♥

Nii palju siis lumest. Väljas sajab jälle vihma. Külmunud veenired, mille peal lapsed eile uisutasid, vulisevad jälle. Aga asi on tõsine. Jälle. Õhtuks on oodata suurt tormi ning sademeid, mis ületavad oktoobris olnud nädalavahetust. Ühe õthuga tuleb alla rohkem sademeid kui oleks tavaline terves kuus? Matkad, mäeretked, isegi nõlvadel jalutamine on kuulutatud ohtlikuks. Kella kolmeks evakueeritakse inimesed Nybyenist, linnaosa liustike lähedal, ja siis me ootame ja vaatame, mis saab. Eelkõige aga loodame, et ei saa midagi, et torm möödub ja inimesed saavad tagasi oma kodudesse ning ongi kõik. 

Vihmatorm siin,  novembris, on midagi erakordset ja keegi ei tea täpselt, mida see tähendab.  Ainuke, mis on väga kindel, on see, et õige see pole.  

♥

Lugesin seda. It's in english. Pea sellest ei plahvatanud, oli äratundmise tunne. Peaks ehk jällegi jaapani keele poole tagasi pöörduma ning ehk on variante seda keelt õppida kuidagi mingil sellisel viisil ja tasemel, et nimekaardid ja mõned teised aspektid saab enamvähem välistada. Esialgu. Mõni äpp?

Üks armas tõdemus tuli selle tekstiga aga kaasa. Hetkel ma ei oska seda sõnastada ja väga ei kiirustagi, sest sõnastatud mõtted, eriti kirjas, eriti kuskil internetis, kipuvad hiljem säärde hammustama. Ja koerad mulle täna ei meeldi.

Aa, ilmast nii palju, et kell on praegu 12.45 ning ongi pime. Nägin just kuidas üks rekka kaugtuled sisse lülitas. Lund ei ole. Still no snow. Keegi riputas kohalikku osta-müü-vaheta facebookilehele kuulutuse, milles müüski lund, maismaalt.

♥

September 2015

Some nice links to visit before travelling to Svalbard, Longyearbyen ;)

Hourly weather forecast for Longyearbyen by yr.no

Borealis 360 panorama of Longyearbyen

A weather sation out in Adventalen

The Longyearbyen all sky camera 

A packing list for students coming to study in UNIS

How to dress in the Arctic, yes google know stuff :)

The UNIS website has some nice tips to check out, specialy if you're a student

Soon it's weekend! 

Bisous! 

Oh, and some soundtrack to get into the mood of the dusk-light:

 

♥

September 2014

I forgot to answer to the most important question: How do you get to Svalbard, Longyeabyen?

The easiest way is to fly. There are two flights a day to Longyearbyen at least by SAS and Norwegian. Flights to Longyearbyen start from Oslo or Tromso. Then Finair announced to start flying to Longyearbyen in the summer from Helsinki. So if you are coming from somewhere else than Norway... you have to fly to Norway first. (Or Finland, if you're coming in the summertime).

That's that :)

In the summertime you can also come by boat. Many cruise ships have a stay in Longyearbyen, but it lasts only for some hours up to a day, but even that could be enough, depends on your travelling style :) And from the boat there is actually a bigger chance to see wildelife... but the bigger the boat, the more people the less opportunity to see the smaller fjords. I have never been on a cruise ship, so i have no idea what's it like, but people i have met from those tours usually are happy and chill. I guess it's like being in a fancy hotel that moves around?

Happy Monday evening!

Bisous!

♥

2015 in photos; a year in #svalbard, #longyearbyen.

Here is a post about the 12 months in the Arctic. I intentionally did take out a big portion of  photos of family and friends to keep it more about the nature and the impressions of the different light and atmosphere up here. Enjoy! (if you can)

January

February

March

April

May

June

 July

August

September

October

November

December

I did get frustrated with that dust on my camera sensor, but was sadly too busy to take time to remove it from all the photos. So therefore some nice ones will be coming up some time later, or never :)

Bisous!

♥

Aurora yesterday 16.11.2015, taken next to our house, that's why the snow glows pink: it's the streetlight reflecting back. In the middle the always flegmatic reindeer, that with his fellows almost gave me a heartattac when they suddenly appeared behind me in a pack of five or six climbing up the mountain. They are rather white in the wintertime like one other animal up here, but of course they are not afraid of noises so they are more likely to be seen in town. But those two seconds tho until my eyes and my brain could make out what they were.... uuh.

