Last week was one of our most boring weeks and this week was pretty crazy! The ‘excitement’ started on Monday when a heating worker came to fix the radiator in Brooklyn’s room, which had been broken since before Christmas break.
He came and banged on the boiler and banged on her radiator and it started heating up! Wow, that was easy! He left and we sat down to dinner and noticed we heard what sounded like bubbles coming out of our second floor radiators. We checked them all and saw nothing wrong so went about our business. When we went to bed a couple hours later, we found our entire dressing room was flooded! All of the water in the heating system had drained out of the radiator in our room, which still had a hole in it from when it burst last Spring. I want to say a lot more about this, but will hold off.
The insurance adjusters came later in the week and explained it would be two to three months of drying the sub floor and then repairing the damage to the floors and walls. Not only would it be our dressing room though, the main part of our bedroom would have to be vacated as moisture was detected in the subfloor there as well. We still aren’t quite sure what we will do with all of the furniture or clothes, or where we will sleep for that time.
Some good news; Matt had his first day of work! He was added to the roster of substitute teachers earlier in the week but they said it would be awhile for training to begin. However, Wednesday night, they called and asked if he could work the next day as they had an emergency come up. He was literally thrown in it when they stuck him in the band room all day but despite some funny incidents, it seemed to go well and Matt was positive about it.
Friday morning, we left for Norway. We were heading to Tromsø, inside the Arctic circle, with the hopes of catching the Northern Lights. The weather was calling for lots of clouds and snow, and low aurora activity though, so we had low expectations.
Nine hours and three flights later, we were there. We walked around a little and had dinner at a restaurant close to the hotel that had burgers and sandwiches that you ordered at the bar. We got four burgers, a side of onion rings, and four drinks. Our bill came to about 1600 NOK, or $160. Eating in Norway is EXPENSIVE!
After dinner, the kids wanted to go to bed so we took them back to the hotel, then stopped at a pub down by the harbor. After a beer, we went to leave and noticed lots of people standing around the harbor front, looking up. At first I was confused but we quickly realized that The Northern Lights were out! We could not believe that we were able to see them, not only due to the weather being what it was, but that we saw them in the middle of the bright city!
Saturday morning, we took a tour to a reindeer farm. We booked the tour through Tromsø Arctic Reindeer, which included bus transportation to and from the city center. I almost NEVER book organized tours, mainly due to the cost (I can usually do it cheaper myself), and because it’s so touristy. But we didn’t want to drive on the icy roads and just about everything included the bus transport for free. After doing a couple of tours this way on the trip, we agreed this was so much less stressful and easy, and something we will be doing more of in the future.
First on the tour, we learned why the reindeer are there. All reindeer in Norway are owned by Sami tribesmen, the indigenous people of Scandinavia. Usually reindeer are not fenced in as they are migratory and move back and forth between the coast and the inner lands, following where they are able to eat vegetation that is under the snow. However, in recent years, the weather has changed and there are periods where it warms up enough to melt the snow, which then re-freezes into ice after a few days. The reindeer are unable to get through the ice to the vegetation underneath, so the Sami tribesman fence them in during the winter and feed them reindeer-feed, which is very expensive. This particular family subsidizes the cost of feeding the reindeer by inviting tourists to pay to come to the farm to feed and visit the reindeer.
We were all given big buckets of feed and told to come back and refill as many times as we wanted. The herders did tell us to spread out because the reindeer would create a mob if too many people were feeding in one area.
The reindeer knew exactly what the buckets were and stuck their heads right in to eat. It was actually kind of hard to get the buckets back because they knew to push their heads all the way to the bottom. If you took too long to get a bucket to some, they would paw at your leg to get your attention. They were so sweet and cute and our entire family was laughing and smiling at one time, which is a good metric for trip activities!
After we were done feeding the reindeer, we got to take a turn on a sleigh ride pulled by the reindeer. It was neat, but also pretty slow. There is no way Santa’s sled can fly if that’s as fast as they go so hopefully they were just holding back!
After our sleigh ride, we went inside a yurt where we were served lunch and told all about the Sami tribes’ history and traditions. Lunch was… reindeer stew, which was really hard to eat after playing with the reindeer all morning. To be honest, it didn’t really have much flavor and paired with the thoughts about the reindeer, I don’t think any of us finished our lunches. The exception was Ryan who ordered the vegetarian option, which was pretty delicious.
