Far Flung Forays

Russia: Sun Makes People Smile

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Todd

Gold leaf is nor UN short supply in St Petersburg

Tuesday was an art day. I have now had my fill of art museums for at least the rest of the month. I started by heading off to the Hermitage. The Hermitage is a giant museum that was once the Tsar’s main residence. It contains works by DaVinci, Raphael, Monet, Rembrandt, Picasso, ect. A lot of the works were acquired before 1900, but a lot of the French paintings were looted during WWII. It also contains two treasure rooms, a diamond and gold room. They do a good job nickel and diming you: admission 400r (62r=$1), photos 200r, coat room free, each treasure room 300r, audio guide 450r. Of course I went to the gold treasure room and I was little disappointed because the 10 year old in me was expected just mounds of gold, but no they put the impressive 2000 year old gold artifacts in cases.

Lots of impressive floors at the hermitage

A lot of coats for being the small one…

I left the Hermitage at 330 and if you can detect a theme I had not had lunch yet so I started to walk to St Isaac’s Cathedral looking for a store to buy a snack and water in since it was so late. It started to rain and I failed at my food quest so I went straight to the cathedral. After the cathedral I went back to the hostel, had a few pretzels, failed at buying hockey tickets, and made last minute plans to hangout with a Russian hipster (like meet a 15 minute walk away in 20 minutes). There was a slight snafu in our meeting location and neither one of us had data on our phone so it took a little bit to find each other. We walked around town for a bit and then grabbed some ginger tea.

I could have just taken a Burger King flyer and eaten there

At this point I was pretty hungry and walked into a restaurant without an English menu and the people just looked at me and I decided I wasn’t in the mood for the point and pray method of ordering door so I did an ungrateful uturn and headed to a semi expensive Georgian place and had sharp cheese filled dumplings and dumpling soup and a beer (1200r).

Cheese goodness, not meant for one, oh well

I then went to the grocery store and bought some Russian ho-hos/Swiss rolls. The Russians put chocolate filling in their version, but I wasn’t able to read the ingredients to see if they put glycol in them too.

Wednesday morning I cheated and arranged for a guide, Roman, to take me to Novgorod a city founded ~1000AD. We were suppose to go Monday, but he rescheduled because he was sick. The day before he asked if his girlfriend, also a guide could come along. We left at 830am and got back at 730pm. The city was interesting, but it decided to rain for real while we were there. The churches we visited were all painted inside with some of the frescos being hundreds of years old. Roman was full of historical facts and his girlfriend was more of a free spirits who’s English was not as good. We talked probably five out of the six hours in the car. We saw the real Russia from ramshackle wooden houses to five story apartment buildings (Gorbachev era, cheapest to build) to the later nine story buildings.

The car got dirty so Toman had to clean it mid trip

I then came back and went out for dinner. I wanted to get Russian food at a new place, but the other places had no one in them so I settled back at my place I had dinner the first night and had borsch and potato pancakes with mushrooms. When I came back some people asked if I wanted to go drinking, I am old, so I said no and I had not had a free evening (read free after 9pm) since I have been here and needed to figure a couple things out.

Ice fishing on the Neva River

I am going to write a post on the people I have talked to and about Russians a little later.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged backpacking, hermitage, novgorod, Russia, saint petersburg, soul kitchen hostel, st petersburgh | Leave a comment

Russia is cloudy and cold in early March!!

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Todd

Wow, I have been here two full days. Where to start, my Russian still sucks. I learned that in December St Petersburg got 3 hours of sun all month according to the official weather people (they round up). That explains why it has been cloudy the entire time I have been here. Today I was cold, probably because of the wind combined with my lack of clothing.

This was random street art

Every place you go in has a coat room where you deposit your jacket. It means that I have to stuff my passport, wallet, cell phone, and camera into each of my pants pockets.

Sunday morning I had a leisurely morning and was able to find a place open to grab breakfast, a pastry and hot chocolate (read thick gooey chocolate goodness that I could live on). I ended up in the cafe at the old Singer sewing machine factory that still has its original decor. I went to the Russian Museum which surprisingly just had Russian art. The art museums are held in giant palaces that seem to be way to big for any practical purpose.

