Well, what a difference in two new years eves! I spent the last day of 2007 slightly worse for wear (as many may remember) in the Cornmill and Wynnstay (from the few pictures I have seen of this years celebrations in Llangollen, it would seem that little has changed!). I spent the last day of 2008 at Oslo airport (which, by the way is nowhere near Oslo) waiting to fly to Svalbard.

Briefly, In case you don't know, I'm up in the Norwegian high Arctic for 6 months (ish) studying at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). My courses are 'The Upper Polar Atmosphere' and 'Radar Diagnostics of Space Plasma' (admittedly, I'm not sure what its about either!) which together make up half my masters year under the title 'Arctic Geophysics'.

So, to bring you up to date, Our possible plans for spending new year in Oslo was scuppered by the fact it was 50 minutes by road from the airport (and 20 minutes by a seemingly non-existent train) , which, at new year, I should imagine, meant a prohibitively expensive taxi ride. Instead we tried to get food at the airport, but most things were closed, so resorted to eating in the hotel (the radisson, by the way, a final extravagance before the arctic!). So I welcomed in the new year, not stooped over drunkenly in some local pub, but listening to 80's music on Norwegian TV!

The flight from Oslo took us to Longyearbyen (Svalbard) via Tromso, at the top of Norway. It was apparently minus 17 degrees celcius when we arrived. We were bussed from the airport to our barracks at Nybyen (just further up the valley from Longyearbyen) which are to be my home for the next 6 months. Since then I've been to the shopping street a couple of times, primarily for food, and we've visited UNIS and some of the other Barracks.

On friday night most students head for the UNIS canteen where we have a little party (with cheap booze) which was a great opportunity to meet people from other Barracks. I've meet people from Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Iceland, Germany, Denmark (I think), America and a few more Brits. other than that, we had a little gathering in our barracks last night, which was a great opportunity to find out whether i could remember the names of anyone I'd met! A few more people arrived today, but I think everyone is here now because the safety course starts tomorrow, which everyone must attend. At least a week of rifle shooting, Crevase rescuing and first aid should give me something to talk about in subsequent posts, which will be more interesting than a chronological description of my flights!

Almost forgot to mention that its polar night here, the sun doesn't rise until mid february, so its dark all day, you can see the stars all the time, I've seen a few shooting stars, one of which was really impressive, but no Aurora worth mentioning, just milky green lighter patches in the sky, expect pictures when I see some good ones!

I'll finish by running you through the attire needed even to pop to the shops here at Longyearbyen in the winter: An extra pair of woolly socks, walking boots, thermal long johns, waterproof trousers, a t shirt or thermal dependent on how cold it is, a thin fleece and then a bigger fleecy coat with waterproof outer layer, a scarf, hat and at least one pair of gloves.
I find walking to town in this is fine, but walking back up hill with a load of shopping, this can become a tad hot, so I'm working on a compromise!

Hope everyone is well at home.

Ash