the cable car up the mountain to watch the fireworks over Tromsø island. It was very busy, in fact we were very lucky to get into the last cable car up, everybody in the queue behind us was sent home! They also lit fireworks from the top, it was very pretty!

Tromsø Tromsø

And as if all that wasn’t enough, the northern lights were visible too! The photo on the right is a new year’s card I’ve made out of a photo we took up there.

Tromsø Tromsø

We moved into the new flat on the 1st of January, it’s a really nice place! Paul started working on the 2nd, so I’ve been working from home as well. This is the view from the (covered) balcony in the morning:

Tromsø

Very amazing! Last weekend we had time to explore a bit, and we discovered a frozen lake on top of the island, not far from our flat. There were people skating and playing ice hockey. I haven’t skated in so long!! I’ve immediately asked my parents to send my skates here, I can’t wait to try them 🙂 These are some photos we took at the lake:

Tromsø Tromsø Tromsø Tromsø Tromsø

At night the northern lights were visible again, and this time they were very active and really impressive! We decided to go back to the lake to take photos from there. Unfortunately they almost disappeared by the time we got there so we didn’t get any photos of the very impressive part of the show. It was still beautiful though! And quite special to be out on a frozen lake in the dark with nobody else around…

Tromsø Tromsø

On Sunday we saw clouds for the first time, and that really shows how the days are really one long sunrise/sunset here! The colors were just amazing:

Tromsø Tromsø

This morning when we woke up it was snowing like crazy! And it kept on snowing all day, so in no time we had a LOT of snow, very exciting! I went for a walk to town and took some photos. It takes only about 15 minutes to get there, downhill on the way so it takes a bit longer to come back as the hill is quite steep! In the first photo you can see our flat, if you enlarge it I have put an arrow pointing at our balcony.

Tromsø Tromsø

With and without flash – as you can see it was snowing heavily! I came back as a real snowman 😉

Tromsø Tromsø

This is just around the corner from the flat, there is actually a skeleton in the window of the little hexagonal hut – it scared me the first time I walked past!

Tromsø

Ok, now you have an impression of our first week in Tromsø! I’m really enjoying it here. I’ll be here for another two weeks, then I have to be in Norwich for a bit. More soon!