Nine: done! (part two)

The problem with aurora borealis is, that they are visible only between 9 pm and 11 pm, so it's good to find yourself something to kill the time for rest of the day, after you're done with all Sherlock episodes.  The main thing to see in Tromso in every guide is the Polaria museum. From outside, the museum building looks really cool, like blocks of ice, so we expected to find a modern science centre inside. Well... inside we found corny  dioramas, made of  styrofoam and stuffed polar bears. There are also dioramas with stuffed seagulls sitting on concrete-covered, veristically painted with white bird's guano foam blocks. In tundra department one can step on a mat, that gives a sensation of walking on a real tundra ground and aquarias contain all those shelly animals, which I could see on my plate in a fancy restaurant if only I could afford eating in fancy restaurants. You can even join to the 'Talking Clams' Facebook and become one of 14 subscribers.

I'm totally following the Talking Clams. 

Honestly, there would be nothing worth the ticket price in Polaria, if they didn't have seals. But they have them. And those canny seals know how cute and adorable they are, so they are parading themselves in front of the awwwing audience.

He'd be such a fox if he wouldn't be a seal

University of Tromso runs a small, odd Polar Museum located in a Customs House built in 1830, where one can see dioramas (I'm having an impression that Norwegians love them), polar explorers' long johns, walrus' baculum, lots of stuffed animals, skulls of polar bears, proud notes from sealers diaries and contemporary reports complaining about lack of demand for seals furs and sentiment for good old times, when the sea was full of seals and sealing ships. Generally speaking - it's a nightmare of every ecologist.

Hjalmar Johannsen's long johns. I guess that 100 years ago it was worth as
much as Johny Depp's underwear on eBay.

Accidentally we ended up in the last day of Sami Week, which was celebrated by organising a raindeer race along Storgata - the main street of old Tromso. The street got covered with snow, on one end there was a final and on the other - a pen full of reindeers looking like they are not really big fans of racing. The skiers however were quite motivated, since the main prize was 12000 NOK ( 2168 $) and everlasting glory. In the women's cathegory the winner was Lone Nilssen from Unjárgga VS, and the best man was Nils Eira from Kárášjoga Gilvohearggit. The fact that there actually exist sport clubs specialized in reindeer racing is as awesome as it's hilarious.

There was also a market accompanying this event, where nice old ladies in deep blue folk costumes were selling jackets made of seal fur, reindeer skins, reindeer sausages, reindeer goulash and souvenirs made of horn. Reindeer horn of course.

Reindeer sausage. This must be quite motivating for those running in a race

Even without markets, reindeer races and odd museums, Tromso is just awesome. It's a 19. century scandinavian town, neat wooden houses, lamp in every window and this Norwegian care of details, it's a little bit like a polar version of Cardemom Town, where there are sledge park places instead of bike racks and even dogs wear Norwegian sweaters.

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Problem z zorzami jest taki, że najlepiej je widać przez dwie godziny wieczorem i że dobrze jest znaleźć sobie jakieś zajęcie na pozostałe 22 godziny, kiedy obejrzy się już wszystkie odcinki Sherlocka. W każdym przewodniku o Tromso na honorowym miejscu jest muzeum Polaria, super atrakcja. Z zewnątrz budynek wygląda ekstra, jak masa bloków lodu, więc spodziewałyśmy się czegoś na miarę polarnego Kopernika. W środku... Cóż, w środku jest bardzo urocza oldskulowa diorama ze styropianu i wypchanych niedźwiedzi polarnych. Są też wypchane mewy siedzące na werystycznie pociągniętych betonem i obsranych białą farbą blokach z pianki. W dziale o tundrze można wejść na matę uginającą się pod stopami jak prawdziwa ziemia w tundrze, natomiast w akwariach jest strasznie dużo różnych rzeczy w muszlach, które gdyby było mnie stać, widywałabym na talerzu w eleganckiej restauracji. Można nawet zostać trzynastym subskrybentem fanpage'a pod tytułem 'Talking Clams'.

Ty też możesz być jednym z 14 dumnych fanów "Talking Clams"

I tak naprawdę nie byłoby w Polarii nic wartego kasy wydanej na bilet wstępu, gdyby nie fokarium. Te skubane foki dobrze wiedzą jakie są śliczne i rozkoszne i popisują się przed publicznością, wywołując zbiorowe 'awww'.

