Joyful sorrow: Time flies and this adventure is ending

A sunset. Note this picture has been edited (foreground darkened, and house lights brushed out.

I cannot believe that I it is just a few days until I am home. Time has been flying by (in most ways). I am so close to getting to be home, to see Nicole and Jax,  and to see family.

I have been working on a draft of a paper about the work I have been doing here. The deadline is approaching quickly, but I have an extension, I need my co-authors to read over the draft, improve it, etc. Being almost done also means I have been getting ready to leave, packing, laundry, cleaning and moving out of the apartment, submitting forms, and starting to say goodbye to people.

Saying goodbye is bitter sweet, it is sad to leave friends, but I think I will see many of them again, and or work with them in the future. It also means I made friends, something I do not do that often.

Looking back, I feel positive about my fellowship experience. It was not without difficulties and frustrations but that is always the case.  But I really think the people I have met and friendships I have made, not to mention the work I have done and been a part of, have been worth it. I have had the opportunity to join many project meetings and get involved in other NPI work. I have attended some meetings that have given me insight into how large projects are planned and managed. The people at NPI have really welcomed me into their group and community and it has made it much easier.
I had a chance to watch some proper football (i.e. soccer to all my North American friends), join in Friday beers with colleagues, see some movies, an opera and a couple of symphony/orchestra/choir performances.

 I am very thankful for the Research Council of Norway funding that made this experience possible. The Leiv Eirikssen mobility programme has given me this wonderful opportunity to work with world class researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute,  and on a personal level, allowed me to meet and get to know some people that I hope (and expect) to be lifelong friends and even collaborators. If you are a Canadian or a Norwegian looking to go to Canada or the US on a LEMP, I strongly encourage you to apply and am always willing to answer some questions.

And I really need to thank my wife, Nicole. Of course when you go somewhere people always have questions and are excited for you and when you go somewhere you have this excitement of being somewhere new, doing new things, meeting new people. But it wouldn't be possible without the love and support of my wife who manages everything back home, easily handling everything plus the little bit that I used to do.

Yesterday was a great last day in Tromso, considering I worked. But there was Christmas lunch and then I went out for some drinks with the few friends who were still around (Angelika even came out after just landing from a vacation in Turkey!). Sebastian asked me what was my most unexpected thing, and I gave an answer, but I really still cannot decide, most things I was expecting.

I was expecting it to be expensive here, but really not fully prepared or understanding of how expensive some things are. I was expecting the wonderful access to nature, to enjoying hiking and hoping to do some fishing, but really not appreciating just how great it is, how accessible it is and how beautiful it is here, though I am not a fan of the amount of rain they get here, which now turns the roads and snow into giant skating rinks. I was definitely not expecting it to be so hard to find a place to live, this was probably the most difficult part of the entire trip, and really, it was not that terrible.
I was not expecting to make such good friends with people as I tend not to anymore, maybe that is changing.

Well that is it for this adventure.  I am at the airport in Tromso now (9:45), but I don't leave for a few hours. I guess I could have gone to work but I felt it would be an easier departure just to leave from my apartment. Here I can get some work done and write this blog post. I fly to Oslo around noon and then go to Amsterdam.  I will spend one night in Boskoop visiting family before leaving Amsterdam tomorrow morning.  I then fly to Warsaw, Poland, then to Toronto (on the new 787 Dreamliner), and then finally to Edmonton. I get to Edmonton Friday at 1am edmonton time, so about 48hrs from now.
The short visit with my family will be very nice and also breaks up my trip a little bit.

It is shaping up to be a busy semester.  I have to prepare for fieldwork that will begin in the middle of March, in a part of the Arctic I have not been to before! This will mean a lot of work but I am very excited for it. At least there will be a bit of break with Christmas, depending on how much work I try to do on my paper.

Nicole's Visit: Tromsø

Well it is Friday, I have worked more than 70hrs in the past 6 days (Sat-Thurs), so I am going to write a short blog post about the last bit of Nicole's visit while I take a break for tea. Admittedly we did not do as much as we probably should have in terms of site seeing or hiking and so on, but we had the opportunity to spend some time together, even just chilling out watching a movie was very very nice.