It was a mild winterday yesterday, finally some minus degrees. But for auroras it has been crazy. We even saw them in the morning while going to work. The sun has been very active these past weeks, so that even with clouds and warm weather we have been seeing them a lot. It is unusual actually.  

Have a sweet and calm week. I'll light a candle today aswell.

Bisous.

♥

Påfjellet 9.nov. 2015 But the weather has been dårlig/bad: it's +degrees, roads are icy as hell and clouds keep us even more in the dark that we would be now usually. This low pressure is making me feel low too! Stop the global warming already! 

Another total Grinch is the ... or was..  Estonian Air, airtravel company that from friday announced bankruptcy and there went our holiday flight-tickets to home. We'll probably get the money back freaking next year, but when we buy new ones, we'll have a nice big hole in our wallet for christmas. Oeh. But we're not the onlyones, so be strong, figure things out, keep it positive!

On an other note: we went to the theatre today! I know. Since living in Longyearbyen has made me think that norwegians either hate theatre or they just don't know what it is, it was a wonderful surprise. We went all together to this childrens play of 45 minutes and im so proud of how the boys enjoyed and endured; the darkness, the loud voices are quite scary. Remembering my own attempt as a child going to a play; Redridinghood, was it? I screamed so hard when the wolf appeared (like in 5 minutes after it started) and ran towards the door. End of story.

Oh my! tomorrow is thurday already! 

Bisous!

♥

Well...

That's worth the wait, isn't it? ;)

Taken 9.11.2015 around 10pm behind our house. Thanks to Asuza who taught me how. I still need a lot of work in my timing and camera setting (and tripod handeling), but it's much better than this one, from last december:

 Or the one i took before i fixed my settings (i know- i know, how is that possible?)

Sweet dreams!
The Weekend was mad: i was sick, Martin had to work, the weather sucked. So still coming out of it, takes a little while, tho. ( I know, i'll name half of Wednesday to Monday and the other half to Tuesday and count sleepingtime the new Wednesday) I. Should. Sleep. Now. !?

Bisous! :)

♥

This year i got my christmaspresent early, on the 23th december. Around 9 in the morning we were sitting in a landrover, dressed in enourmous(/-ly warm) jumpsuits and riding direction darkness with Svalbard Husky, which was recomended by a finnish friend and everything she said to be pleasant, was indeed so. We arrived in a dogyard like so many here. There was a reindeer outside the fence, my first one to see.

The alaskan husky is so very friendly: our guide told us, that these dogs were historically the ones who would keep the babies warm during colder days, meaning that only the friendly, calm ones could survive.

As the dogs were chosen, we had to get them ourselves and put them infront of the sledge.It was not easy in the cold and we had to take our gloves off in this freezing weather to attach everything safetly. The leading dogs were the first. We had a boy and a girl in the front, and this guy was trying to pee on me, when that didn't work out, he thought he'll just lean on the lady instead. But it was so much fun. We got to know the names of the dogs and a bit about their charakter. And then ... into the darkness we went!

The dogs were so beautiful, it's sad i can't photograph in the dark yet and the flashlight kind of makes everythig fall flat. 

After we got back we got every dog back to its place and feed all the 50 dogs, then enjoyed some aurora lights, that were unusally red and yellow on tuesday. And after that we were again in the landrover driving back to town, where we were still in deep awe for the whole day. 

There was this momend during the ride, when we switched our headlamps off. We were moving through time and space and yet it felt we were not moving at all, everything just felt like a blanket was being laid over us. Forgetting the existance of time and only taking in this enourmous space of endlessness. Scary and majestic. 

♥

This photo is taken 9 am. In case you wondered :)

As im browsing through an estonian ebook-shop in the section of foreign classics, i see a lot of Cartland next and between some Dostojevski, Gogol, Rilke and Fizgerald, Bacon. When did that happen? And it makes me wonder if i should buy one of Cartlands ebooks? But the pink exterior with the flowers and old pin-up-like photographs kind of make it look like a toothache.

It's 3am in my hometown and here i am wide awake. For some days (weeks) i have developed this medieval habit of waking up in the middle of the night. I have my continuing zombie-moments. 