Famous russia bicycle art

I then left for a splurge on my trip, the Sunday jazz brunch at the Hotel Europe. The Hotel Europe was one of the main places the aristocracy went. It was pretty over the top: a jazz quartet, an man rolling a cart with Peking duck (he was Asain and SPB is less diverse than Boulder, I have seen one black person), unlimited champagne (vodka and wine too), lots of fish, lamb, homemade chocolates, a chocolate fountain, a waiter that came with horseradish because it went well with one of my fish, herring (still tastes like crap). It was pretty crazy and good for a one time visit.

Round one

They fired the artillery piece on the wall, it was a blank, but it was really loud and made a ton of smoke

Round 5

Round 3

Round 6

I then went to another museum associated with the Russian Museum and then I headed to a metro station to meet up with Leisan. I had got ahold of her on couchsurfing.com, not to spend the night, but to hangout. Well out hanging out consisted of 3 bars, Russian craft beer, drinking from 5-1230, and forgetting about dinner. She is an engineer (like America 80% of engineers are men) has travelled a ton and just got back from a six month trip. I learned a ton and had a blast and got back to the hostel slightly intoxicated and ate a snickers bar.

Most of SPB in the city center has a nice front, but work is needed everywhere

Monday I was planning on going to Novgorod a city 3 hours away with a guide, but he was sick so I went to plan B. Plan B became Plan C when I discovered that even though I told my credit card I was going to Russia they blocked, but I decided not to worry about and I would figure it out that night, but I had 300r (62r=$1) in small bills and a 5000r bill, try spending an $80 bill, it is hard (6 months ago it would have been a $150 bill and still is to Russians). I used my backup credit card and got some more cash and went to Peter and Paul’s fortress and then to the Museum of Political History which is one of the most well done ones I have ever been to and went from 1850 to 2000.

There are canals with 1800s buildings all over the historic center of town

To get to the museums which are on an island I had to take the subway which is deep underground (read 2+ minutes escalator ride, recommended to make out with people on them apparently). I was starving by that point and went to a kiosk selling pancakes and pointed to what the women in front of me got. It was like a ham and cheese Russian pancake (yummy). After the history museum I was super hungry. When I get hungry I can’t make choices. I ended up in a cafe that just had a menu in Cyrillic on a board. I left. I ended up at a place where I paid 150r for lunch. I then went back to the subway and on the way grabbed a chocolate filled pastry for 45r. Well it turns out I bought a hotdog filled pastry which was a very unpleasant surprise on the first bite and reminded me of the curry paste filled donut I had expecting a cream filled one in Japan.

Stupid hot dog

Lunch that I found while starving

Mystery Pancake

SPB has a ton of free wifi so I was able to coordinate meeting up with Natalya at 7pm at a metro station on a different island. I then went to a church and back to the hostel. I downloaded Google Hangouts and called my credit card for free and got things straightened out. I then met Natalya and realized I had no idea what she looked like, but I did tell her I was 190cm and my jacket had a red zipper and she found me. We went and had Georgian food which was great.

Fat Guy, Big Horse

I made it back to the hostel around 1030/11 and shortly after fell asleep. These blog posts are actually being written on my phone, while in line, at meals, on the metro, so they might be disjointed.

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Russia: They May Think I am a Farmer From Idaho

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Todd

Leaving Sweden

I am currently in Russia and the questions that I have been asked more than once is why go to Russia and isn’t it cold in Russia during the first week of March? The easy one to answer is about the temperature, it is way warmer than Boulder and PA, 30-40 degrees. Wanting to go to Russia was stimulated by the currency situation along with my desire to go to places I might not want to go when I am 60. The ruble for a couple years has been trading 30-35/dollar and this month has been 60-70/dollar. Russia has had inflation of about 10%, but even with inflation it is basically half price. The political situation in Russia is “interesting” at the moment, but there aren’t ill feelings from Russians to Americans. I have arranged with at least one and possibly more people from couchsurfing.com to hangout with in the evenings since it gets dark decently early.