After arriving back in Tromsø from Bergen we had one week left.  Saturday night we just hung out, got some groceries, etc.  On Sunday we did more of the same but we went to the Tromsø TIL vs Rosenborg game. Rosenborg was ranked number 1 and Tromsø is doing pretty badly this year but because Rosenborg is number 1 there was a lot of Tromsø fans hoping for an unlikely win, and TIL delivered. This was a good game to watch because we were near a section of die-hard TIL fans who were chanting and singing the entire game.  The officiating was pretty terrible (linesmen made several incorrect off-side calls, but hey they can't always be perfect). That was really nice.

On Monday and Tuesday we did a bit of shopping and looking a round town, but we did a lot of relaxing, reading a book, sleeping in late, it was great. On Tuesday night we picked up the fishing rods from Gunnar and Gabi and quickly said hi to Mats who was celebrating his birthday at the bar.  On Wednesday it was my birthday so we decided to go to Hellastua (Hella) to spend some time outside fishing.  We fished for several hours and had a nice hour bus ride each way. We did not keep any of the fish we caught, they were mostly too small, but Hella is such a beautiful spot, it does not matter.

We cooked ourselves a nice supper that night and watched a movie.  On Thursday we had a great dinner with Gunnar, Gabi and Jen. It was fantastic! On Friday Nicole and I joined people from work for an end of the week beer and we looked at the Tromsø food festival but decided we felt like cooking ourselves and enjoying our last evening together. On Saturday morning Nicole left.  

It was a great holiday and though it was very sad to have Nicole leave again, we will see each other in 3 months at the latest though there is the possibility I will see here before then (will let you know if it happens).

Well that is it, enjoy your weekend, as I mentioned yesterday I am hoping to go fishing but am definitely going to another TIL game with friends. Apparently it is an important match because TIL is doing so badly that if they don't win this one, they drop down a division...ouch.

Thoughts and Musings: Being in Norway, my blog and more

My wife Nicole was just here for a visit, we had two weeks of holidays together and it was fantastic. We saw some great sights and most importantly, we spent time together in person.  Even with video and voice chat and nearly constant access to email, it is simply not the same as physically talking to each other.

It was amazing to me that when Nicole came here, the apartment where I am living for the rest of my stay suddenly felt so much more like home, like it was normal. Nicole said she noticed it too. It is hard to describe, it felt like home, it felt lived in, it felt full.  The opposite feeling is easier to describe and I think most people can relate.  As soon as Nicole left (about a week ago now) the apartment felt empty and very quiet, like it was missing something.

As the person who does most of the traveling in our relationship I do not notice this feeling often, the few times Nicole has gone somewhere without me, I have noticed this bit of quiet, but then I was in our home and it did not feel so bad.  Plus I had Jax, my dog with me, and well I can at least play with him, and heck even talk to him (if that makes me crazy, so be it, at least he doesn't answer me back).

Now don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm not having a good time here, I am, I love it here, I could easily live in Tromsø. It's beautiful, close to mountains, small and friendly. It just was very nice to have Nicole here.

On a more positive side, this weekend I will go to another Tromsø TIL football (soccer) match.  TIL is doing terrible in their league so in order to make sure they have fans at the game they have lowered the price of all tickets to 50 NOK (less than $10).  In contrast, tickets are usually between 150 and 300 NOK.
Also, Tromsø did make it into the UEFA Europa league this year, albeit on a technicality.  Another team from Turkey was removed because of match fixing, so TIL advanced. But this means we will have three international teams here in Tromsø to play, one from Russia, one from Moldova, and the Tottenham Hotspurs from the UK.  I splurged and bought a ticket pack for all three games.  The crazy thing to me is that right now it is getting cooler, highs are around 8-10C during the day and maybe 4C at night, and right now it gets dark pretty early.  The first UEFA game is next week, but the last one is at the end of November. It will be dark and cold, and everyone hopes for snow, as that is the game against Tottenham).

I still find Norway expensive, but have gotten over it a bit, at least in terms of just accepting that everything costs more here. I still don't have a good sense of standard of living in the sense that I don't know what salary bases are.  I hear a bit from fellow scientists that the wage curve flats out sharply at the PhD level, i.e. a post-doc will make the nearly the same as a permanent junior researcher.  PhD students also seem to be paid adequately.

I keep following the news from the U of A back home, and I am really wondering what kind of university I will return to.  Post secondary institutions in Alberta received an average of 11% cuts (once you factor in inflation and a promised 2% funding increase).  As a result, the University has to slash its budget and it has been doing a terrible job on explaining how that will happen.  Grad students and undergrads will definitely be affected, loss of TA positions, increases in tuition and fees are not out of the question.