Recently i sent out our weddingphotoswebsite and included some polarnight impressions, very minimal though, but the responses were theremore amuzing. Anwsers kept coming with the content: thought we have the sun, it's not that bright, its actually really-really dark here too.

M, who's been here for couple of years, says that when she goes home in november she's just so happy to see the sun rise every morning, that rain, clouds, mud and anything-everything else seems actually like decoration. I guess it's not something easy to comprehend and i think those responses were meant to cheer us up. And, well, they did. In a odd way, but they did.

Maybe it's likewise as in paintings, when you want to give the impression of darkness you add a little light somewhere and vice versa. So the gray-dark winter is much harder to endure perhaps?

Mørketide or dark season is here actually dark, i mean, like night, like really, honestly. Even people coming from Tromsø are surprised by it, altho they also have this mørketide they "celebrate", still on midday some sunrays reach that northern city of norway. But not here. Not this town.

So while we have not seen the sun, at the moment for almost two months now, we wait patiently and calmly, cuddle up in warmth and take in every source of light with the utmost delight ;) that way we survive, longing quietly for the sunrise, that awaits us here in February.

Sweet hugs and merry holidays!

♥

People are mean. They are, in an unknowing way. Like myself, when with an odd feeling i discover, that ten sentences ago i might insulted the person im talking with, or at least tapped on an old wound. A feeling of bit guilt and anticipation. There isn't room for an apology, that would seem weird, oddly personal and out of the blue. Ignoring and continuing is the way. We say sorry only when we really meant to hurt someone, it seems. ?

Our mouths are the sliding doors of the night metro: who knows what'll jump out of there.

It's been a week of "great plans" and "nothing much". The worst and the best in one. It's not that bad, as i look at my calendar and the crossed out to-do-list, but it's the feeling. We've been a bit sad i guess. We know we'll stay here for christmas, and we know that everyone we know here, will not.

I guess i doesn't matter that much. We'll get over it. 

Yesterday night was a great snowstorm. Constant howling for days. It's over now and i can hear one of the neigbours showeling snow. At midnight.

♥

This is not how it looks like here right now. It's still dark.It's taken in november.

The wind is back, with the speed of 20 meters per second and so it'll be for 3 days. Luckly the wind is not freezing cold as it would be if it'll be more humid. Down in the centre of the town it's not so bad, but in front of our house it does take ones breath away. But it's kind of fun too, sometimes.

Someone asked once about the houses here, as what are they made of, so i'll share as much as i know now about that. All the houses here (with the exeption of Huset) are built from wood, brought from mainland. In this arctic desert firefightingmanagement is therefore very important. The buildings have no cellar, they are standing on wooden poles that go into the permafrost, 5 to 6 meters it was, if i remember correctly. Thats why in a case of strong wind the houses sving along. It's something you rather feel than see. And when lying in bed at night feeling the house move, is okay for you, i guess living here is no problem :)

Huset (in english "house") is the only stonebuilding in town. It's like The House. Store Norske build it for three years and it is the only house with a cellar, and to be more precise, with a wine cellar since the '80s. It was opened in 1951 and had been from restaurant and school to postoffice with a busstop to emergency hospital and movie theater. Now it's the place of a fancy restaurant and the most nordic night club in the world. Nearly all of the concerts they have here take likewise place in Huset. It's located a bit furhter away from the centercity, near Nybyen, i think most of the income of the taxidrivers comes here from driving to the airport and driving from Huset at night :)

♥

All written is fiction. But what is fiction? An attempt to catch the uncatchable. Or just a touch of it's sleeve as it passes us by.

I guess i read it somewhere.
 The days go fast. Very quicly. And it's dark. Somehow it feels like our motions have become more slow and that's why it feels like time is passing in speed. Peole worried we're bored out here... but there is not really time for that. As there is no sun, there is the clock and the goals that are set for oneself. Plenty to do. 

Last sunday in a gathering people were talking about sunny vacations and then i missed it. The sun. But here the locals say, that they like the dark season more - much more - than the light one. Well, coffee works more effectively than lavender :)
It's easier to get energy, than to slow down, when the sun is beaming on you 24/7, they say.

Also the people working in the kindergarden are the best: every week they have some special event. Love that they actually explaned two-yearolds how the planets are and why it's dark now, like accurately. Just sweet. 

