Also, the sun rises

Friday, Jan. 23, we got our first glimpse of the sun since the end of November. It's difficult to describe how wonderful it is to see it! Though we never had days with no sunlight (like Svalbard--they won't see the sun for another month, or so), it is very special to actually be able to see the sun itself. It is customary to celebrate this return with the consumption of solbollen--"sun buns"--which are actually jelly doughnuts. The international students had a get-together at the cultural center to celebrate the return of the sun.

For the glory of the skies ...

Mike got some wonderful photos of the sky as we neared the end of the "dark time," before the approach of our first sunrise since November.

Visit with cousin Dag

Hello everyone,
My cousin Dag was in town last week for the Tromsø International Film Festival. We had a wonderful visit with him before he returned to Oslo. We shared many memories of our grandparents and other relatives. And we had a good feed.

Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow

These are photos Michael has taken different places on the island, at different times. The three bottom photos are of the university. The photos with the ice/snow-laden wires are from our walks by Prestvannet (a lake); we walk that way to go to the grocery store sometimes, and also on Sundays when we go to Elverhøy church. The photos with cars are taken close to our apartment. The night shot is the same hill that you see in our "winter fun" post, where people come to sled.

Moon Shots

Well, this is pretty self-explanatory. These are just photos that have the moon in them--but I thought they are nice, and it's a theme, so ...

We haven't had much luck seeing the Northern lights of late. When the light conditions are good (see http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/auroraforecast/ for predictions), the weather has been cloudy, and when it's been clear, the light conditions have been "quiet" or "minimum." Still there is time to see them, though I don't think we will be able to get any pictures with our equipment. I've read that Joanna Lumley has done a nice documentary about the Northern Lights (she actually came to Tromsø)--not sure if it is on DVD, but apparently has really nice video of the Lights.

Winter Fun

We've tried to take a few shots of people out enjoying the snow (speaking of snow--it is really coming down right this moments--I can barely see the lights beyond the trees outside our window; at least it's not windy!), but often between the thought and the action, the light has failed, so some of these are kinda dark. The spots of light you see on the photos are the reflectors that people wear (except for the top light in the bottom photo--that's actually a parent and a child sitting next to a little fire). Mike and I each have "snap" reflectors that we wear on our sleeves and pocket reflectors that we carry, pinned inside our pockets, and let them dangle when we are walking. There is a picture of a kicksled in the middle photo. Behind the kicksled is the skating area (a soccer field in warmer times). This area is just about 5 minutes from our apartment and lots of people come to ski, sled (it's a very nice long hill--I told Mike I want to get a sled and give it a try before we leave here!), skate, and generally just enjoy the snow. We go through that area to reach the ski paths that take us to the university, and the shopping area across on the other side of the island. Usually on Saturdays we see a lot of dads out with their kids, pulling them on their sleds, teaching them to ski and skate.