Katy Perry is still a big deal here. I listened to her on my cab ride from airport on the radio.

In order to get to Russia I needed a visa, a damn expensive visa. Russia charges $210 for a visa and you need to drop it off and pick it up at the consulate so I used a visa service, my man Zhanna, to get me the visa. When I sent it to him he asked for my electronic visa application password which I gave to him so I really have no idea what my visa application says. I may be a farmer from Idaho for all I know. I have read 2 historical fiction books and am in the middle of a “cultural history” of Russia book which is only slightly more exciting than the title sounds. I have also tried to learn the Cyrillic alphabet. Which I kind of know, it just takes me 2 minutes to sound out a word since I have to think about the sounds each letter makes. Everyone knows my prowess for languages, it only took me 16 years to be able to speak English, and I now know a few words of Russian: bar, vodka, politics, mumps, yes, and no.

Not in Spanish

I got to the gate for my flight to St Petersburg (SPB) early, like normal. When they announced that the flight was boarding I looked around and was confused because there were only about 20 people in the boarding area. Three of us had “odd passports” and we were pulled aside and they did extra computer work and needed to see my visa. I was the last one of the 23 people on our Airbus A319 to board and each person could have had their own row if they wanted… I learned my 7th Russian word, chey (tea), and we got half a sandwich with 3 cucumber slices, a piece of meat (turkey?), 2inX2in piece of cheese, and some mayo.

I was out of the airport in less than 30 minutes. Walked up to immigration, handed my passport in, waited 5 while she examined my passport and scanned it 7 times, she stamped it and handed it back, no words spoken. Grabbed cash from 2 ATMs, the first had a 6000r (less that $100 limit, 64r/$1) and found the taxi booth (regulated 900r, 45min). My hostel (5500r for 7 nights) is pretty cool. I was given a 15 minute intro into to the city/hostel and headed off to Nevesky Prospekt, the main drag.

A frozen canal and a church I will discover the name of later

Wow, vibrant, the lights of the city bouncing off of clouds, buzz of young people walking, a giant smile on my face. I walked up and down the street for an hour looking at the 100+ year old European architecture until I grabbed dinner. I was lame and went into a Russian food place that had an English menu, but at least I was the only non Russian person there.

Initial impressions of SPB
-Gloom while landing, 5 minutes of descending through clouds and everything was grey once we broke through the clouds.
-The Russian language is pleasing to hear. In normal conversation there are not hard sounds. I was surprised by this.
-Vibrant, the city is moving, lots of people out with smiles on their faces.

-It is 34* and it is a fashionable place. Everyone has their jacket on, lots of fur and puff. Lots of skirts and leggings (not on men) and jeans.
-Whoever writes dictionaries should not put “iy” as a translation, how do you say that? I have no clue.
-I have a big smile on my face.

The taxi driver had a bottle of vodka in the back seat

So I bought the same type

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged backpacking, Russia, st petersburg, Sweden, vodka | 2 Comments

Thoughts and Musings on Sweden

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Todd

When I first arrived in the Stockholm airport the Scandinavian women out numbered the men 3:2 and 1/8 of them were carrying Ortovox airbag backcountry skiing backpacks. I wondered if the entire country was like this, it isn’t.

I know how Thor got giant arms, Nordic skiing. Seriously they rarely use their legs, they just use their arms and they pass me at warp speed. Note to self, never compete in a Nordic skiing event.

Swedish style beer chiller

Sweden is cheap. Well compared to what I was expecting from Norway it is. Coupled with the strong dollar alcohol is about have the price as in Norway and eating out is maybe 2/3 the price, max.

Alcohol in Sweden must be bought in a “state store”, but a lot of towns don’t have them (Abisko, Bjorkliden). In those towns you can place an order and a few days later your order is delivered to the grocery store. I think the solution to this problem is always having a large supply of alcohol on hand.

