You're Friday Moment of Zen: Kebab-y!

Damn you cruel fate!

The Red Polar Bear, owned by Kazem Ariaiwand is officially the worlds most northern kebab van! Mr Ariaiwand moved to Spitsbergen after a failed asylum attempt in Norway, and set up his business in an old military van last year in Longyearbyen. Having already been to Svalbard once, it seems we have to go again! Kebabs!! The most northern kebabs in the world!! We've already been to the worlds most northern McDonalds in Rovaniemi, it seems only fair to have a chicken kebab with extra hot sauce back in Longyearbyen.

As a small aside, having checked out "The Worlds Most Northern" and I find I can cross the following of as places I've been to:

Town > 1000 people	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway DONE	78°13′N 15°33′E
City > 50,000 people	Tromsø, Norway DONE!	69°40′N
Metropolitan area > 1 million	Greater Helsinki (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen), Finland DONE	60°10′N 24°56′E
City (proper) > 1 million people	St Petersburg, Russia DONE!	59°56′N 30°20′E

Shops and service facilities

Item	Place	Latitude/Longitude
Bank	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway DONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E
Automatic Teller Machine	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E
Night club	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway?? Where was this?	78°13'N 15°33'E
Pub	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13'N 15°33'E
Supermarket	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E
Tourist office	Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E
University	University of Tromsø (ext link), Tromsø, NorwayDONE!	69°40′N 18°56′E
University campus	University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), Longyearbyen, Svalbard, NorwayDONE!	78°13′N 15°33′E

Anyhoo, just a small aside.

Ahh most northerly Kebab Van.. if only you'd been there when WE were there... I would have enjoyed you infinitely more than the cured seal meat I had, which was awful.

Longyearbyen, our first day. AKA Boffins on Ice

This was the day we went dog sledding... And Dr D realised he had Superman/Indiana Jones fantasies, whilst the Magic saw himself more like a Bond style hero...

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It's been such a cool day today. We spent the morning doing a dog sleding tour around an iced over lake!

Calv, and The Flatmate took one sled, and Dr D, Magic and I were on the other, being pulled along by 9 very, very eager huskies. All 3 of us had a go at leading the dogs, whilst the other two sat on the sledge, and it was amazing fun! Before we started off, these dogs were yappy, and jumpy, and so excited. But once we took off, they all turned into serious working mutts.


Dr D so far has not had a very good animal tour/holiday ration so far. In America a few years ago, we went horse riding, and he managed to pull his groin really badly when his horse got ultra greedy and kept trying to eat the grass, whilst not bothering to stop first. What must have seemed like a real time saving move at the time turned into Dr D's near death experience, as the horse refused to stop eating, lost it's balance, and nearly fell over, possibly leaving Dr D in a more pancake shape.. This time, he was surely hoping to have less life threatening animal touring experience, but even so, when he took the reins he seemed a bit nervous. Once he started getting into the swing of it, he really took to it, looking around, urging the dogs to run faster, saying how much fun it was, giggling like an excited school girl. Inevitably cockiness overrules, and he starts to think "this dog sled driving is a piece of piss", and so he starts trying to make snow balls with his foot (we still have no idea why??), whilst dogs are pulling us along at a not to be sniffed at trot. Slowly I notice the constant Dr D chatter has stopped, to be replaced with the occasional "oops" and "ooh dear". When I turn around, he wasn't so much standing on the sled, but more being dragged, Indiana Jones style, belly down, along the snow, behind the sled. Apparently he had managed to get too much snow caught in his boot, trip a bit, completely fuck up, and fall over. Rather than letting anyone know what he'd done of course, he thought he could "fix it" before we noticed, and was trying to drag himself back up. The only problem with this plan is that the snow is of course too soft for him to get a good grip with his shoe on, and everytime he tries to put his foot down, he just sinks into the snow even deeper. He literally was dragged about 100 m, with 9 huskies pulling our sled along before we noticed. When we saw this, The Magic jumped up on the sled quick as lightning, trying to manouvere his way to get to the break, thus saving his best friend for drowning in snow. Unfortunately, whilst The Magic jumped up like a hero, and he fell down like a boffin.

So now, this leaves me, on a sled, alone, being dragged by 9 uber excited huskies, no driver and no way to stop. Screaming "STOP" at the dogs does no good of course, because these puppies don't understand English or even the more common English Louder. All the other sleds in front unfortunately do speak english, and by now have all stopped their sleds and are watching Dr D and the Magic running after, laughing their arses off, and falling over in the snow. They also watch me preacriously climbing my way to the back of the sled, sure footed like a cow on ice skates, throw the anchor, lose my footing, and get dragged along the side of the sled until the dogs ran into the people in front. I've never been so embarrased to be a nerdy boffin in my life!


So all in all Dr D succesfully managing animals on a tour 0, Animals Trying to Kill Dr D whilst on holiday 2.

Tomorrow we're off ice caving in a river glacier, in the evening. Now I'm not too keen on closed in spaces, but I've been assured that this is the tour were I won't have to crawl under hundreds of metres of ice on my hands and knees. Being opressed by a ton of ice is not something i'm particularly looking forward to, but then again, neither is flying and I manage to do that ok.

