Tromso

A visit up into the Arctic Circle has been on my to do list for a while now. There's something about being that far north that seems pretty special. When Matty suggested that I might like to join them when Ching came to visit I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately the timing for her holiday wasn't ideal for chasing the elusive Northern Lights but still too good of a holiday to turn down.

Tromso is the second largest city in the Arctic Circle (70,000 people Keithy) and home to a multitude of "northern most.." claims. The northern most university, northern most brewery, you get the idea. During summer they have 2 months where there is no darkness, known as the Midnight Sun. Sounds great until you realise that that also means they have 2 months in winter where they don't get any light. Yikes. It's also known as one of the best places in the world to see the Aurora Borealis as it's right in the middle of the "zone". You can't see the Northern Lights in summer but from mid-August it's possible. We knew we were pushing our luck with the timing, being end of August, but Ching only had a week and we figured optimism is key!

The weather forecast was most definitely not in our favour but we took off with hopeful ideas that it might clear! Unfortunately it was not to be. Friday dawned grey, as did Saturday and Sunday. Not just grey as in no sun but grey as in low cloud, couldn't see more than a couple of k from the high viewing points kind of grey. A bit disappointing as we missed all the views of the supposedly 'spectacular fjords and majestic mountains' but we made the most of our time there.

We went to a few museums and learnt about the Sami people, their history and how the Norwegians tried to completely eradicate their culture. Luckily they saw sense and change is happening, with the Sami language now able to be spoken at schools and their cultural traditions observed more openly. I just wanted one of their cute hats. We also looked into doing a Sami tour/reindeer ride but it was a bit of a money making scheme at $200+ NZD for about 4 hours of activities and a bowl of soup.

Another museum was about the arctic explorers which I really enjoyed, until I got to the parts about all the polar bears and whales and cute baby seals they caught. I will admit to trying whale while I've been in Norway. It's a very traditional meal here but not very common in the south. Matty managed to find some at the sushi shop in Stavanger and it was pretty damn tasty, even if not very pc. I wasn't too bothered by it until we saw all the museums in Tromso and how gruesome it is for the poor whale when they're killed. The sight of the huge steaks of whale meat in all the fish shops put me off a bit as well. It's really red and bloody and apparently they normally cook it like a steak. Hmmmm not so sure about that.  

Ching's birthday on the Saturday was a great excuse to blow a bit of cash on a delicious seafood meal and to test out the infamous King Crab. It was pretty damn delicious but unfortunately my income, or lack of, will mean I'm not dining in quite that style for a wee while.

Overall it was a great trip and well worth the effort to get up north, even if the Northern Lights didn't show themselves. I've been told that you can sometimes see them in Uppsala so will be keeping my eyes open for that!!