Tourists drive me crazy. I have been feeling like I am tourist while I am here. Where we are staying we were given giant fluffy singlet costumes that are worn for activities. I think it is slightly absurd since I tramp around the mountains of CO on a regular basis and am not cold.

Walking around town you can tell who works/lives in town just by their clothing. Most of the tourists here are here to just see the northern lights and not really the typical winter outdoor type and their clothing/habits make it very clear.

My dad likes his 14 layers of clothes

The three largest employers in town: Tourist Station Hotel, railroad, and the grocery store.

I was able to have a successful encounter all in Swedish. A man in a store came up to me and asked if I needed help and I replied, no thanks in Swedish. Well that is my version of the encounter. He could have been asking if I wanted a million dollars or if I knew the directions to Kiruna.

Toilet paper. Swedish like it ruff, not the flimsy cheap rough public restroom America style, but well made tuff, sturdy, and rough, comparable to paper towels, just narrower. I am not a fan.

There are a ton on English tourists in northern Sweden and not a ton of American tourists. Abisko had way more Americans than Bjorkliden.

Sweden’s economy is not based off of oil like Norway’s. Sweden does contain the world’s largest iron mine in Kiruna. They are actually going to start mining under the city and there has been some “settling” so their solution is to move some buildings and rebuild the rest of the town in a new location. The project is expected to take about 30 years. Sounds expensive.

I am currently chilling in the Stockholm airport waiting for me flight to Russia. I am slightly nervous, but things will be fine and I have a pretty low key first evening planned: getting a taxi to my hostel.

The rest of this post is about what we did the past couple days, mainly for my memory. I would stop reading now if I were you. The posts on Russia will be WAY better.

Brewed in Sweden, they don’t have Fat Tire, but…

On Wednesday we went and did some ice fishing. Which is basically walking to the late, drill a hole, and jig for 2 hours while getting cold. The guy who runs the trip is fun to talk to at least. We were skunked on fishing. That night we did a northern light photo trip. The northern lights didn’t reallt come out, but this photo has two streaks faintly in the back. Our guide was really great though, he hated his job. He was a commercial photographer for the UN, mainly spending time in war zones and lately running ordinance disposal projects. He was the person going in with one or two technical analysts and setting up the unexplored bomb removal. He switched to guiding tourists to take the same photo every night when an IED went off 100 yards away from him. He has since decided war zones are safer than tourists and is heading Syria in a couple weeks. He is leading the UN’s unexplored bomb program which has the blessing from Assad. Starting in a couple weeks the UN will have an official presence in Syria,but it will not be published and fly under the radar of the media.

The following day we went on the world’s worse snowmobile tour. We averaged about 15km/hr and it was tedious. It was so bad it was funny. I started to enjoy myself because it amused me that this what people thought snowmobiling was and the people in front of my parents ran their snowmobile into a tree, winning!!!!

Guess who crashed the snowmobile

We then played some Settlers and I lost for the first time during the trip. It clouded over and we were skunked again for the northern lights.

Friday morning we got an early transfer to Kiruna. Kiruna is a mining town with the mining company owning most of the housing. We went on a horse backing riding trip to see moose on Icelandic horses. It was awesome, we were trotting through the snow, saw 30+ moose and overall I had a great time. The people running the program were Sami, the indigenous people of northern Norway/Sweden/Russia, but there operation was pure commercial. The lunch was reindeer, but not a lot of effort went into it. That evening my mom and I wandered around Kiruna and went to the liquor store. It was awesome. I was a kid in a candy store.

In a park in Kiruna

Ice slide!!

$2.75 each, fresh from CO

My trip to Sweden was great I had a great time with my parents and am now off to Russia.

