Sunday Walk

Mugging for the camera.

Greetings!

On Sunday after church the sun was so bright, and it was so pleasant, that we took a different route home through one of the cemeteries. Shown above is a chapel that is located in the middle. It is very usual to see a lot of people strolling through the cemeteries. People come with shovels to remove snow from loved-ones graves so they can leave candles and ribbons and such. In the bottom photo you can see in the distance the spire of Elverhøy church.

Serious Snow

Look up!

Well, if you're tired of seeing and hearing about snow ... sorry ... this is our life! This last week we had what I would call a "serious snow"--we received at least a couple of feet from Tuesday to Thursday morning. It's hard to say definitely, because the weather reports give amounts, not according to snow, but moisture. So instead of stating the snowfall in terms of centimeters, the moisture is given in millimeters. Back home "they" used to say that an inch of rainfall equals a foot of snow. Anyway, this was the heaviest snowfall since we've been here. It is beautiful as always, and it doesn't seem to really slow anyone down too much. Mike went to class as usual.

Smoke on the Water

Mike and I went out for a walk around Prestvannet (a lake near our flat) on Valentine's Day. Of course the lake is frozen and there are many inches of snow on top of it. It was very sunny, and when we arrived there was a thick layer of fog hovering over the surface of the lake. It was just beautiful; the pictures don't completely capture how eerily neat it looked. You can see ski tracks across the lake. The bottom photo was actually taken as we came out of church this morning--it's a peak on Kvaløya "peeking" through the low clouds.

Mad Scientist at Work

Mike is now set up in his lab and is having fun. Pictured is octacarbonyl dicobalt reacting with phenylacetylene under a nitrogen atmosphere, and Michael in his charming lab attire.

Sami Week

This last week was "Sami Week" here in Tromsø. There were activities going on throughout the week. Mike and I went down to Sentrum on Saturday and saw the reindeer, and various Sami tents where they were selling things like dried reindeer meat (750K [over $100] per kilo--yikes!), traditional Sami clothing, carved and painted items, etc. There were supposed to be reindeer races downtown today, but we didn't opt to go down. If you'd like to see a bit of the 2008 race, try this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeYz9zTQcRk. The sign on the tent in photo above--Suovas--in the parentheses it says "smoked reindeer meat in pitas."

Frosted

Last weekend we had a warm-up--it was as high as 4 or 5 degrees C above zero, so we had a lot of melting. Problem is, since there are no storm-water sewers in Tromsø, the melting water runs in the streets--so with the snow and ice already built up on the roads, the added water just turned to a glaze of ice. Needless to say, we didn't go anywhere last weekend. Monday the temps went back below zero, and we got about a foot of snow, which we were actually glad to see. The trees looked frosted, as the snow fell in large flakes and just settled on the limbs of the trees. It wasn't so great for drivers because of the ice still on the road underneath. After the snow and the ice on the ground have a chance to meld then it is better. The walking conditions were much improved. We walked down to a small market near here on Tuesday evening and saw a shimmer of the Northern Lights.