♥

Although the sun doesn't rise above the horizon now, the sunbeams still reached us today. It has been days since we had a clear sky and with a promise for some northern lights. it was unusual, since we're already used to the dark mornings. When in the afternoon it got dark, then of course  it started to snow... and later there were still some clouds. But. I saw them. Aurora lights, first time ever.

♥

Almost finished the book of Haruki Murakami, who turns out to be a marathon runner and a triathlon athlete ("participant" would sound like an understatement). "What i talk about, when i talk about running" is a quite funny book, but i don't want to give anything away, since it's a book nice to read when you're interested in writing novels or/and running, but if both subjects leave you cold, then... leave it. This reminded me of John von Düffel, antoher bestseller author, who's also a runner and a swimmer. A healthy body needs a healthy mind. Or was it the other way around? Probably. In Nantes we watched a documentary about Düffel and how he's writing his bestseller: "Houwelandt– Ein Roman entsteht". The insight was much revealing of the reality how a novel finds its way to the world. And there was a lot of running involved aswell.

Then im knitting a sweater and already thinking of the design of another sweater, but since here they are not wasted... knit on! 

When i ask someone about the dark season, a word i hear is most often is "cozy". Candles, sweets, books, baking, carols ... i start to feel christmasy.

Oh, and we bought a car. Since we bought it in the polar night, we don't really know the color of it.

It's grey. As in the picture, that was shown to us. It is the same car. Bought it through fb.

Hope you smirked. 

I did.

Wishing you a pleasant weekend! 

Don't forget your dad this sunday, when you have one ;)

Bisous!

♥

This guy is awesome. And the stories he tells. You're an awesome dude, Juss!

♥

Oh, love the keyboard in this song. And sparkling stars bursting out of ones heart is also a familiar feeling. Fits perfect into a Sunday. 

(the compulsory weather segment:)

Usually it takes a week or two for me to get out of my winter clothes and into spring ones. Looking around while shopping groceries: jackets and feather light scarves, sneakers and headbands, skirts, shorts... well, i was the weird one with my knitted mittens and hat, looking a bit like Kenny from SouthPark. But spring is sneaky and i was lucky. As my sneakers should arrive at some time in the end of march, Weather, let's keep teaming up!

(the unavoidable housewife nag:)

The guys are out and i'm in.. Looking at it all: dishes (we had people over on Friday, "can we come over" texts are great, when they work out - that happens), and all the toys and books and other stuff, and the laundry, that has to come out of the washing-machine and the laundry, that has to go into the washing-machine, some little helper has done some helping by emptying the sock-drawer, and the vacuum-cleaner needs a new bag..... well, if it isn't just the Myth of Sisyphus.

And then there's that seminar i'm attending. At first i was exited, and then i was too exited, and now i'm just afraid of making a fool out of myself again.

And i should start taking my drivers- licence exam, but i have'nt had the chance to study for it, so there's that too. 

There's actually nothing to complain about, because it's all doable, and at one point i do get it all done. But on a Sunday evening it's just overwhelming. A bit. 

Being at home with kids is not rocket science, but it might as well could be. And physically, its not like running a marathon or anything, but sometimes it would be great to have the luxury to train for and attend one.

Okay, i'll listen to this song now for a while and start figuring out photoshop to do some invitations for you, babes ;)

Bisous!

♥

The snow is gone. And so is the sun. Oh, i really don't like a dark and wet spring starting in february. It's too long! Will there bee any more cold days? I was supposed to take more pictures outside.. hm.

What a week. What a weird week. Guess there are some.

Happy Valentine's day tomorrow!

♥

Oh, i love days which start with good news. :) Greetings to new parents!

This weekend we realized our Christmas-present: a weekend at Värska spa. Värska is known for it's sparkling springwater, sanatorium and (healing) mud-baths. The sanatorium was established in the 70es and it still carries that vibe (building, food, interior), but feels probably comfortable for the older generation, who otherwise in too fancy lounge-rooms with white couches would feel awkward and out-of-place. Since 2009 a water-centre joined the sanatorium and formed Värska spa. It's the only one in Estonia where you can swim in springwater. The water-center has various swimmingpools and is .. well, more modern. It's also a popular dating-place for the local youth.  :))

Martin wanted to give the family a present, that would make each member happy and it was a success: he got to swim every day, the boys enjoyed the water and the salt-chamber, i got a massage and was freed from cooking and cleaning for the weekend. Perfect.

Now it's back to house-chores and drving-school. Can do it!