Update 22 - Arctic fun 01

Bruce is in town!

Bruce was coming! We excitedly rushed to Skøyen station to meet him. He had this nice sunset to watch on the train ride from the airport.Bruce, you are the first team to arrive!I have to wheel this bag over snow?We showed Bruce photos of himself wearing a viking hat last year when we visited Oz.Then we walked over to Grant's place to have a glass of wine and head out for dinner.We ate at a spanish tapas restaurant.It was fun seeing Astrid again too.Paparazzi!Yay Bruce is in Oslo!The friendly waiter took our photo.It was so cold this night that my breath was showing up in the photos as we walked to a bar.Drinking some norwegian Aass beerThe next day we walked through Vigeland's park on our way to the train station.Oslo kidsGimme that baby!Walking through the park...We caught a train to the top of the hill, Frognersetern.We were going to sled down again!Being a Tuesday, we didn't have to wait at all to hire sleds.Woohoo!This is the first time I'd seen a snowboarder going down here.After narrowly missing a metal bar in a fence because I was filming with my camera, we waited for the train back to the top.One more slide down...it was scary on the steep icey parts!We decided to return our sleds and have a meal in the restaurant overlooking Oslo.But first, a snowball fight!Bruce's first meal of reindeer......and alcohol free beer! This is the moment he realised it was alcohol free :)Looking out over OsloBack at home again, eating pølse med lompe (hotdogs with lumpe bread if you haven't been paying attention in previous photo updates).Then a bit of guitar Hero action...going off...oh yeh


Arctic adventures in Tromsø

Arctic adventures!We got up early the next morning to fly to Tromsø.It took a while but we eventually worked out the controls.And off we flew! We had enough light to watch the changing landscape as we flew further and further north.This is midway from Oslo to Tromsø.And then we came up to this! It looked absolutely amazing.And cold :)We landed on the small island where Tromsø is situated.It was a little chilly waiting for a taxi at the airport.But we were in the arctic in winter!Outside our hotel. We were pleasantly surprised by how nice and comfortable it was.Woohoo!After a walk around the town we went to a local pub/restaurant. Here Bruce is trying a dried reindeer snack.Whale soup (called Harpoon suppe!) was on the menu but we decided to have lamb stew instead (a little less controversial).I'd never seen boats with snow on them before.Playing a bit of texas hold'em up poker in our hotel room.Then we rugged up to go for a walk across the main bridge in snowy, cold wind. We called it 'Xtreme Sightseeing!'Didn't we order the sunny beach holiday?You can just see the top of the snow covered hill in this photo.There's also the triangular shaped catherdral.And this is the bridge we'd just walked over. Our hotel was on the other side in the middle of town.Bruce tried to read the map in the wind.We were hoping to see the Northern Lights, but it was much too cloudy!It was a beautiful little town.Another snow filled ship!The next day sunrise was 9.57am and we scoffed down some hotel breakfast and headed out into the arctic winter world...It was raining! Well, snotting would be more descriptive. So what to do in this weather? Let's go to the most northernmost brewery in the world!It was the Mack brewery and we had a drink while we waited for the tour to start.Cheers!I...er...had a coffee :)All the different Mack beers.The one on the left is the oldest one. Hey, there's a babooshka beer!They also made coke up here...can you guess what's in these bags? Yep, that's all the sugar they put in!The guide told us that this brewery is the only one in the world to not use chemically treated water.A couple of sexy tourists.The storage containers for the beer...they go back 100 meters apparently.After the tour we tasted a combination drink of 2 of their beers. It was pretty good!We chatted for a while with this german tourist.And tried lapskaus...it tastes so much better than our work canteen one!M...um..i forget her name! Anyway, she showed us where a boat was she was going on later that night and told us we could visit it.A label Dan found in the toilet.Whoa!A head massage?We found the boat and hopped on board!Dan felt a little seasick and we hopped back off ;)Our hotel was near that red building...if you can spot the red building.Ass juice?Bowling anyone? The most northernmost bowling we've ever done! :)Winner!Arctic Dance Dance RevolutionWe were there in spirit.Brudan...the boy band?