I both love and hate what my body's becoming. That is to say, I went to bed after midnight last night and woke up before 7:30 today with no alarm. That's before even Denny was awake, judging by the fact that he was going towards the shower as I was getting out of the shower. It's a stark contrast with back home.

Friday we went to see the university museum, some cool natural history stuff there. The most interesting part was a series of digital polls next to almost every piece of the exhibit to get the opinions of those attending. Things ranging from whether or not the Minke Whale hunt should be continued, to the priorities of farm animals and predators, to whether or not man and apes have a common ancestors. After you answered, it showed you the percentage of yes's and no's from both English-speakers and Norse-speakers who had answered. (I was surprised to see on the evolution one how many Norse-speakers said no, over 20%!). There was also a photo exhibition of cultural things from Afghanistan, interestingly, a fair bit on the Sampi or Sami or Same people, the indigenous peoples of Norway and Scandanavia in general (or Finnmark), and a geology bit that I zipped through because none of it was new. The store had a few neat things, not the least of which was some Viking board game that looked like chess only not, but Norway is pricy.

I left a little before the group and got lost on the way back, ended up wandering a long time until I found Anh and Denny again. Apparently the rest of the group had found a sledding hill and went sledding while I was lost. These things happen. Got back to the hotel, rested, dinner I'm unfortunately having trouble remembering. Swaffie, Becky and I went out to try to see the Northern Lights, but it was cloudy so we just walked. The cemetery was pretty cool, one grave had an eternal flame (actually a few candles around it, plus an eternal flame). The snow was well over the flames, though, so there was just sort of an eerie glow coming out of holes in the snow near the grave. We met the main group on the way back in, who apparently did see the lights later on that night, but I was pretty cold. We spent the rest of the night watching youtube videos, including Swaffie introducing us to Drunken History, which is hilarious.

Woke up, ate breakfast, got ready, off to catch the bus. Through the airport, John met a guy there and talked to him a bit about cars. Apparently Norway has compulsory service, so he told us a little bit about the army too. get worried because I'm seated next to a couple with an on-and-off crying child. They suggest I move to an open seat nearby, I do, the child must have been at least somewhat quiet because I slept the whole flight.

Apparently we were supposed to arrange a bus BEFORE arriving in Spitzbergen/Svalbard, but it got worked out easily enough. The airport's right on the ocean, so when you arrive you can see both the water and these towering mounds of snow and ice. This place is definitely different from Tromso. Tromso had snow-covered mountains with trees growing up this. This place is just mountains of snow. We saw four or so tufts of grass... next to the road... once. As vegetation goes, that's it so far. Got to our hotel, got our rooms set up (I'm in a quad, two bunk beds, with John, Swaffie, and Nate), rested.

A group went down to get groceries, no one told us exactly when they left so John, Nate and I dashed after them, eventually catching up. We saw a couple reindeer (caribou) off in the distance, and the grocery store as a bit farther than we thought, but it wasn't too bad. My mustache definitely froze though. Get to the store, start rounding up stuff, interesting policy here, there's a limit on how much alcohol you can buy if you don't live here. I just picked up a six pack of a brand called Mack's which, according to the Brits there, is brewed in Tromso and as local of a beer as I can find. My card had all sorts of issues with their computer system, but I finally got it taken care of and we headed back. John had a lengthy discussion with David about American vs. European education systems, which was interesting.

Relaxing in the room, dinner was hot dogs, salad and spinach. Pretty good. The juice here is just normal juice, unfortunately. In Tromso we had ultra-concentrated stuff that you mixed 1 to 4 or so with water, which was useful. After dinner I basically just relaxed in the room all night, had one of my beers (it's pretty good), talked with Swaffie and John a long time (Nate had been invited to some party, how I have NO idea), mostly John telling reprehensible stories. Like he does. Finally fell asleep and here I am.

Saturday, March 27th, roughly 7:40-8 AM local time