The Coming Of Winter

The last couple weeks have been a wintry blur of applications, snow, boring labwork, boring computer exercises, and beautiful auroras. The last blog entry I had was at the end of the cruise, and I apologize that I haven't updated more recently.

The Saturday after we returned from our cruise, the annual Kitchen to Kitchen party was held. Each kitchen that signed up decorated based on a theme and then the partygoers went from kitchen to kitchen partying in each for around an hour. As part of the party-planning committee, I was involved with the set-up and preparation for the event. My kitchen was doing a Tropical Paradise theme, which was a fun idea, but difficult to pull off in the northernmost town in the world. We made paper palm trees and turned the sterile fluorescent lights into warm suns. It looked really welcoming and even now, three weeks later, we have kept the decorations up. We also bought three pineapples and turned them into punch and hats. The party was initially fun, I was happy to see that the hard work over the past weeks was being enjoyed by my classmates. But then a large group of very tall, very drunk Dutch men arrived, all wearing capes and in general being disruptive. I guess I'm glad they were having a good time, but by the time it was time to go to my tropical kitchen, they had started lifting girls and throwing them over their shoulders, chanting "Yes! Yes! No!" whenever there was a break in the music, and in general just being destructive. They kept trying to change my tropical dance remix playlist to something else. I had to take a break after that, sitting in my room and eating snacks. As I was a member of the party committee, I had to help vote for best kitchen. We chose the "Cloud Kitchen" for their impressive decorations and themed blue and white shots, though to be honest, everyone was so tired that the decision was not deliberated on for very long. We spent half an hour running around Nybyen from building to building as snow fell around us.  Being in a tropical themed t-shirt and shorts made me one cold partygoer. We finally found some people from that kitchen and I was able to sleep. The next day, I learned that one of the tables had been broken.

I decided to re-visit Santa Claus Mine that day and found that there was an entire wing of the mine that I hadn't even seen, and, with my headlamp, I was able to explore much more.

The following week was not particularly interesting, but I enjoyed the nightly auroras. On Monday, I was startled to hear joyful whooping of "Aurora!" echoing through the hallway of the dorm. I threw on my jacket and boots and ran outside. In the sky a green glow was pouring across the sky in thin ribbons. There was a liquidness to the movement that I didn't expect, and the faintness of the light was a surprise. Being above the auroral oval, the oval that marks the maximum aurora brightness, the northern lights over Svalbard are actually not as brilliant as those further south. Long exposure cameras make the aurora seem brighter than it really is as well. But it was still a miraculous sight. I now check the aurora forecast every night (http://kho.unis.no/Forecast.htm). 

I spent a large portion of the next weekend working on my Gates-Cambridge application, a stressful activity that came to a head on Wednesday, the due date. The website kept crashing and I had to retype all my essays. Thankfully I turned everything on time, which was a huge relief. 

The days have been getting shorter and shorter, but on Friday, the world turned to winter like a light switch. I woke up and it was dark, barely lighter than night. Overnight, a thick layer of snow has built up all over Longyearbyen. Before it had been a thin layer on the mountains, but now there are areas that are more than a foot deep. My friend Sarah and I walked through the deep snow before it had been plowed and enjoyed an amazing breakfast of Scandinavian waffles at the Radisson Hotel before class. The power went out briefly and we watched in darkness as the blue-tinted world of the polar night lightened shade by shade. That evening, I made a snowman and made hot spiced wine and vegetarian Greek stew (stifado). 

The next morning, I went on a very snowy hike to the top of Sarkofagen, the nearby plateau, with my friends. The morning...er noontime... was beautifully sunny, but by the time we got to the top of the mountain, the sun was already beginning to set.

As winter begins in earnest, I hope to see lots more auroras, drink more hot drinks, make more snowmen, and maybe get some more graduate school applications done.