And finally I have been musing about my blog.  I wonder how it is perceived.  I'd love to talk more about my science and my work, but really I find it hard to a) make the time to write a blog post (write now I'm waiting for the oven to warm up, it's 9pm and I just got home from working a 12+ hour day). I need to eat yet, and if I don't take a little me time, I won't sleep well. The blog is sometimes me time, but othertimes I feel like I need to post and I should post.
I also do want to post more about my work, but honestly, it can be a bit dull, do I show figures I'm working on? Do I try to talk about news in the science field? Do the people who read my blog actually want to see this stuff?  Mostly I think not, maybe a little or something big where I am involved, but otherwise, I think the answer is no.  The blog really was started for my family to follow my life a bit while I travel, and I think they make up my primary audience.  Though I seem to have friends from other countries who read as well (thank you Google for tracking the country of the people who visit my blog). I think it could be fun to do a more sciency blog, and I hope that once I am back in Edmonton and start playing with my arduino I can do that, I will scrap the separate blog and just make the posts here.

Well that is enough on my thoughts for now.  and just because that was a lot of text, here is a picture:

Johnston Canyon, Oct 2012.

T - 24 hours until I see my wife!

Well it's been a bit over 3 months, but now it is less than 24 hours until I see Nicole. As you might imagine I am a little excited.  Will be nice to see her and visit with her. We have some exciting plans, a trip to Oslo and Bergen (by train, bus and fjord cruise), a World Cup qualifying match, and an important match for the local Tromsø IL team.  Otherwise we also have a week with no fixed plans yet, maybe we will do some hiking or exploring, or who knows, I will let you know.

Well off to the second day of the CoreSat kick-off meeting.  Have to leave work a little early today, need to do some laundry, pick up a few items for Nicole's arrival, and I want to make sure the apartment is clean.

WHOA! IT'S BEEN THREE MONTHS!

Today while walking to work I realized that it's now been more than three months since I left Edmonton, and more than three months since I arrived in Tromso. That is three months that I have not seen my wife or my dog. Of course it has also meant I haven't had to do many household chores either (I vacuumed a couple times, and have done some cleaning and lots of dishes, and cooking and even walked a dog (Yukon)). At least with Skype and Apple FaceTime Nicole and I can video chat, still not the same as being with each other but better than a phone call or a text message or email.
But Nicole comes on Saturday, that will be nice (understatement).  We will do a bit of traveling within Norway and just enjoy some time together. Jax is spending a couple weeks with Nicole's parents.  He likes camping with the camper van.  Nicole said he hopped right in, no concern at all.  We met with Nicole's parents once at Lake Louise and even I can admit as a die hard fan of tenting that it can be awfully nice to sit in a warm dry place....Jax fully agreed, and I think he liked that the camper van had windows while the tent does not.  Nicole mom did say the he wimpered a bit once he realized Nicole wasn't with them and wasn't joining (which makes me quite sad), though we know he will have an amazing time.  Jax loves Nicole's parents and their dog tupper (who doesn't want a border collie for a best friend).

Things here are progressing nicely and I am finally starting to feel a bit settled in.  On Monday I went to the police station to get my temporary residence card (which will come in the mail). And this past weekend I moved into my apartment, so I am no longer relying on the extreme kindness of my friends....who now have a place to stay if they ever come to Canada... My apartment is okay, it will do for the next four months but isn't somewhere I'd want to stay long term. It is not that there is anything wrong with it but it is a bit far from work, and is in a massive apartment complex.  Here on Tromso there are many small apartments, rooms for rent in houses that it would be a shame to live in a complex when you could get something with character and soul (and fewer neighbors).

That said, Tromso has about 10,000 students and in a town of 60,000-65,000 people that is quite something.  So when the students start looking in June and July, the rush is on and it is difficult to find something.  There have been plenty of newspaper articles about students unable to find a place to live and last year some students were living in the fire station for a few months.

I still find Norway expensive, but just don't think about it as much.  It is best not to price shop too much and while I was going to do a little blog post on costs of groceries and so forth, I decided it would just make me think more about how expensive it is here....we will see...maybe in a few weeks as right now I am way behind on blogging/posting.

I feel that I have made some lifetime friends here, already, hopefully this is true. It has been great to meet you people and strangely I often feel more in place here at NPI than I do at the U of A. Maybe this is just because NPI is friendly and filled with people who study the same thing as me. Back at the U of A, my office mate and fellow PhD student Alec Casey are some of the only people studying sea ice in the Arctic (there are a few others though we never really meet with them).