Kiruna Airport

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abisko, and an overgrowth of weeds (not the golden rod that covers the countryside). It took a walk of about 250 meters to discover the old town and why I came here. I so far have found the food to be very me, assad, backpacking, horseback riding, kiuna, northern lights, Sweden, swedish beet, un in syria | Leave a comment

Aurora Borealis in Sweden

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Todd

The reason that I am in northern Sweden (farther north than Nome, Alaska) is to see the northern lights. Abiskofalls in the aurora belt (this link will give you all the species about where auroras can be seen and what causes them http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora) and is located in a rain shadow on a lake where an east-west valley intersects a north-south valley causing clouds to frequently be on the horizon, but the sky over Abisko is clear.

Even though we are in the place to see the aurora borealis, doesn’t mean that it is easy to see (especially if you want any sleep).
Night -1: There was an aurora, but my parents were asleep and I was still in the states
Night 1: aurora with clouds, not the brilliant colors you would expect, a soft glow, came out better in photos than in person
Night 2: clouds, 15km away they saw it
Night 3:clouds
Night 4: a brief aurora across the entire sky with dancing greens and soft reds and purple, moving around, unable to photograph because we were on a chair lift
Night 5: aurora around 6pm, minimal aurora on our “photo tour”, but super clear
Night 6: TBD, cloudy at the moment

Night 7: I can’t tell the future

There is still hope for some sweet photographs, but the dancing aurora was awesome and they said it moved quicker than normal.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abisko, Aurora, aurora borealis, back packing, Bjorkliden, lapland, lights over lapland, northern lights, Sweden | 2 Comments

Dog Sleds and Snowmobiles

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Todd

Dog sledding in Abisko

Snowmobiles in Bjorkliden

Sweden has turned into another great trip. I do really feel like a tourist while I am here, something that I don’t really like. Abisko has a year round population of 150 people which balloons to 650 in the winter with seasonal employees. The thing is there is not a lot of housing in town and all the build able land has been built and the surrounding land is owned by the government and is used by the Sami people to herd their reindeer (all reindeer are owned and they are the same species as caribou, but smaller (60-70kg smaller) since a Sami herder is with them, protecting them and preventing natural selection). In order for the town to grow it would have to petition to the government for more land and take it awY from the Sami people. A lot of the seasonal employees live in campers, crammed a million into an apartment, or their cars, but rent is reasonable cheap, $500, for a small two bedroom plus despite the housing shortage.

Mom and dad

Yesterday we went for a 2 hour snowmobile rode which was pretty cool and it was a super sunny day up until 6pm when it started to snow. The sun does stay low over the horizon all day long since we are in a transition period to the midnight sun.

Steve and his dogs that didn’t wanted to follow the track of everyone else

We went to the grocery store and grabbed some smoked salmon, a pound of hard cheese which is a mix between manchego and Parmesan, a beer, crackers, and a diet coke for $25. The beer is a ton cheaper than Norway, a beer only costs $6-9. If you want any alcohol greater than 3.5% you need to order it from the grocery store which acts as a liquor store agent and then it comes in 2-3 days later in the standard shipment. Planning is a must to drink….

Today went dog sledding, it was a 6 hour tour, consisting of hooking up your team of 4 dogs (the guide thought I was fat so I got the big dogs, I was the largest person of the group), driving your own sled 15kmish, eating lunch of butter fried smoked reindeer and onions put in heavy cream.

Libby and Steve in the way behind

Our guide/owner of the dogs frying up smoked reindeer and onions served stew style in heavy cream

At the grocery store, at least not a no gun sign

Gluten free crackers…

Winning!!!!!

It is cloudy at the moment and we are going to the sky station in an attempt to see the northern lights again. We have been skunked the last two attempts.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abisko, aurora borealis, back packing, beer, dog sledding, northern lights, Sweden, Swedish beer | Leave a comment

Sweden, It is Slightly Chilly

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Todd

A famous gate

Cold Swedish woods

I am heading to Sweden for a week and St Petersburg for a week. Luck was on my side on my first travel day which consisted of a flight to Newark, a flight to Stockholm, a flight to Kiruna, a taxi ride, and then a train ride to Bjorkliden. On my flight from the states to Stockholm there was no one sitting next to me and my seat on the flight to Kiruna was an exit row seat without a seat in front of it, double win. When we landed in Kiruna the pilot announced that we were in Kiruna and we landed “exactly on time”, like he expected people to know when we were suppose to land to tell what time it was. Swedish efficiency.

