Back in Trondheim.

Now I'm back in Trondheim enjoying time with Rasmus and the dogs. The course at UNIS was quite a lot of work, so right now it feels good to turn down the speed a bit and take some hours each day to recharge the inner batteries and enjoy life. AND: the first snow has come!!!
Both dogs and we enjoy it. Everything becomes so much nicer.


But first a bit about the cruise and the rest of the course. On the cruise our working-group mainly saw the inside of the boat and the coldroom. Most of the time we ran feeding-experiments with Mertensia ovum, a ctenophore earlier believed to be only Arctic, but recently also found in the Baltic Sea. Besides the jelly, we had a lot of polar cod (Boreogadus saida) stomachs to look at – or better inside. Why? We wanted to find out what they had eaten.
Even with most time spent inside the boat, we had some nice experience. We saw both polar bears, walruses and wales. The closest encounter was with the polar bear. While lying in the polar ice with the boat tied to an ice floe, we first saw a female with 2 cups. We had both polar bear guards on the ice and on the bridge, so everybody working on the ice had plenty of time to go on board the ship again. Since we wanted to continue working we sadly had to chase them away. The next polar bear came during night and I have to admit that my first thought wasn't very positive when we all were woken up by the call “polar bear right beside the ship”. But the grumpiness about being woken up soon disappeared when I saw the bear right beside the boat, just a few meters away form all the excited student. Somehow I had expected it to be bigger, but still impressive. They are simply beautiful animals and quite curious beings as well.
Back from the cruise the next two weeks were mainly lab-work, analyzing data and report-writing with a bit of time for eating and sleeping in between. One day-trip to Grumantbyen with the boat and some hours walking up to Platåfjellet was the only freetime-activity worth mentioning. But these to trips were soarly needed to keep up some kind of motivation.
Even though I won't be able to use the course for my PhD (which is supposed to begin in november), I probably got something out of it in terms of knowledge and that I got to know the people I most likely gonna work with. Being in LYB before moving up there also gave me a chance to organize a bit – not much but a little is better then nothing.

Back in Trondheim I realized that there was a lot of things that should be done before I moved – preferably before beginning of november. So I right now I regret taking the course before we had finished all the fixing and building we still need to do on our cabin. But luckily Rasmus is more positive and has more energy than me right now after his 2 week-trip in Finnmark with his friend Morten. Have to admit that I'm quite jealous ;). Seems he had a wonderful trip.