Local exteriors & irritating conditions

So, where does she do her shopping? What does the Longyearbyen school look like? And the hospitaI?

Maybe these are the kind of questions you´ve been asking yourselves for a while (or maybe not). Well, seek no further, underneath you´ll find photos of some important buldings in the Longyearbyen community.

Looking up the main street. Svalbardbutikken on the left hand side. The one and only place to buy groceries.

Across from Svalbardbutikken, you´ll find the "mall" Lompensenteret, shops, library, pub, cafe, restaurant and hairdresser under one roof.


The hospital.


Longyearbyen school, with the sportscenter on the left.


What´s hard to appreciate from these pictures is the cold wind and the lashing snow and the perilously slippery streets. We had some mild weather a few days ago, and that turned most of the roads into ice rinks. I´ve fallen twice today - I´m sure that if I´d been a porous old lady I´d have broken my hip both times.

I can deal with the wind and the snow - it´s not that cold, so it doesn´t bother me much. What really irritates me are the icy streets. I hate it when I can´t just stride along.



Oh, by the way - maybe you´re curious about the election? As I thought, Arbeiderpartiet did well, they got 7 out of 15 places in Lokalstyret. Tverrpolitisk fellesliste got 4, Høyre 3, Svalbardlista 1 and Fremskrittspartiet got 0 (it´s kind of nice to live in a place where Fremskrittspartiet has no representatives in the local government).

But only 637 out of 1.563 decided to vote, 40,3 %. What a shame.