When I was staying with Gunnar Spreen and his wife Gabrielle I was working slightly different hours than I am used to, sleeping in a bit and starting work at 9 but then staying until 7 pm or so. This was kinda nice, and I had a really great time staying with Gunnar and Gabrielle (more on that in another post).

Friday afternoon usually means a beer at the end of the work day at 4:30pm, which is nice.  We go to Olhallen, which is a very old pub in Tromso right next to the old Mack brewery (it is closed).  The pub closes at 6pm so it is a good place for an after work beer.  I am not much of a beer drinker but these Friday afternoon beers are helping.  I usually get a Blanding (spelling may be incorrect)..it is a mix of a light and dark beer.  You can get it at most bars in Tromso but the amount of light beer vs dark beer changes with each bar. I'm still not crazy about it, but at least the second one always goes down smoother than the first.

Oh, and work is going okay too.  Met with Christian (my supervisor) yesterday as he is here in Tromso for a meeting this week.  It never ceases to amaze me how valuable his insight is and how quickly he can provide some ideas that take me from not being confident of what I am thinking or what to do next to having a plan.

Okay, well I want to write at least one more blog post this morning before starting work, so I better get to it.

Sorry there are no pictures in this post.  I think my monthly summary post will be text....unless there are some great summary pictures. But there should be a post on my weekend trips the past couple weeks and hopefully I will share some of my travels with Nicole.

Fram Strait

Tomorrow I leave Norway, sort of, and not for home but for Svalbard.

I am flying to Longyearbyen, Svalbard before heading out on the research vessel (R/V) Lance. I will be joining the Norwegian Polar Institute Fram Strait Cruise. The cruise heads across Fram Strait to the east coast of Greenland.

Arctic MOSIAC from NASA MODIS sensor on Terra Satellite. We will be going between Greenland and Svalbard (which is mostly hidden by clouds in this picture). Click the caption to be taken to the full size image. I acknowledge the use of Rapid Response imagery from the Land Atmosphere Near-real time Capability for EOS (LANCE) system operated by the NASA/GSFC/Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) with funding provided by NASA/HQ.

I will spend a couple days in Longyearbyen beforehand to prepare equipment, help with packing/sorting, getting assigned my polar gear and some shooting training and a few other tasks.

The main objective of the cruise is the retrieval of oceanographic instrument packages called moorings (because they are anchored to the sea floor). The moorings will be serviced and redeployed to collect another year of data.  But while this happens there will be sea ice stations and airborne EM ice thickness surveys. I hope we will manage an EM flight along a CryoSat-2 track, would be of very high interest for me. The oceanographers will also perform CTD and tracer measurements.

CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth/pressure) is a standard suite of measurements that can give you a lot of information on the structure of the ocean and where parts of the water originate.  Different regions form waters with different characteristics that show up as characteristic layers in the ocean.  Conductivity is just a measure of how well the water conducts electricity and then gives you an idea of how salty the water is. I think you all know what temperature and pressure are.

The cruise is going much closer to the coast of Greenland than when I joined in 2010, so I am looking forward to that. It will be nice to get on the ice again.  I always like seeing the ice in summer/freeze up, it looks completely different than in spring. Fram Strait is also a different region and has a different ice regime.  In the Lincoln Sea, the ice often moves against the coast and you have very thick ice.  In Fram Strait, ice is drifting out of the Arctic Ocean and move south.

Here is an ice chart produced by the Norwegian Meteorological Service. The different colors show the different ice concentrations.

Sea Ice Concentration for today, August 7, 2013. Courtesy of Met.NO at http://wms.met.no/icechart/

I will try to blog, at least with text and hopefully an odd picture or two (though they will have to be very small and very low resolution).

Two Months: Boy Time Flies

Hey Everyone,

Well I have now been in Norway for 2 months and away from home for just an extra week more than that.  Things here are generally pretty good. The high cost of food and so forth doesn't bother me as much as it did (and maybe not as much as it should). Maybe next week (if I remember, I will post some pictures of food, and then the prices).  I'll also try to do the same while I am on Svalbard as a comparison and maybe see if I can get someone back in Canada to send me some prices on a few select items.

I still haven't received my residence permit.  The system is just backed up or delayed or whatever.  I have spoken with the immigration office numerous times but there is not much to be done about it. The decision is now 5 weeks over their targeted processing time.  Part of the reason is undoubtedly that many Norwegians take extensive holidays in the summer, making sure to enjoy the good weather and all the daylight hours.  Otherwise, most thing are sorted out, or nearly so.

