We made it to Tromso yesterday, and so far we've really enjoyed this quiet little town. It reminds me a lot of Parry Sound, in Georgian Bay, Canada. It's a quaint town, on an island in the sea but protected by some other larger islands from the fierceness of the Arctic Sea. If you've ever watched Most Dangerous Catch, which is a live documentary of the crab boats that operate up here in the Arctic you'll be interested to know that we saw some of those crab boats here in Tromso! I say boats, but they are ships actually- larger than you'd think, and many are in between seasonal runs so they have all the crab boxes with them, and the ships have been hauled out to be repainted and such.
It rained yesterday all day and night, so no chance at seeing the aurora. But we did see the Arctic Cathedral, and we took some night photos of the town and the boats and things. We just got back from walking around and photographing along the water front. We also went to a small museum called Polaria, which was very interesting. We've booked a aurora sightseeing visit out to a farm 13km south of Tromso which has 200 huskies that they use as sled dogs, and they have all sorts of interesting things. The native people of Norway are called Sami, and they are a bit like the native people of all cold places in that they have a sort of yurt, or hut, that they lived in. This farm has one of those, and they start a nice warm bonfire that you can sit around while you wait to see the aurora. You can also play with their cute puppies and other things which any of you who know me well would know I'd be into. I could play with puppies all day- the main problem is not sneaking one back with me to Swavesey. :)
It is fully dark now- the sun set at 2:30pm and came up at 9am. During the day it's like one long sunset- the sun is low on the horizon and makes everything look beautiful. Since it's Sunday many shops and things are closed. By the way, we're getting around just fine without speaking Norwegian as everyone here speaks English. Norwegian sounds a bit like German and English smooshed together, with a bit of Spanish thrown in. It's a beautiful sounding language in my opinion.
We're off to do some other things in town before it closes- we are meeting our transport for tonight at 6:15 near our hotel, and I really hope there's a good aurora tonight! The weather is very reminiscent of Michigan actually- I had a sort of "at home" feel when we got off the plane, and although the wind is quite biting here it's nothing like January in Michigan. :)
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