Ten przystojniak nazywa się Lofen

Ciekawostką jest muzeum polarne prowadzone przez Uniwersytet Tromso, w którym można zobaczyć dioramy (zaczynam mieć wrażenie, że Norwegowie kochają dioramy), obejrzeć kalesony polarników, bakulum morsa, dużo martwych wypchanych zwierząt, czaszki niedźwiedzi polarnych i pełne satysfakcji pamiętniki wielorybników oraz przeczytać pełne ubolewania współczesne raporty stwierdzające, że polowanie na foki to już nie to co kiedyś i że szkoda, że nie ma zapotrzebowania na focze futra. Ogólnie rzecz biorąc - koszmar ekologa. 

Kalesony Hjalmara Johansena. Wyobrażam sobie, że sto lat temu były
warte tyle, ile dziś majtki Johnego Deppa na eBayu

Przypadkowo udał nam się trafić na podsumowanie tygodnia kultury Sami, czyli wielki wyścig reniferów po głównej ulicy miasta - Storgata. Ulica została wysypana śniegiem, na jednym końcu była meta a na drugim start, z kojcem pełnym reniferów, które niespecjalnie wyglądały jakby chciały biegać na 1000 metrów. Za to narciarze chcieli, bo główna nagroda wynosiła 12000 NOK, (czyli ok 7000 PLN) i wieczny fejm. W kategorii kobiecej wygrała Lone Nilssen z klubu sportowego Unjárgga VS, a w męskiej Nils Eira z Kárášjoga Gilvohearggit. Sam fakt istnienia klubów sportowych specjalizujących się w wyścigach reniferów jest dla mnie super. 

Całej imprezie towarzyszył okolicznościowy jarmark, na którym miłe starsze panie w błękitnych strojach ludowych sprzedawały kurtki z fok, skóry reniferów, kabanosy z renifera, gulasz z renifera i pamiątki z rogu. Tak, renifera. 

Kabanos z renifera. Dobra motywacja dla reniferów, żeby
szybko dobiec do mety.

Nawet bez jarmarków i osobliwych muzeów, Tromso jest mega. Małe dziewiętnastowieczne skandynawskie miasteczko, drewniane domki, w oknach lampy, dbałość o każdy szczegół, trochę jak z "Rozbójników z Kardamonu". Ot, taki Kardamon w wersji polarnej, gdzie zamiast stojaków na rowery przed szkołami są parkingi dla sanek i gdzie nawet psy noszą norweskie swetry.

Nine: done! (part one)

Goal number nine: to see the Northern Lights achieved! Champagne please! Skål!

First of all: Oslo is beautiful. Norway is beautful. You get out of Oslo Sentralstasjon and you can see all those old houses with lamps hung in small windows. Well-groomed people. Trees loaded with lights next to Nationaltheatret. Moominvalley-like architecture. Lack of ugly billboards, leaflets, trashy tags on monuments, shodiness and mess. I was walking down Karl Johans gate, enjoying beautiful, wintery Oslo, carrying my backpack, smiling at everything: lights on trees, pretty small cafes, at that guy wearing wedge-heeled shoes or that lady, who wooshed me by on her bicycle.  

And then, just few hours later, you are taxing over Tromso and everything looks like it's a Discovery Channel program: snowy mountains and Arctic Ocean behind them, fjord, Tromsoya island. Peaks covered with glacier and the sun, shining very shyly, since the sun has risen just an hour before we landed, around 9 am. In India, when you walk trough the door of an airport, the heat just flares into your face. Here, the cold air freezes even boogers in your nose.

There was no aurora on our first night in Tromso. According to Northern Lights forecast, it was a two on 10-points scale and the sky was cloudy. We were just sitting on a couch in our lovely wooden Norwegian cabin, in our lovely Norwegian camping, stuffing ourselves with instant puddings, watching Sherlock and knowing that no amount of Benedict Cumberbatch would recompense the lack of aurora.

This couch and this table are made for watching TV series. Just look at them.