Work is going well, spending lots of time in front of my computer.  I am working on two main projects right now, one for this exchange and one more directly related to my thesis.  As a result I end up working many 12-16 hour days but that is okay, it is what I am here for. The past two weeks I have been house sitting and enjoyed working on a deck overlooking the ocean; it made it a little easier to work late each night.

On Thursday I will head to Svalbard and then on R/V Lance for a research cruise to Fram Strait off the east coast of Greenland.  I will be on the boat for just about 3 weeks.  I don't know if I will have the chance to blog from the boat. I will try, otherwise I will just write the blog posts up and then upload them when I return to internet land.

When I return to Tromso my supervisor visits Tromso for a few days. Then, and much more exciting (sorry Christian), my wife Nicole arrives for her visit just a few days later. She and I will take a few holidays together. I am really looking to seeing my wife, and imagine I will be looking to it even more in another month. We can still communicate fairly regularly using email, Facebook, FaceTime and Skype but it is not the same.  We will be doing a little sightseeing in Norway and just spending some time together.  We only get a couple weeks together, but that is so much better than no visit at all.  I am very excited to see her and talk to her and sightsee with her.

Thinking on all my trips, my workaholic nature and love of my research, I realize how lucky I am to have such an understanding and supportive wife.  Someone asked me once how we (as a couple) deal with the absences, and it is still a question to be answered.  I feel like time apart is definitely good for couples, you miss each other, appreciate all the little things each other does and so forth.  I guess both of us also don't want to be the person who is holding the other one back from doing what they love and/or what will help their career.

Unfortunately for her,Nicole definitely gets the short end of the stick, I travel far more than she does and for much longer periods. It is easier to be the person who goes away, they are usually on an adventure or seeing something new or some new country. The person back home gets to do all the household work without help and without the excitement of a new place.
While I am here in Norway I do have to look out for myself but I still have the excitement of new people, a new place and culture.  Although honestly, I have probably been doing far to much working and far to little enjoying my surroundings.

Buoy Update: IT'S HEADING NORTH!!!

So remember that buoy I was telling you about (well writing actually, but you know what I mean)....anyways, it is doing what I hoped...IT IS HEADING NORTH! for now.

In the map below you can see that it is now even with the Faroe Islands, or about even with Bergen in Norway.

Saturday Morning Hike Up Nordtinden

Wow, there is just not enough time in the day to get done everything I want.
This quick post is just a few pictures from the top of Nordtinden, a 640m mountain near Skulsfjord where I was staying with my friends Harvey and Angelika and their dog Yukon for the past month.

Now, I am temporarily house-sitting for a researcher who works at NPI. His name is Hakon Hop and he is a biologist and an extremely experienced under-ice diver.  I met Hakon in 2010 when I joined two cruises with NPI.  He is going on a cruise for two weeks and his family is going to Canada to visit relatives. So this luckily Canadian is house sitting in a BEAUTIFUL house with an great view.

The house is near Tonsvik, another small town near Tromso (about 22km away).  The bus connections and internet are a bit better here than in Skulsfjord, but I already notice how quiet it is without Yukon, Harvey and Angelika (probably no great fishing trips in store for me for the next two weeks).

OKAY, back to the real blog post content, my hike up Nordtinden.  Saturday morning I woke up and checked the weather forecast.  It was going to be overcast until 2pm and then start raining, and it would keep raining all day Saturday and Sunday.  So I decided I better take Yukon out while I could stay dry.

Nordtinden is the mountain you can see in this blog post, 7th picture down (from my last longer hiking trip near Skulsfjord). (or you can just look below for the small version, the link has a bigger version).

Nordtinden

I wanted to climb up this the last time, but did not, I was tired already and so I just went to the small waterfall you can see in the picture above.

So by about 10:30, off I went with Yukon.  It was a nice hike, the very beginning and a short bit near the end were the steepest sections but overall a nice hike, not too difficult.

The clouds were low on Saturday, very low, sometimes they would buildup and surround me and Yukon and then quickly fade away.  Luckily when I got to the top we had a bit of a break, the clouds where a bit above us and away from the views.

Well that's all for this post.  Want to work a bit on the post about a buoy....coming up very soon I hope, just need to analyze some of the data for you to give you a few figures and facts.