KHO, Icebreaker and a black out

well, it turns out it was the latter (although not completely), our trip to the Kjell Henriksen observatory was a bit of a wash out because cloud cover prevented us from seeing any Aurora (and we could see from satellite and magnetometer data, and a live feed from Eiscat Svalbard Radar) that there were precipitating particles and hence would be Aurora. We spent some time looking at the different instruments and performing what the lecturer kept refering to as a 'filter tilter calibratrion' on the Meridian scanning photometer (anyone interested should visit the KHO website!). On the third day, despite the cold and the snow in the Air, we braved going onto the roof to preform the seasons callibration of two of the instruments which involved shining a light at a mirror, but turned out to be more difficult and time consuming than you can imagine. i spent most of the time wandering around with the rifle on Polar Bear watch!
The fact we had to look out for Polar Bears should give some indication of how isolated the KHO is. in fact, it is inaccessible by road. we have to take a minibus to mine 7 (the only mine in Longyearbyen still active if I remember rightly) and then travel the rest of the way up the mountain in something the lecturer refered to as the 'bandwagon'. it turned out to look like some sort of left over military vehicle:

Colin, Nils, Marta and Brendan in the back of the bandwagon

so, other than a bit of time on the roof and looking at some instrument. we spent the rest of the time watching a 'coupling' dvd Brendan had brought and monitoring computer screens. All-in-all not a very successful trip to the observatory!

So, I could enjoy a nice long lie in saturday morning, after being at the observatory until half one in the morning, right? wrong! I had to get down to UNIS early to set up my Viking longboat themed table for the ice breaker party. which ended up taking a few hours, erecting the mast proving the most problematic. but I must say I think it looked really good (as did all the other decorations), and I'm strangely proud of it!

So before long it was time to party! everybody put lots of effort into dressing up, which was great, the food and Cake were good (and there was loads leftover to eat the next day whilst cleaning up) and everyone seemed to enjoy the party games and disco!

(left to right): James from 'the end' table dressed as a Palin supporter (later brandishing a sign saying 'Palin 2012'), Lisa the alien from Future table, Silje as a pyramid, 1960s Brendan from the woodstock table, Max (taking the 'before humans' theme a little too literally) dressed as a sperm cell, Marta also from the 60s

Yesterday, the world started crumbling around us here in Longyearbyen. first we lost the internet, then, with half an hour left of the Man U v Inter football game (and apparently, Desperate housewives!) the power and consequently the water supplies went off. Being sensible students, we all decided the best thing to do would be to rush outside and look at the stars:

(2 minute exposure) which were really amazing with no artificial light to ruin the view, the milky way was clearly visible, people were pointing out constellations and we were watching satellites traverse the sky. Well, I've given away what the first instinct of an electricity deprived group of students in the arctic is: to go outside. any idea what the second and third are?

Second: huddle together for warmth, and jump up and down to warm up. we must have been quite a sight, about 15 people huddled together in the middle of the road in Nybyen jumping up and down. at least the lights were off!

third: decide to drink until the lights come back on! the lights went out at 10ish and we spent about an hour outside, so we had mainly brandy and whisky (to warm up) or, for the more interpid, frozen beer from our cold room (!) until the lights came back on at midnight. At which point we decided we weren't ready for the power to come back on, so we turned all the kitchen and corridor lights off, and continued!

Thats it for today, I've got another lecture and then its 'Mamma Mia' at film night. Woohoo!

Ash