October 22, 2008

We've had a little plan in the works to go to Tromso, Norway to see the Northern Lights. We're getting some things on that finalized now- Tromso is above the Arctic Circle, which would make you think that it's cold there right? Take a look at this comparison between Tromso and SE Michigan:

	Tromso High	Clinton High		Tromso Low	Clinton Low
Jan	29	32		20	15
Feb	30	36		22	17
Mar	33	46		23	26
Apr	38	59		28	35
May	46	71		54	46
Jun	59	80		48	55
Jul	57	84		45	59
Aug	49	82		38	57
Sept	49	74		38	49
Oct	41	62		32	38
Nov	34	48		26	30
Dec	31	36		22	20

The thing that is most surprising to me is that Tromso is only marginally colder than Clinton (my hometown, 40 minutes south of Ann Arbor) in the winter months! After all it's above the Arctic Circle! Why isn't it colder? I was envisioning all these crazy snow clothes I was going to need, but a high of 34 and a low of 26 in November is really no big deal at all to me. So next time you get cold weather there just think about taking a vacation to somewhere warmer....above the Arctic Circle. :)

We're hoping to have 2 friends come along with us, and our plan is to go from Nov 8-11. Tromso has a population of 50,000, and plenty of interesting things to see and do there. One of the nice things about being so close to London is the abundance of really cheap airfares to all over Europe and beyond. I'm hoping to visit a friend of mine who is in Morocco with the IMB, and needs to take a short trip outside the country to renew her visa. We're going to meet in Madrid, and for me to fly there costs 5 pounds. It's no wonder Brits take so many short vacations all over the place.

iBASE went very well last night- we had a girl who is from Kazakhstan, which is in central Asia. I also had some good conversations with people, which were a bit exhausting since we didn't get home until midnight! I've been meeting once a week with one of our other leaders in training to help her to plan some Saturday events, and to help her to prepare studies. We meet Thursday evenings before the Camera club. I also had some great chats with Chinese ladies at the moms of preschoolers group (BAR) with at least one Chinese lady offering to teach me Chinese, which I think I'm going to take her up on! I hope to be able to say some basic things at least by Christmas, so I can chat with them all in Chinese. Pr for me as I study- I already clearly hear the words that they're saying, I just don't know what they mean. So I need a lot of vocabulary study. And on top of that since my friend and I are meeting up in Spain I'm practicing my spanish as well, particularly my Spain accent. Good thing I love languages. :)