And then it began. One evening I looked out of the window and I saw a tiny green streak in the sky, so tiny that it was easy to confuse it with a cloud. We rushed out of the cabin, tying boots and loosing gloves. Streak was growing, getting more intense, creating most incredible shapes and suddenly it turned out that it could make girls screech and get excited faster than Ryan Gosling's sixpack. On the next night we decided to go to a serious expedition to chase Northern Lights. Our bus, filled with a half of Singaporean population, cookies and hot chocolate vacuum flasks took us to the middle of nowhere. Our guide, Francesco said, that it would be great to see "dancing curtains", because it's the most desired shape, but on the 10-points Aurora Borealis Activity Scale we could count on maximum 3 points,  so we shouldn't have too big expectations. There were auroras, very weak ones though. We were waiting either in the bus or outside, gazing at the sky, freezing in -20 degrees, with our cameras and tripods prepared. Theoretically, Northern Lights appear between 9 and 11 pm. It was 10.30 pm when I was on the bus, saying something like "Gee, if it doesn't get better soon, I dont think we'll see anything more spectacular toni...", when Francesco plunged into the bus and screamed "Everybody get out of the bus!".

Whole sky was glowing green and waving and we were gazing at it with our mouths wide open. Even that half of Singapore put their cameras away for a moment. (Which was actually very reasonable, since Norwegians believed in the past that waving white cloth at Northern Lights may simply piss them off so much that they would kill you, just stand still and don't make rapid moves, okay? I guess that's why there are not many cheerleaders in Norway)

Posing for a picture when you need  15 seconds of shutter speed  is not cool.
Or actually it is. It's something like -20 degrees cool.

[To be continued]
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Przede wszystkim: Oslo jest przepiękne. Norwegia jest przepiękna. Wychodzisz z Oslo Sentralstasjon i widzisz kamienice z lampami zawieszonymi w małych okienkach. Dobrze ubranych ludzi. Drzewka obwieszone lampkami przy Nationaltheatret. Architekturę jak w "Muminkach". Brak billboardów, ulotek na ziemi, gówniarskich tagów na zabytkach, bylejakości i syfu. Szłam tym pięknym zimowym Oslo z plecakiem na plecach i micha mi się cieszyła do wszystkiego, do lampek, fajnego wystroju knajpek który widziałam przez okno, do pana w butach na koturnach, do pani, która śmignęła obok mnie na rowerze.

A parę godzin później kołujesz nad Tromso i wszystko jest jak z Discovery, białe góry za którymi jest Ocean Arktyczny, fiord, w fiordzie wyspa Tromsoya i wcale bym się nie zdziwiła, gdybym usłyszała gdzieś w tle Krystynę Czubównę. Szczyty białe od śniegu, słonko mocno nieśmiałe, bo  wzeszło zaledwie godzinę wcześniej, o 9:00. I tak jak w Indiach przy wyjściu z lotniska w twarz bucha upał, tak tutaj mróz ścina nawet smarki w nosie.

Pierwszej nocy nie było zorzy. Prognozy wskazywały 2 na 10-stopniowej skali aktywności, do tego zachmurzenie. Siedziałyśmy w naszej ślicznej drewnianej norweskiej chatce, na naszym ślicznym norweskim kempingu, faszerując się budyniami w proszku, oglądając "Sherlocka" i wiedząc, że żadna ilość Benedicta Cumberbatcha nie zastąpi zórz. 

Ta kanapa jest stworzona do oglądania seriali. Serio.

A potem się zaczęło. Kolejnego wieczoru zupełnie przypadkiem przez okno łazienki zobaczyłam na niebie smugę, taką, że trudno było ją odróżnić od chmury. Wypadłyśmy na dwór, na śnieg, po drodze wiążąc buty i gubiąc rękawice. Smuga rosła w siłę, nabierała kolorów, wywijała się w niesamowite kształty, i nagle okazało się, że doprowadza dziewczyny do pisku i ekscytacji szybciej niż klata Ryana Goslinga. Następnej nocy wybrałyśmy się na poważną ekspedycję w poszukiwaniu zórz. Autokarem, z zapasami ciastek i gorącej czekolady dwie godziny (nas pięć i chyba połowa Singapuru) jechaliśmy w jakieś miejsce pośrodku pustkowia a nasz przewodnik, Francesco, opowiadał, że w sumie ekstra by było, gdybyśmy zobaczyli "dancing curtains", bo to najbardziej pożądany kształt, ale prognoza przewiduje słabą trójkę, więc mamy się nie nastawiać. Zorze były, ale bez rewelacji. Siedzieliśmy na zmianę w autokarze i na zewnątrz, w 20-stopniowym mrozie, z głowami zadartymi w górę i z aparatami przygotowanymi na statywach. Teoretycznie zorze pojawiają się między 21:00 a 23:00. Była 22:30, kiedy siedziałam w autokarze mówiąc właśnie, że jeśli się jakoś znacząco nie poprawi, to chyba nic tu po nas, kiedy Francesco wpadł do autokaru i ryknął "Everybody get out of the bus!".

