Changes

Walking to UNIS on 2/17 at 1:00 pm

Walking to UNIS on 1/29 at 2:00 pm

Spitsbergen up-and-down

Trollsteinen is the mountain that sticks through the Larsbreen glacier behind my barrack. Every winter, residents of Svalbard compete in the Spitsbergen up-and-down, which is a race up and down Trollsteinen. It is 7.5 km round trip with 800m of elevation gain.

I bought a new pair of AT skis this week. They cost about 1-term's worth of tuition money, but I'm going to make it worth it by going out as often as I can. (For my ski bum friends: Dynafit Vertical ST bindings, Dynafit Zzero4 CF boots, Black Diamond Joule skis. For my non-ski bum friends: they're pretty, fast, and light). I figured that racing up a mountain was a good way to try out the new gear. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Most Norwegians are born with skis already on their feet. They also work out at least 50x per day. I was totally and completely in over my head. I realized this about 30 seconds in. Despite my relative skiing inability, the views were jaw-dropping. The stars and moon were spectacular (I kept getting distracted by finding new constellations). Skiing down was a bit of an adventure because my quads were totally shot and I could barely make the turns. The snow is pretty bad right now, so the combination of darkness, extremely steep slopes, -20C temps, wind-blown ice, and a dead body was quite... epic. At one point when I was about to sit down on the snow and start crying for mommy because my legs hurt so much, the song "Yellow" by Coldplay started playing on my iPod ("Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and everything you do"). I'm not normally a Coldplay fan, but in that moment those words gave me the strength to keep chugging up the hill.

Got back to the main event's tent in time for the awards-- I won an award for being in last place! I'm not sure how they introduced the award (it was in Norwegian) but I imagine that the guy said something to the effect of: "this award is for the bravest new skier here. She was so slow that our polar bear guards had already come back to the tent by the time she was skiing down. We're going to give her a flare gun holster and suggest she buy a flare gun for future trips, just in case she's the last one on the mountain again."

All in all a grand adventure. I believe I was the only female UNIS student to finish the race (two other started but couldn't finish). I LOVE my new gear, and I'm sore beyond belief today, so I went on another ski trip this morning. Mistake? Maybe. But totally worth it. Sorry legs.

Photo credit: Jussi. Water break on Longyearbreen glacier this morning.

Want to contact me?

I might even respond, assuming the internet is working and I'm not stuck in a crevasse...

Norwegian phone number: 4681-1097 (if you're calling from the states, it's 011-47-4681-1097. And you'd better have a good reason for calling).

Address: Kiya Wilson
Nybyen Brakke 11 Room 109
9170 Longyearbyen
Norway

Email: wilsokiy@onid.orst.edu

Skype: kiya.lihn

Matters of Money

The best way to spend 20 Kroner on Svalbard:
-- Take a taxi with 7 friends so you don't have to walk the 3km home in the blizzard with winds so strong it's knocking people off their feet. We are accumulating a bit of a snow drift in the entrance hall from a tiny crack in the door. Classes have been canceled for today and tomorrow, and we are all hibernating in our barracks.

Me with the statue in the middle of town. At the time it seemed like a good idea to take a self-portrait with a statue during an epic blizzard.

The best way to spend 10 Kroner on Svalbard:
-- A beer at the weekly 'Friday gathering' that is held in the school cantina. After class in the evening we normally sit around a fire place telling stories and slacklining between the room's pillars.


--Bake a loaf of bread. Bread is ridiculously expensive here, so most people bake their own. The barrack always smells lovely. I make all of my own food in the kitchen across the hall from my room. Staples include anything frozen or packaged. Fresh produce and dairy products are about 5x more expensive here as in the states (No joke. About $2 for a banana, $4 for a small carton of yogurt, $6 for a small pack of lunch meat).

RJ's delicious italian-esque bread recipe a-la svalbard

The best way to spend no money on Svalbard:
--Dig a hole, build a bonfire, sit around it while warming your hands, look up and enjoy the stars and the moon. Do you know how glorious it is to have an almost-full moon? It's like a miniature sun, hovering just high enough in the sky to cast an eerie glow on Longyearbyen.

Last Friday's evening entertainment. It was another pinch-me experience (am I really here right now? Is this all a dream?).

Photo credit: Alexis

--Go to class. UNIS is fully funded by the Norwegian government, so there isn't any tuition. Courses are revving into full swing. My schedule has changed a bit-- I'm taking Arctic Environmental Management and Physical Geography of Svalbard. My geography teacher is a hilarious Scottish grandpa-like man who is very excitable and loves glaciers dearly. He has us all looking forward to a trip into several ice caves next month. I'm also sitting in on a glaciology course and a history of Svalbard course (just for fun).

--Visit the library to escape the weather. There are always cute children there, plus a good selection of books in English, Norwegian, and Thai (the second largest country represented in Longyearbyen, strangely).


--Do anything outside. Skiing. Ice caving or climbing. Snow-mobiling. Sledding. Hiking. Skating. You name it, we do it. I'm living in an untouched wilderness, and I'm going to do my best to explore it while I'm here.

(OK, maybe not while this blizzard continues)

Long Overdue Pictures

Photo Credit: Alexis. View from the school yesterday (at about 2:00 PM). See how there's some light on the horizon? It's terribly exciting. There is now 23.5 hours of darkness a day and .5 hours of darkness plus some color on the horizon. Also notice the layer of ice on EVERYTHING.



Photo Credit: Alexis. My barrack (red one on the left), looking towards Longyearbyen.



Photo Credit: Alexis. The inside of UNIS (my school). It's super funky cool and the floors are perfect for running and sliding. The tilted walls and ceiling aren't a camera trick.



Photo Credit: Wes. Me jumping through sea ice as part of the safety course (wearing a heavy snow-mobile suit). I then pulled myself out with metal spikes. COLD and PAINFUL is an understatement.



Two flat-mates and I after seeing the best northern lights yet. We were rather excited (and cold).



The closest thing I've seen to a live polar bear. There are more bears than people on Svalbard, and everything we do has an element of bear safety, but 24-hour darkness means we don't see them often.



View of Longyearbyen from the top of Longyearbreen (a nearby glacier that I skied up). Other than that tiny speck of light, there's not much else to see in the dark, other than distant mountains with an eerie white glow from the moon and stars.



Where I spend my free time when I'm not in class, skiing, swimming, or hanging with crazy Europeans.

... I'll try harder to publish my photos with stories in the future. Thanks to Alexis for letting me steal a few shots. Check out his Svalbard photo site at: http://www.longyearbyen.sitew.com/#Home.A

Ode to Friction (how I miss thee)

Thank you, Arctic Oscillation, for the bruise on my bum.

There is a pressure difference between air in the atmosphere at the mid-latitudes (high-pressure) and the high latitudes (low-pressure). The low-pressure zone generates winds that trap cold air over the arctic. Sometimes, however, the pressure systems weaken and cold arctic air is able to move to the south, making it snow in London and Corvallis. Warm air is then able to flow north into the Arctic. This phenomenon, called the Arctic Oscillation, is particularly strong this year. (plagiarized-ish from: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42260)

Longyearbyen is melting. We now have several rivers that have opened up through town (the downfalls of being downhill of 2 major glaciers). Temperatures are about +1 C, but are expected to get up to +8 C. The average temperature for this time of year is normally -16 C. EVERYTHING is covered in a 3-inch thick sheet of ice. Standing up is treacherous, let alone walking the 3 km to get to class or the gym. Some classes are cancelled because the airport is closed and profs are stuck on the mainland, and the grocery store is rapidly running out of fresh food. I've survived by making friends with the guys on my hall who own crampons. We're all still at the point where it's just funny (giggling while crawling up the hill), but I DO hope it gets cold again soon...

Am still LOVING it here though. More stories and pictures to come (falling through sea ice, learning norwegian, safety course results, surviving a blizzard while on a glacier ETC...)

Adjø!

norzern liiiiights

I just ate rudolph. He didn't taste very good. I think in the future I'll just let him stay in the air and off my plate. So much for being a vegetarian.

Safety course started today. It's 6 days of 13-hours-a-day training on how to survive in the arctic. It's strange that I (the perpetually cold sun-lover that I am) should love this extreme cold environment already, but I do. It's exhilarating to know that the second you step outside the bounds of this tiny town you're in an untouched wilderness that has never been tamed. Plus I just love the snowball fights, skiing, and child-like antics that result from having powder blanket every surface.

Longyearbyen itself is a former mining community. While the mines are no longer active, the culture of the town is still based around mining. There is old mining equipment everywhere, and you have to take off your shoes before entering any public space (the school, stores, the library). In historic times, this was to stop coal dust from being tracked everywhere. It's quite a wonderful tradition though, so it's maintained today. Everyone walks around UNIS (my school) in slippers and long-johns. The town is still run on coal that is mined in nearby Svea. Our heat is based on hot water that is pumped throughout the town through a maze of very visible pipes, and there is a heating station right near my barrack. This means COLD water is actually a hot commodity, and we run out of it. Nobody likes drinking warm water, so the general practice is to pour a glass and stick it in the fridge. This means we use coal to heat our water, and then coal (in the form of electricity) to cool it again before we drink it. It makes perfect sense.

...Was just dragged outside mid post-writing to see the most magnificent northern lights we've had yet. Our resident crazy french dude went up and down the hall yelling 'norzern liiiights, norzern liiiiights!' I flopped down on my back in the snow and watched them dance across the sky- brilliant green blossoming from above the mountaintops and moving across the sky to set behind the glacier. Does it get any better than this?

Day 1: complete with skiing and northern lights

The problem with 47 hours of travel, a 9 hour time difference, and 24-hour darkness is that 'jet lag' becomes too mild of a term. SAT time-- Jetlag : toothpick as my-body's-sense-of-time : amazon rainforest. Despite this analogy, however, I'm happily settling in to life in Longyearbyen. Travel here was relatively painless- only a few snaffoos about my lack of a Norwegian visa and my inability to keep my lunch in my stomach on airplanes.

I think I'm going to love it here. The other students I've met so far are delightful, my barrack is cozy, and Longyearbyen is a veritable winter wonderland with 8 inches of dry powder. Because the air is so dry here, the -18 C temperatures aren't bone-chilling, so I'm expecting to spend lots of time out enjoying the snow.

In a few hours I'm trekking up to the top of a nearby glacier (Longyearbreen) with some guys who have been here since August. They're going to teach me how to telemark ski, despite my best attempt to convince them that me on skis in the dark is a bad idea.

(edit from a few hours later: I survived!! And I saw the northern lights!!)