Svalbard Day 1

Here's Day 1 in Svalbard.

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Well we've finally made it to the Arctic Circle! After a 4 hour delay in Tromso because of blizzards in Longyearbyen, we spent a few hours sitting on the plane, hoping we were actually going to make it here today. When we finally did land in Svalbard, there were amazing snow drifts coarsing over the runway. Even though you know the temperature is going to be way below freezing, nothing prepares you for how cold that really is. Taking in that first breath of sub zero air was such a shock it threw me into a coughing fit. It was unbelievable. And because it's all snowing, and dark, my perception has been completely thrown, and I find that I am unable to distinguish the things that I'm looking at.. is that snow on the roof? Is that a roof at all or just a part of the sky? Is that a car or a bear? Or am I just hungry...?

But now we've all checked into our apartments at the SAS Radisson (oh yes people. We go to the acrtic circle and stay in style.. nice!), and we've gotten all of our cold weather gear (including my new hat which has a deer on it! Not quite as dangerous as a seal I'm sure), and gone our for a walk around town.. the only problem with that is that we keep getting distracted by all the feather light snow, and we all just keep falling over and rolling in it. A bit like dogs. It really is amazing here. Freezing and dark, but amazing.

So we're off to have dinner now, in the hotel restaurant, which looks amazing. And surprisingly heaps cheaper than Oslo! Tomorrow we've got a 3 hour dog sled tour booked, where we get to meet the doggies, harness them and drive them around! I'm so excited!


Firstly though, here's my personal checklist of things to do on this holiday:

1. Try Seal
   
2. Try reindeer
   
3. Try Deer - done
   
4. Dogsleding
   
5. Snowmobiling
   
6. Snowball fight
   
7. See the Doomsday Vault
   
8. See the Northern Lights
   
9. See the Polar bears
   
10. See glaciars
    
11. Possibly, run outside in my underwear in the snow....
    

24 hours in Oslo

Well, it's over. 2 months of planning, anticipation, worry about polar bear mauling, and sheer excitment has ended with 8 fantastic, sometimes bitterly cold, days in Norway, and it's little territory called Svalbard. I was going to blog whilst I was away, since I brought my laptop with me, but blogger had other ideas. My blog was flagged as spam(!) and I had to email the powers that be and ask them to give me my account back. Spam I tell you. Phnarr. You've never heard so much swearing when I found out. Sailors would have blushed.

Anyway, here's the first post I had written up whilst away. I figure I'll post all the ones I've written, and then do a little recap in the end. Included in future posts are things like:

1) Me being abandoned on a dog sled with no driver or other passengers, in the middle of a glacier, whilst both Dr D and the Magic try unsuccessfully to chase after
2) Me almost killing Dr D by overturning our snowmobile
3) £80 worth of pizzas
4) The taste of seal
5) The Island

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First 24 Hours in Oslo
We've now been in Oslo for about 24 hours, and after lots of walking, taking photos, playing in snow, trying to avoid being eaten by the worlds largest dogs, we're all sitting here in one of our rooms, frankly, knackered, feet up, drinking beers, and watching "Loser" on norweigan telly. Incidentaly, our room is possibly the most nerd injected room in all of Oslo with:

1. 3 laptops
   
2. 6 digital cameras
   
3. 1 digital SLR
   
4. 1 old fun time SLR
   
5. USB2 Cards
   
6. Network Cards
   
7. 3 USB keyfob/drive/thingy (Magic says keyfob, Dr D says key drive, and I say "thingy")
   

Hell YEAH!

Our first 24 hours has not been nearly as cold as I expected it to be. It's probably about 3 degrees outside, and compared to what it's going to be like in Svaldbard, that's practically t-shirts and shorts weather!

I have to say, Oslo, and probably Norway, is the most expensive place on this god given earth. Last night we went out to dinner, to what has been described in the guide books as "moderately priced". Norways "moderately priced" is equivalent to the rest of the world's "sweet mother of god, I need to get a second mortgage to pay for this meal of bread and tap water". When the Mag and I decided to have a bottle of wine with dinner, the waitress suggested a £38.90 bottle of red. And that was one of the cheapest ones going! Today, I inadvertedly spent 5 POUNDS on a tiny, tiny, tiny travel size bottle of hair mousse. It's scarey when you're in a country where you need a bank roll to buy a burger. Or where you can take out almost £600 from a cash machine in one transaction...

Anyway, here are a couple of pics from today, including Dr D constantly falling over in the snow.. I'm not sure we're going out tonight. It's actually insanely fun drinking tinnies, watching tele, and chatting. (Though Dr D is not really talking to us, and is spending all night "playing" (aka cheating) at Championship Manager. And asking me if I'm "blogging shit".

Oh yes I am Dr D.

BTW: I've just had the most nerd fulfilling experience in my life. I've just OUTNERDED The Magic, a doctor in particle physics (there are 2 of them in this room right now (thus upping our nerd factor to stratospheric levels)), when he saw me using on GVim. He didn't even know that you can use VI on Windows! How cool is that..

