Hurtigruten Cruise

Well another fantastic day at the conference, plus an excellent activity to talk about.
Today the local organizers had organized one of three activities for each person...hiking, fishing or a bus/ferry trip.  I decided to do the bus/ferry trip in order to go see some of the Norwegian countryside.  The bus tour was okay, crossed a few fjords on ferries and saw some nice fjords and mountain scenery.
Our bus even went through a couple tunnels, one through the center of a mountain, and the other below a fjord.
Then we boarded a Hurtigruten Cruise ship for a 4 hour ride back to Tromso through the fjords.  This was quite nice.  I treated myself to an expensive dinner in ships restaurant.  The meal was three courses and included seafood soup, reindeer steak and a cloudberry dessert.


It was nice to sit on the boat and watch the scenery as we cruised along.

Another late night but a good one.

Tromso's Midnight Sun

I admit, this blog post is written long after I have returned from Tromso, but wanted to post some pictures and update the blog.


On Tuesday, June 1 was Ben's birthday (Ben is the other student in our research group), we went with some friends/colleagues to look for some food and a drink.  We went to the student pub in town but the kitchen was closed so we went to another restaurant (Il Mare). The food was alright, the company better.  However it did take two hours from arriving in the restaurant to get our food (and there were only 10 of us). 

After supper we decided to go to the Tromso cable car and head up the hill.

At this time of year in Tromso, the midnight sun is in full swing.

There was even a little shack on the hill....not sure what for. We paused for some scotch and then decided to go back to the cable car in order to catch the last car back down.  All in all a good day.

Oh as far as the conference itself was concerned, more excellent talks and the first poster session was this afternoon.  I had lots of interest in my poster about my research at Miquelon Lake, which is always nice.  I try to design posters so that people will come up and talk to me, so that I'm not bored for the 2.5 hours of the poster session.  This poster did a good job.

Tromso: Update

Hey All,

So here I am in Tromso.  I left Edmonton on Saturday, May 29th at 4am (from my house).  I got to Tromso at 4pm local time (8am Edmonton) on Sunday, May 30th.  It was a long trip with delays, overcrowded planes, and crabby service people. I don't sleep on planes until I get exhausted, so finally on the way from Oslo to Tromso I started falling asleep but by then it was mid-afternoon and I try to force my body to switch to local time by staying up so I did.  I went to the icebreaker/registration, had two free drinks and some finger food.  As I don't know many people and am shy I didn't talk to many new people but i did see some familiar faces.  Christian has also introduced me to some of the senior scientists.

So Sunday nights sleep was good despite waking up numerous times.  On Monday the conference opened and the day was filled with good talks. We had a nice lunch (fish, rice) and another free drink.  There are also numerous coffee/snack breaks throughout the day.  Didn't do much Monday night besides eat a cold supper of some bread with cheese and meet and a salad that I made at the grocery store.

Food is expensive here, very expensive, as are drinks so yeah I am trying to like like a hermit.

 It is absolutely beautiful here, there is fresh snow on the surrounding mountain tops.  The conference has been really good, lots of interesting talks, good food, nice people and I'm feeling less tired.

Today was my first poster session. I actually had a fair number of people come by and ask me about it (some where doing it for the student poster award (which I won't win)), but others were just genuinely interested.  I met some top researchers, discussed my work and even the possibility of future work.

Tonight we may go out for some cheapish food and drinks as it is Ben's birthday.  I'm not really keen to go spend money but I should have some fun, right?

Otherwise, tomorrow is my bus/boat cruise so expect pictures the following day. Otherwise I have little to report. Tromso is expensive, but the people are friendly.

Well that is it for now.

Justin

Off again

Well today I depart for Norway for a sea ice conference. Thus is an international conference with most of the major sea ice researchers showing up. For me it is a good way to go to Norway, present some of my research and to look at others research, learn and network. I'm exhausted from not sleeping more than an hour last night, probably worrying about sleeping in.

I'm excited to go to Norway as I've never been and because it is supposed to be beautiful. I'll also be seeing some colleagues/friends and meeting with my cruise leader for my august trip. I'm also hoping to get some work done and doing a little sight seeing.

Well it is 5am Edmonton time and I arrive in tromso tomoorw at 4pm tromso time, so I have a long day ahead of me. In order to go cheap I had to book through Houston and Newark then Oslo. Oh well.

That's it for now, maybe we'll see how my mood changes by the time i get to Oslo. I usually don't sleep on planes but will try