Sunrise in Bjorkliden

I then met up with my parents in the train station, about the size of a train car, and we caught the train to Bjorkliden which is a ski resort in northern Sweden about 300 miles north of the Arctic circle. Upon checkin we were told that they were overbooked and we were being downgraded to a cabin with bunk beds and a single bed instead of double beds and they were going to give us the room for free. I think that they had tried to downgrade several people and we were their last option.

There was a tad bit of snow in the front of our cabin

A church I found while skiing, the only way there was snow mobile and skis

We grabbed dinner, then went on a night time dog sled ride. This was not one where you drive your own sled and the aurora borealis was not super visible. There were 2 teams of dogs, each carrying a sledge with 3 passengers and the musher. After the ride we got back, picked up our camera gear and started trudging up the ski hill to an aurora viewing point. The aurora was pretty cool, it wasn’t the bright green that the pictures show, but more of a muted green.

We then trudged back down the hill and I ate it over a large block of snow which I swear wasn’t there on the way up. It was then bedtime, 11:30, capping my 32 hour day with about 3 hours of sleep.

The next day I went cross country skiing. Never have I been the worse at an endurance physical activity, but Thor past me multiple times and so did Mrs Thor. I think I was going at about half speed compared to everyone else on the 12km ski track which I only managed to ruin once when I fell going close to a million miles an hour down a 100+ meter hill with TURNS.

An ancient Land Rover

We then went and played settlers and drank some beers. It started to snow for real and when we left dinner around 930 it was still snowing, windy, and we couldn’t see the aurora. I check a few hours later (read I fell asleep and looked when I woke up so I wouldn’t feel guilty about missing the aurora), but it still wasn’t visible.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abisko, aurora borealis, backpacking, Bjorkliden, northern lights, Sweden | 2 Comments

Norway, land of the $40 Heineken 12 pack

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Todd

I can say without a doubt that Norway is without a doubt the most expensive place I have ever been to. It makes Japan look cheap. Even if you camp and do it on the “cheap” it is still more expensive than SE Asia and a lot of places in Central/South America. I think that if you dwelled on the fact that a beer cost $10-20, a bottle of water/soda $3.50-$5, a ferry ride $30+, an intercity bus ride $8, a small whopper value meal $16 (did not partake), air=free, museum entry $10-$30, bike rental $50 for 24h, and a really cheap hostel $50+ it would take a lot of the fun out of the trip.

$40,12pack

Our first afternoon in Balestrand the weather was pretty temperamental and I walked around town for a bit and rented a bike for the next day. My strategy (George W pronunciation) was to take the fast ferry for 15 minutes across the fjord to Vik, see a stave church with my parents and then split off and ride 26k on a road that dead ends after passing a couple of non touristed villages. I was then going to retrace my steps and continue onto Vigness (please note I am omitting several letters of the town name) and take the car ferry back across the fjord to Dragvik and then ride back to Balestrand for about a 50 mile day. The weather forecast called for 0mm of precipitation, score

Well when Saturday arrived I had a lackluster breakfast at the hotel and we grabbed the ferry. We then managed to find the church and of course it started to rain. We chatted with a 17yo who worked there for about 30 minutes until the rain decreased to a drizzle and then I set off on the bike. I successfully made it through the 1km tunnel without encountering any cars (win) and stopped to shovel some cake like substance and weird orange cookies (the cheapest snacks at the grocery store) down my mouth. The end of the ride took me to a small fjord that ended in over 10 waterfalls over a small village. It was one of the coolest things I have seen in mainland Norway.

Largest raspberry producing area in Europe

Snakes on the ferry?