Svalbard Weather Watch

Ok, I'll admit it. Despite the fact that

1. I've paid close to £500 in hard weather gear for this trip to Svalbard
2. Distressingly, I've realised that despite the years of coca-cola propaganda, polar bears are in fact not our friends
3. I could die in a horrid plane accident when our 2 stroke, probably made of MDF, light aircraft tries to land on, what can essentially be called an ice rink

I am getting pretty damn excited about this trip.

So, I'm going to keep you updated, for the next 3 days, of the temperature in Svalbard, to appreciate the slight apprehension I'm feeling as a soft southern Sydney girl, going as far north as a girl should go:

Temperature at 6am this morning (with windchill) : -30C
Current Temparture in Longyearbyen : -9.6C
Current Temparture in Longyearbyen (with windchill) : -21.1C

-21.1C!!!! In Sydney, if it dips below 10C people start going worrying about the ensuing cold snap, destined to take down the city and start wearing thermals underwear and long johns.. This is going to be weird.

On this day..

1. 1473 - Nicolaus Copernicus, famous astronomer, whose at the time controversial theory called "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" is percieved as the starting point of modern astronomy, was born on this day
2. 1985 - EastEnders is first aired on the BBC! (You can see my new and old house on the map in the start of the show). I love a show which can make you think "no matter how bad I think my life is, at least I'm not pregnant and still in love with the man who I am having an affair with, who doesn't want to have an affair with me, but is only doing it because his wife wants to buy my child".
3. 1861 - Serfdom was abolished in Russia
4. 2007 - It's my birthday, and I am now "officially" in my "late 20s". 28 was my mid-late 20s. Undeniable, 29 is my late-late 20s.

As it's my birthday, and to honour my german ancestry, to celebrate chinese new year, and because it's the last day of my "Birthday Season", we went to Kurz & Lang for a german pork sausages and sauerkraut for lunch. Tonight, a few of us are off to a Swiss fondue restaurant, where The Flatmate will try not to be sick, since he reckons he's now been hit with the gastro bug that's making the rounds of our group.

Present wise I have done exceptionally well. Dr D got me a DIY book, my friend Pop, who has amazing taste in fashion, gave me a cool pair of earings that appeal to my catholic side by having what looks like bits of rosary beads dangling from them ! Lee got me a cool book chocka full of American Diner recipes. My friend, Campbelly got me a champagne recorker so that I can safely induldge in Champagne Thursdays without feeling the need to neck the whole bottle in one go. And finally The Flatmate, C, Calv, Magic and Dr D gave me an XBox 360!! WOW!! I can now play Halo, which I love, as well as Gears of War, which is just plain frightening!

I also got these beautiful roses from my mum.

On Saturday night, C and I had a lovely dinner at a local pub, which 20 of our closest friends came to. On the way back to our place, for the inevitable party, I walked everyone past the soon-to-be-mine flat, where we all stood outside freaked out the vendor... Why having 15 or so people standing outside their flat, pointing and going "oooh" and "so when do they move out?" would freak someone out is anyones guess. They didn't look too happy looking out of their windows, desperately trying to call the cops...

And yes, if you're wondering, the inevitable party did end at 4 am when we sang our voices dry with some awful/awsome Singstar.... A really serendipitous finding that night was that I own all the ingredients needed to make some kick arse cosmopolitans, which Lee, Pop and I drank by the huge red wine glass full.. no wonder I didn't surface from my room until 1 in the afternoon!

All in all, it's been a pretty good birthday season. I'm not too worried about getting older.. though I'm sure that's going to change soon. But right this very minute, I will own a house soon, I'm going to Brussels for the weekend, then I'm off to Svaldbard and China in a few weeks, so at this moment in time, life is pretty damn tasty!

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Hats made of seals are bad

For some insane reason, The Flatmate, Calv, Magic, Dr D and myself are all off on holiday in a few weeks time to Svalbard. Officially a part of Norway, it is Europe's northernmost territory, and is way inside the Arctic circle, being about 1000 km from the North Pole. In fact, I think it's as far north as you can get before they slap the title "explorer" on you. The whole territory has only 5 towns, the smallest one having a grand population of 10 people and the "capital" having a population of 1,800... My last job employed more people than that!



The fact that there will be no sun for the whole time we're there means we will hopefully see the Aurora borealis, which I think is the main reason for us going... The fact that the average temperature is about -12C, which goes down to about -30C with windchill, is not the thing that's freaking me out the most... It's the fact that for years now I've always thought of polar bears as cute and cuddly animals, who drink bottles of coke, nuzzle their young, are romantic to their partners, and love to give humans hugs. However, the 500 or so white cutie pies which are on the territory are the biggest threat to people, and if one tries to attack you, you are advised to keep shooting it until it stops. Killed by lead poisoning. Thus, you are told to never leave a settlement without carrying a rifle.

Which you can hire.

Without the need of a license or even the knowledge of how to use one....

So in honour of this new found polar bear fear, this is my Friday Moment of Zen: Of all the freezing, north pole equipped, fuck off hard core weather gear I will be wearing in Svaldbard, not one item will be a hat, shaped like a seal.

Enjoy!