More images from Barentsburg

We bought cards in Barentsburg, here are a few of them.














Presumably from the town´s golden days (it says 1976 on the jacket).

Daylight in Barentsburg

And cats. Here´s one, the nearest I´ve been to one in more than 8 months.


Here´s some other things we saw:

Colours and dirt.



Coal.





Other snowmobiles visiting.



We came with William´s sister Ida and her family, Torstein, Mathea and Lina.


A great trip! And great to have seen what Barentsburg actually looks like, despite the shabbiness.

A word about Svalbardposten

Every week on the backpage of the local paper Svalbardposten, there´s a friendly interview with someone in town. A tourist, local worker or just anyone who happens to hang around the shopping area. This week, the editor met Thomas and Peter and Peter´s friend Simon and interviewed them. Here´s how it went:


There are two things to say about this (except the obivous, that we think the whole thing is rather amusing, and that we´re not surprised by Thomas´ behaviour during the interview):

1. The Coke-drinking was not authorized - we didn´t know anything about it. If they´d asked, we would have said that soft drinks are for special occasions only. So you could certainly say the boys have been caught in the act.

2. Svalbardposten has not written anything about my exhibition at Galleri Svalbard, not a word. It´s nice that the local press interviews my boys, but I must admit that I´m a bit insulted that this is the kind of stuff they´d rather write. So, mr editor Birger Amundsen (if you should happen to google yourself, and read this), I am not impressed.

Kapp Laila again

The cabin at Kapp Laila has somehow become "our" cabin here at Svalbard, though we share it with every other employee at UNIS and their families. Last Saturday we were told it was free for the weekend, and decided on the spot to go for one night.

It takes less than one hour and a half to get there by snowmobile, but we took it slow, as the weather was so beautiful.

There was time for some cocoa ...


... skating,


and climbing.


Peter.
Emma.

And Thomas.

Low tide and lots of ice in Coles Bay - here´s Grumant harbour across the bay.




More ice.



Sunday-walk up the nearest mountainside, where we had more cocoa:


A nice view of the cabin, and Isfjorden towards Longyearbyen.



And spied on the locals.




And then we went home to Longyearbyen. Hoping to be back at Kapp Laila real soon.

Here comes the (midnight)sun

Looking due north from our kitchen window around midnight.

26 March

31 March


8 April


15 April

And last night, on the 19th of April - the first day (night) of midnight-sun in Longyearbyen ...


- except this wasn´t taken in Longyearbyen, but at Kapp Laila - where the frozen family went on an overnight-trip, which we returned from a few hours ago.

Here are some more, taken between midnight and one o´clock.




From now on, the sun won´t set until 23rd of August, isn´t that incredible? And wonderful!


Of course, we took loads more pictures on this third trip to Kapp Laila - I´ll probably show you some later. And I promise that those won´t be kitschy sunset-pictures;)