Całe niebo było zielone i falowało a my wpatrywaliśmy się w to z otwartymi buziami. Nawet połowa Singapuru odłożyła na moment aparaty. (Co było w gruncie rzeczy rozsądne, bo kiedyś Norwegowie uważali, że machanie białą szmatką na zorze może je wkurzyć i wtedy cię zabiją, więc po prostu stój spokojnie i nie rób gwałtownych ruchów. Pewnie dlatego w Norwegii nie ma cheerleaderek.)

Zorze polarne są trochę jak niedźwiedzie polarne.
Oprócz tego, że są polarne, łączy je jeszcze to, że  lepiej ich nie denerwować.

[To be continued]

Task sixteen: Close my studies

I thought that I should add it here to make it happen. This week I found myself in a very complicated situation. It turned out that due to some changes in the rules of studying, combined with a huge bureaucratic mess in one of the units of my unversity and my gap year which I took two years ago... I don't exist. If I don't exist I can't defend my MA dissertation and close my studies. If you ever read anything by Franz Kafka, Trial or Castle, you know what I mean. Okay, there was some procrastination from my side and it's my fault that I lost my laptop (containing a hard drive with half of my MA dissertation) and some minor mistakes could be avoided, but still, I drop shadow, I see myself in the mirror and my ankles hurt after yesterdays workout, so I'm more than sure that I exist and therefore I can defend my dissertation, close my studies and move forward with my life. Have you heard it, Warsaw Universty!? I dare you! 

Just in case, my cat is banned from entering my bedroom.

Blood, sweat and tears

If you can see this post, it's probably because I wrote it yesterday and set in this awesome Blogger schedule to post it today. And it happened, because today I can't move. (See how provident I am?). Yes. My dream number one is in progress, I got myself a gym membership and from what I feel it hurts.

And I'm not sure if I would do it, if our district sport centre wasn't Rivendell. I'm totally serious. I don't know who was the architect, but he decided to design the swimming pool, ice rink, gym, squash hall and all those things I can't even remember in a Lord-of-the-Rings themed building. And it's not only my interpretation, he mentioned his inspirations in some interviews:

I can totally see Galadriel sliding down to the water!

I had a gym membership. Once. Long long ago, in a country where the food was so incredbly awesome that going to the gym was the only way to fit into your pants. And still in the end of my stay I was wearing dresses only. You must know, that I never was a sporty person. I just didn't understand a concept of catching a ball and running and being superfast and all this stuff. Seriously, what did that ball do to you? Let it be. Leave it alone. You both can sit next to eachother and coexist in peace. Probably, Polish primary sport teaching program, designed for big kids with long legs, making short kids with short legs come to the fnish of a run as last, wasn't really encouraging either. You must admit that getting that membership was a big thing. After I bought it I aleady felt my external oblique muscle getting stronger. But you know, buying a membership is just a first half of the game. The other part is to go and actually run. 

So yesterday I made sure that I have all I needed, including a fancy t-shirt from which everybody could see what's my attitude towards sport and English grammar:

Thanks God, a coach didn't speak English, or that spelling mistake tricked him, or was simply corteous enough not to pay attention. He showed me all those threadmills and all the stuff that I'm never gonna use and let me run. So I did. I can't remember for how long I ran, but there was Justyna Kowalczyk on TV, our best cross-country skier winning something apparently important, so I felt like it's my patriotic duty to run along and support her mentally. You must know, people, that Poland is famous of nichee sports, such as ski jumping, cross-country skiing or simply racewalking, confirming the stereotype of Poland as "that poor country with loads of snow and no cars". Because nothing is better to win a race, than just walk to the finish.

Anyway, seing other people sweat gives you the spirit for fight. Then, they changed channels and it was even better, because there was a program called "Knockout Sportsworld", which was a werd combination of MMA and lucha libre with people smashing eachothers faces in most spectacular ways. However, I'm still waiting for rugby. There is no better backgound for running than watching a bunch of very big, very dirty and very pissed guys fighting for a ball. It's all about sweat, blood and tears. Almost like my yesterdays workout. Ahem.

Number nine in progress

I know, I was slacking lately. I haven't written a single post for a MONTH and I can't even find a good excuse. I guess that watching first and second season of Game of Thrones is not convincing enough. Well, believe it or not, I had a lot to do. Like making dream number nine, which is See the Northern Lights, come true. 

