After such an abysmal winter (weather-wise), I was even more excited to head off on a much dreamed of trip to Norway to visit friends. The fact that I don't follow a training plan for the month of April, and plane tickets to Norway were incredibly cheap, made it the perfect time for a vacation.
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| Flying into Iceland for a layover |
I began my Norwegian adventure in Oslo visiting friends I met during college while studying in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago in the Barents Sea halfway between the North Pole and northern Norway. It was really fun to catch up over a tasty taco dinner and reminisce about our Svalbard memories.
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Exploring the Akershus Fortress in Oslo
with my friend Ida, who was a
very gracious host! |
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| Selfie with the Royal Palace! |
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A very dead hydrangea. Turns out early April isn't the
best time of year to visit the botanical gardens... |
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I did find a few blooming flowers. Here's a
Spring snowflake (Leucojum vernum) |
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And a Purple Mountain Saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia),
which also grows on Svalbard! |
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| A cookie rainbow in the Oslo food hall |
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| Some fancy bread |
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| One of the buildings along a street dedicated to graffiti |
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The Holmenkollen ski jump. My friend Helene
grew up on Holmenkollen and gave Ida
and me a lovely tour of the area |
After leaving Oslo, I headed to Lillehammer with my friend Maeve and spent a week camping and skiing in and around Sjusjøen.
After our camping trip, Maeve and I headed up to Tromsø so she could finish her master's thesis. I enjoyed turning on my academic brain and reading through her incredibly well-written paper. Her research focused on the food web structure in a high Arctic fjord during the polar night, which was quite interesting to learn about.
While in Tromsø, I did even more skiing as the main city trail passed right near Maeve's house. In addition to skiing the trails in town, we also went on some fun backcountry adventures and a few fishing trips. It was sunny nearly every day, which is unusual in Tromsø, and the sun didn't set until about 10pm so I got my fill of vitamin D.
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Some paintings I did for Maeve's thesis defense
presentation. These are a few of the species in
the food web she studied. Top to bottom:
Haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinis),
Sevenline shrimp (Sabinea septemcarinata),
Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua), and
Northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) |