I don’t need a haircut

The next day we grabbed the 8am, 4h, express ferry to Bergen. Bergen has about 80 sunny days a year (the opposite of Boulder) and we ended up having a mixed day between sun, clouds, and rain so heavy it bounces off the ground and gets you wet again. We hung around Bergen which is a pretty cool city, I imagine off the beaten path with less tourists it would even be cooler, grabbed some ice cream. We then parked ourselves at a beer bar serving Norwegian beers, two Belgian sours (common ones), and Rouge Chocolate Porter and watched the world go by. I realized at that moment that if cruise ships docked at Boulder and discharged a boat load worth of people off I would not like it. Our stay involved 3 beers and running inside twice to avoid some heavy rain. I was in charge of dinner and picked an area a little away from the harbor, hoping it would not be all tourists. We ended up in a bar/pub that had a good selection of beers and turned out to have really good food. We had previously had really, really bad whale in Svalbard which was cooked well done plus some. You need to cook whale like a mammal since it is one and has a high iron content, transforming our first serving into something tasting like over cooked liver. We noticed another person who got whale and it was cooked well so we asked our server if there were different ways to cook it and I ended up with some medium rare whale which was really good (Norway harvests a small number of whales a year, not like Japan, and there is not a lot of controversy over their whaling practices). Dinner was really good and we headed back around 930 at night, in bright daylight.

Hmmm

Bergen

10pm

This morning we headed to the airport and I am on my way back to the states after another good vacation.

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Fjords, Fords, Frankfurters

Posted on July 30, 2014 by Todd

This blog actually has nothing to do with Fords or hotdogs for the record.

Like normal, my posts are a little screwed up and not proof read. This one is going to cover time before and after Svalbard, but not Svalbard.

I lucked out on my long flight from Denver to Heathrow because I had an entire row of seats to myself. While on the flight I realized that I haven’t traveled in awhile because I hadn’t seen most of the movies under new releases. I had an uneventful layover in Heathrow where I did meet someone from Denver at the pub.

Oslo harbor

Downtown Oslo

When I arrived in Oslo I checked into my hotel and then and went wandering around town and it started to get dark around 11pm. The next day I left the hotel and went and did some tourist sights around town until I met my parents at the train station. We then did some more around Oslo and then took the train back to the airport to Svalbard. During this time period is was hot, heat wave, walk around town without a shirt, close the castle early hot. It turns out that we ended up in Oslo during the warmest time of the year.

Sad bike 😦

You read about Oslo and Norway being expensive and they really are. A 500ml soda/bottle of water costs $3.50-$5, breakfast $15+, a beer $9-$25, a gyro $11, a 20 minute train ride to the airport $30, a 10 minute ferry ride $5, entrances to museums $10-$20, a yoghurt in the grocery store $3, a candy bar in the grocery store $3, a ferry in the fjord region $30-$40. It all is pretty crazy and if you dwell on the fact that each sip of your soda costs 24 cents it would drive you crazy. Norway passed a law years ago that allows people to hike, camp, fish, and pick berries and mushrooms anywhere in the country without paying a fee. That means you can’t really trespass and you can camp anywhere.

More sad bikes

We the got back from Svalbard and took the airport train, a 5 hour train with great fjord views, an hour train with great views to Flam. A village at the edge of a huge Fjord. We spent the night there and grabbed the 6am ferry to Balestrand. When we checked in we were told the ferry didn’t exist, but then someone said it did. It turns out we were the only passengers and normally there aren’t any passengers. It was a pretty sweet 2 hour ride. We then hopped on another ferry to Mundal.

1100 meters in Norway’s mountains

Flam harbor

The fjord near Flam

On the ferry, our private boat..

From the train

We then rented bikes, rode 8k to the trail head, and hiked 3k of vert to the top of a mountain over looking the largest glacier in mainland Europe and the fjord. My parents were pretty beat afterwards. Today I rode a bike around and had a laid back day. The weather has been pretty temperamental the past couple days, but it didn’t really rain for more than an hour or two at a time.

Hmmm

The glacier looks so small in he his picture

It even shifts!,,,

Mundal church

Cheapest thing in the grocery store, $3

Posted in EUROPE, Norway | 2 Comments

Svalbard, huh, where am I?

