Godt Nyttår!
Much like the rest of the trip, everything has been pretty shut up across Norway, but just a few things were open.
We began our New Year's Eve by visiting the Polaria - an exhibition centre about the Polar regions and how Norway is involved in research in both North and South. Some very interesting videos about the Arctic region (taken from a helicopter!) and also a video about the Northern Lights. Someone was trying to take photos of the actual film... odd!
We were then treated to a display by two bearded seals and two harbour (common) seals. They were very cute and well trained doing jumps, playing with toys and spinning about!
Outside the air was crisp and the skies clear, so we spent a while taking photos of the harbour and the surrounding mountains. It was freeeeeezing!
We then skidded round the local streets - a foot's worth of ice along most pavements and roads - until we reached the world's most northerly Burger King! Not the most local of delicacies!
Getting set up with some coffee and beer in a favourite local haunt of ours (Kino), we played a few rounds of cards and then played THE MOST EPIC GAME OF SCRABBLE, using a range of Norwegian letters! Lou whipped Toby with a score of 276. He had however, beaten her many times at cards.
After whiling away the afternoon, we ventured back along the icy streets of Tromsø to our hotel where we 'dressed' for dinner. We were treated to a beautiful four-course dinner with smoked duck, Arctic Char (like salmon), reindeer steaks and then chocolate soufflé for dessert - yum yum yum.
We then skidded across the kilometre long bridge to the Arctic Cathedral for a concert. The Arctic Cathedral has the most amazing acoustic and the singer filled the hall alongside the cello, organ and piano. Our concert finished around 10.15pm and we quickly trudged through the snow (Lou very excited now), to the cable car which we hoped would take us up the mountain for some spectacular views of Tromsø.
Most of the city also wanted to get up the mountain and there was a long queue. Suddenly though, Toby looked up and mentioned a funny cloud in the sky, which actually turned out to be THE NORTHERN LIGHTS! Cue excited photographs of a black sky...
Once we reached the top of the mountain, we had spectacular views across the city and beyond, which was truly breath-taking. The deep, deep snow kept Lou happy in the biting cold, whilst firecrackers exploded all around. As it approached midnight, the city below was like a war zone - so many fireworks exploding as far as the eye could see!
On the stroke of midnight, they began setting off the proper fireworks from the side of the mountain. A lady next to us had obviously never seen fireworks and at every pop she said "Oy!" which as you can imagine gets quite tiresome after a 10 minute display.
We got back to our hotel at 1.20am and crawled into bed; our heads swimming with aurora, snow, music and fireworks!
We're back on the Hurtigruten MS Vesterålen this evening for the final leg of our Norwegian adventure. We will arrive in Kirkenes on Friday morning for ice hotels, huskies, snow and hopefully more aurora!
It must have just been amazing to see xx
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