One really cool thing that we learned was that reindeer antlers grow up to a centimeter each day and are fragile as a twig. They grow a new set of antlers every winter and once they are done growing, they harden and fall off.
At the end of the day, the bus took us back to Tromsø and we all took a short nap and then grabbed dinner at a pizzeria that ended up costing about $70. It was also one of the worst pizzas I’ve ever had 😝
After our dinner, we headed back to the bus terminal and joined a Northern Lights Chase. Normally, it is too bright in the city to experience the Northern Lights, so you can either go to a camp out in the middle of nowhere, or jump on a bus that will drive around looking for clear, dark skies. I chose the bus because I thought that would give us a better opportunity. We got on at 5:45 and the bus drove us over two hours inland, to a super dark area, just a few minutes from the Finnish border.
Even if we hadn’t seen the lights, it would have been worth it just to look at the sky. It was probably the darkest sky I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars at once time; it was magical! The guide said we would stay here for about an hour and if we didn’t see anything, he would radio other busses in the region to see if we should move to another spot. We were still really guarded with our hopes so were shocked when The Lights appeared within fifteen minutes of arriving at our location. Luckily, the tour came with a professional photographer who was able to take everyone’s pictures, as many times as they wanted.
The lights stayed active while moving to different areas of the sky for about two hours. We walked around and took a ton of videos and pictures. When the lights took a break, our guide built a fire and then explained the scientific phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis. They served hot chocolate and cookies, and after about an hour, the lights started back up again.
By around midnight, the lights were still active but less visible due to clouds so the bus packed up and we headed back to Tromsø. The guides said that we were really lucky to get such a long show. Sometimes they see nothing, and sometimes they drive around until 2am before they see anything. We slept as the bus made the two hour trip back to Tromsø. As soon as we got off the bus we headed back to the hotel and bed. We were shocked though to see how many people were out partying still at 3am. This was not the quiet town we had departed a few hours before.
On Sunday, we slept in til around 11, and at that point, only got up to experience the first sunrise and sunset of the year, at 11:36am and 12:14pm, respectively. Honestly, we couldn’t even tell the difference. Even though the sun was technically above the horizon, it didn’t come over the mountains so it just stayed looking like dusk.
We walked around the town in the afternoon and did some shopping and then ended up walking past Polaria, Tromso’s Arctic aquarium and decided to go in since we didn’t have any other plans. It ended up being pretty great. It wasn’t that big so didn’t take up a lot of time but we definitely enjoyed seeing the seals being fed, and seeing the weird, Arctic fish in the touch tank.
We had dinner at the World’s Northern-most Burger King in an effort to save some money and it was actually pretty good compared to the pizza the night before. I also COULD NOT believe that ketchup packets were out on the counter and there was a soda machine where you could refill your drink. I did not expect such luxuries in such an expensive country.
Monday was our last full day and we got up early for our last excursion, snowmobiling in the Lyngyn Alps. We met the bus at the bus terminal again and rode to a ferry port. There, another guide met us and took us across the fjord, before the final part of the trip, which was walking to where we would meet the snowmobiles.
We got suited up and headed out in a line of snowmobiles on trails through the mountains. The sky was so pretty; for about an hour it was filled with pink clouds in between “sunrise” and “sunset.”
We stopped at a dogsled farm and played with the dogs, and then kept going to another stop at a hut, where we had hot chocolate and cookies. Matt and the kids took the opportunity to play in the snow, where he hurt his back making a snow angel.
Finally, we rode back to where we started, where they served us a fish chowder lunch, that everyone in the family actually liked. We took the ferry back across the fjord and the bus back to Tromso.
For our final dinner, we had burgers once again, in a Super Mario themed restaurant.
On Tuesday, we packed up and headed straight to the airport. We gave ourselves plenty of time, but ended up sitting for about three hours as it only took 45 minutes to get from our hotel, check our bags, through security, and to the gate. We had some tight connections on the way home but somehow made all of our flights, and our luggage was waiting when we arrived in Stuttgart.
Gilcrests Abroad 