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Todd

Where am I, seriously where am I?

My passport was stamped out of Norway, I took a three hour flight north and was never stamped back into a country. Not only that, it was bright out at 1am when we landed, 3pm bright. After a couple discussions I discovered that I really was in Norway, but a segment of Norway that the international community allowed to recognize as being Norway if their citizens have equal rights as Norwegians. Forty countries have signed the treaty that controls Svalbard and don’t need a visa to live or work on the Island, but there are a couple catches. It is illegal to be born or die on Svalbard, there are not any taxes on goods, there is a flat 16% income tax, at the liquor store you can only buy 24 beers or 2 liters of spirits a month, and you fall under the control of the appointed governor of Svalbard.

Svalbard was discovered a couple few hundred years ago by a dude looking for the northeastern passage and starting in the late 1800s they began to mine coal from the island (visible seams). There are five year round settlements on the islands population 4 (caretakers of an old Russian settlement), 35, ~100(Polish), 400ish(Russian), 2,000 (main town, only 35 miners) makings them the farthest north active public settlements (I am sure this can be debated). Longyearbyen is the farthest north settlement with over 1000 people in the world. Being so far north it never gets dark in the summer. The low light is 3/4pm dark.

Fat bikes, $1300

Gluten free…

Seal hanging to dry

I didn’t have the best weather during couple days in Svalbard with it being cloudy and drizzling, but in the afternoon the sun would break through the clouds. If I didn’t have blackout curtains and Sonata, I don’t think that I would be able to sleep, but having standard meals helped.

The town of Longyearbyen is comparable to Boulder/Colorado mountain towns. There are 4 different groups of people that live in town: the miners, the locals (basically everyone else who works in the tourist industry, almost all between 20-40, 70% Norwegian, physically active, and like to play in the mountains), students (a branch on Tromso University/international researchers), and Thais (10%, the second largest group of people, they are signers of the treaty and many come to the island for cleaning/kitchen work). The Thai population means that there is a Thai food shop, Thai massage, and a Thai restaurant in town. Since there are more polar bears in Svalbard (mainly on the the ice) than people, you are legally required to carry a rifle if you leave town (read 4 streets without any signage). The people from main land Europe were amazed that the guides put bullets in their guns at the edge of town….

“Downtown”

On the glacier

Old Russian mining town

The first day in town I got a solid 5 hours of sleep, ate some smoked salmon, mustard fish, and herring for breakfast then headed out to the dog yard. The dog yard had ~150 dogs and we harnessed 25 of them up (Putin wasn’t being used because he was too aggressive and Bush was kept on the other side of yard as Putin) onto our wheeled sleds and went for a ride. We then grabbed lunch and went for a zodiac ride to see puffins and other assorted birds along with abandoned Russian mining towns. We then grabbed dinner which was great until the last course. It was seal, whale, and reindeer. The reindeer was great, but the seal and whale tasted like over cooked liver.

Our second day in Svalbard got off to a rocky start. Somehow our reservations for a 7 hour hike at 9am were changed to a short evening hike without anyone telling us. The women working at the front desk spent about an hour calling half the town and ended up finding us a guide to take us up the glacier around noon. The town our second day was overrun with ~5000 cruise ship tourists from 7 boats which combined with the snafu about what we were doing made us a little testy. The cruise ship tourists are not allowed to but alcohol at the liquor store since it is untaxed and they technically are still in there EU and Svalbard isn’t in the EU (plus they would wipe out the entire stock). At the store a liter of Hendricks was ~$30, small soy sauce $6, 18 eggs $7, soy whipped cream $6, 1lb salmon $18, and a can of coke $1.

Yummy

The farthest north you can buy Maui Jims

6 types of coconut milk including organic at the grocery store

No guns in the grocery store

Me with Luna (really the dogs name)

Overall Svalbard was one of the craziest/most awesome place that I have been. Most of the tourists tend to be older since it is more expensive, but it is a place I would go back to.

Posted in EUROPE, Norway, Svalbard | 1 Comment