My friend Milena found out that this year Northern Lights will be at the peakest peak of its activity for 50 years. Okay, I must admit, I was a bit skeptical in the beginning and found quite contradictory statements on some scientific sites, but it turns out that she was right. I joined their group, we did some research, we chose Tromso in Norway instead of Rovaniemi in Finland, we saw way too many Northern Lights time-lapse videos and I was all like this:

And then I did some maths. And I got all like this:

Just because Norway is so damn expensive and what I was gonna pay for flights there and back could feed a small African country for a year. So I spend few sleepless nights imagining all the fun that Milena and the gang would have without me, and trying to calculate the value of my kidneys. Because, people, we are talking about a country where a combo meal at McDo costs 90 NOK, which is around 50 PLN, or 17$ or 13 EUR. Now try to imagine prices of trains, flights and accomodation. So I gave up, trying not to think about all this fun I'm missing, living in a rustic red Norwgian cabin with small white windows, wearing hand-made nordic sweaters, hanging out with reindeers and seing awesome Northern Lights.

And then my mom convinced me that I should go. Because I can always earn it back, and it may be difficult to find another group of people who'd like to go, and the next ocassion for such spctacular lights will be around 2063. So I decided to go. And then miracle happened. I got the only seat in Ryanair flight from Warsaw to Oslo that costed 1,02 PLN. I'm serious. It's like 0,25 EUR. And it was the only flight I could book. And then, Norwegian dropped their prices for the flight from Oslo to Tromso for like 40%. And I found a scandiblonde CSer, who is willing to host me in Oslo. Apparently, the world wants me to hang out with reindeers. 6 February, people, a little more than a month to go. Yay!

Ten: done!

Do you remember when I aimed to own a horse? It's done. Checked.. Her name is Kropka and I don't own her.

Yeah, some of you may say I'm cheating and it doesn't count. I was wondering if it counts and the answer is, that I need to express my goals more carefully.

Because, as I said, what I wanted is pretty much independence and having a horse to care for. And, thanks to my friend Ula, my dream came true. Ula is a cousin of my friend from high school. She got Kropka in early spring this year, but short after purchasing the horse it turned out that she won't be able to ride it for the next six months. And here came one of the greatest surprises ever. She asked me to take care of her horse.

Which meant becoming familiar with all this specialistic stuff. Like ummm... martingale. Or applying birch-tar on her hoofs (and sitting alone in the back of the train on my way home, because I smelled with it so much that no one wanted to sit next to me). Or giving her legs a massage with a cooling balm. And discovering later that doing it with bare hands in November may make give you frostbites. Okay. Not a serious frostbites, but it felt like it. Like... ummm... I couldn't feel that I actually had hands.

But...

for all the pain you get when a 700 kgs animal steps on your foot, and doesn't want to move...

for all the embarassment you feel when you have to clean up 3 kilograms of warm, steamy poo, which your horse fancied to have, right in front of local Tesco, during your afternoon ride...

for putting your hand into her mouth to make her take a bit...

you get a wind in your hair when you're galloping trough an open field. And that's it.

Well, you also get a super classy look once or twice a year, but I'm telling you, wind in your hair is better:

You can't really see a wind here, but I can assure you that we heard some buzzing in our ears anyway. I'd blame mulled wine they served. Kropka enjoyed a sip as well.

Task fifteen: Learn to code

Recently I had a fight with my friend Ozmen. We discussed about female programmers. Ozmen said that girls are capable to code, but they shouldn't be doing this, because it's not girly. According to Ozmen it's like driving a truck, which is also not girly. Because you know, when a girl codes and drives a truck, no guy wants to date her (indeed, I don't really recommend doing it simultaneously). We ended up with me saying he's a sexist jerk and trust me, I usually am nice to people. 

And no, I'm not gonna prove anything to anyone. I really want to know how to code, because first of all, I believe that soon it's gonna be like writing and reading. A must. No one was ever encouraging me to develop my left cereblar hemisphere. I'm not sure if it happened because I'm a math-ignorant and I can count to potato or if it didn't happen because I'm a girl.

And girls should draw, dance, write and drive strollers and trolleys.

I want to check it. I want to be able to create any website I want. I don't have to do it, but I want to know I can do it. And if I won't like it, then I'll go back to my usual drawing, writing, arty, creative activities.

And if it's gonna make this topic any easier to Ozmen, who is a web developer himself, I can use girly accesories. Such as: