… the Polar North!
Yes, the girls and I are currently dialing in from beyond the Arctic Circle, from a land that’s covered with snow and ice, and where the sun only just about manages to dip below the horizon for a little while before popping right back up again – in a couple of weeks it won’t even do that! The equivalent latitude in the Southern Hemisphere is Antarctica, so we’re definitely officially in the polar regions. Yes, we’re in the Arctic! How exciting 
We are visiting a friend of mine from my Masters course who is doing polar research and she’s been living up here for the last four years. That’s one of the advantages of being a geologist, you get to have friends in far-flung places who you can go out and visit The downside of that though is that they’re scattered here, there and everywhere, so I don’t get to see them all very often.
But I’ve had a lovely time over the last few days, thoroughly relaxing and a lot of fun. The big highlight of the trip so far was when we went dogsledding on Friday and got to play with all the beeeeaaauuuuutiful huskies that make up the teams. Apparently 150 of the dog team are out racing in a charity event this week, which left “only 100” but they still made an incredible din! (These dogs are trained to RUN which is why they have to be tied up when they’re not in their pens).
Aren’t they just the most beautiful creatures?
I completely wanted to take one of them home of course, but then I remembered poor Barnaby Jonathan who probably wouldn’t want a doggy companion at his stage in life. I have now however renewed my ideas of getting a dog next year when DrMrNin and I are in our own place. (Can we, please? Pretty please with sugar on top??)
How could you resist a face like this? He looks like a little polarbear!
Although the view from the sled wasn’t quite so pretty 
Bottoms, tee hee! FYI they poop and pee on the run. I’d always wondered that.
Other highlights so far have included seeing more snow than I have seen in a long time…
Those footprints are about a foot or two deep!
And this afternoon the girls and I went to visit the seals at the polar aquarium. I felt terrible about the other day, and have vowed never, ever, EVER to do it again; I’m just going to pretend that it didn’t happen. I was young, foolish and experimentational. Bad, bad me. Horrible, nasty, shouldn’t have done it me.
The girls especially enjoyed watching them swim around in front of the big glass dome window. And for a little while Paige stopped feeling homesick.
The biggest highlight of all of course has been getting to hang out with my Arctic Scot friend (she hails from Edinburgh originally). It’s been so much fun getting together again after all these years, and it’s just been like old times. It’s been both packed with fun and adventure…
And packed with relaxation too.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see any Northern Lights as it just doesn’t get dark enough here now, but it’s always been another ambition of mine to see the midnight sun. Although it doesn’t happen officially for another couple of weeks, here’s a photo I took out of the window at midnight last night…
Now to me that still looks daylight (it was actually even lighter in real life) and it doesn’t actually get dark here now, just darker blue, so I think I can check that one off my list now, don’t you think?
Thankyou Lindsey for a lovely time so far!
We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves
