Sunday Night Live
It's Sunday evening, and I'm in my dorm room in Nybyen. Across the hall from me, a group of classmates is reviewing for our exam tomorrow. They've got someone's computer hooked up to the TV screen, and they're flashing up pictures of animals we collected on the cruise and trying to name them. It's like a strange game show - a biological Match Game - and I can only imagine what a group of comedians would make of this scenario. They'd look at our indiscernible blobs, the strange and alien forms of our specimens, and shout out terrible-sounding words in a made-up language, because that's what we sound like to them. I can picture the SNL skit already.
Anyway, it's been a long week, and I've spent most of it in the lab. Once we got back from the cruise, we had samples to sort through, exams to study for, and reports to write. My settlement plates are all analyzed and the data stored safely on my computer, so now it's time to follow up on my obligations to the course. Two reports, two exams, and a presentation still stand in front of me, but the pressure will continue to lessen as each one passes by.
I still have two weeks left in Longyearbyen, and I'm going to make the most of them. This place is so unique and so beautiful, I can't help but take a few minutes each day to appreciate where I am. It actually seems crazy to think where I've just been on the cruise. I spend so much time looking at maps of Svalbard for my research, but now I can visualize each of the fjords. Even Rijpfjorden, in the far northeast - I've been there.
I took a walk on Friday evening just to clear my head, and it was the absolute perfect choice. I walked along the side of the valley, past Longyearbyen's only night club, then a kindergarten, the power plant, and the church. I turned along the shoreline and walked past UNIS, then turned toward the city again and made my way through downtown. There was a party tent outside one of the hotels, and apparently the tourists were celebrating Oktoberfest. I heard a cover band playing and people singing along.
The sound faded as I hiked back up to Nyben but remained clear as a bell in the cold Arctic air. Faint strains of "Don't Stop Believing" reached my headband-covered ears. I paused, turned around, and looked back toward downtown. Warm yellow lights glowed from the windows of homes nestled between the mountains. I could see the street lights, the faint outlines of a few clouds, the gray fjord disappearing in the twilight. I took a deep breath and drank refrigerator-temperature air into my thirsty lungs. I looked to the northern horizon and silently nodded to the darkness that is encroaching on my world at 19 minutes a day. I turned slowly back towards Nybyen, setting my sites on barrack 11, where I would soon be greeted by frantically-studying classmates. Marching back to the dorm, I held on to my minute of serenity in the midst of the chaos, because of all things, I cannot afford to forget where I am and why I'm here.
If there is such a thing as paradise on Earth, Svalbard is most certainly it.
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| Hey, at least the lab has a view! |
I still have two weeks left in Longyearbyen, and I'm going to make the most of them. This place is so unique and so beautiful, I can't help but take a few minutes each day to appreciate where I am. It actually seems crazy to think where I've just been on the cruise. I spend so much time looking at maps of Svalbard for my research, but now I can visualize each of the fjords. Even Rijpfjorden, in the far northeast - I've been there.
I took a walk on Friday evening just to clear my head, and it was the absolute perfect choice. I walked along the side of the valley, past Longyearbyen's only night club, then a kindergarten, the power plant, and the church. I turned along the shoreline and walked past UNIS, then turned toward the city again and made my way through downtown. There was a party tent outside one of the hotels, and apparently the tourists were celebrating Oktoberfest. I heard a cover band playing and people singing along.
The sound faded as I hiked back up to Nyben but remained clear as a bell in the cold Arctic air. Faint strains of "Don't Stop Believing" reached my headband-covered ears. I paused, turned around, and looked back toward downtown. Warm yellow lights glowed from the windows of homes nestled between the mountains. I could see the street lights, the faint outlines of a few clouds, the gray fjord disappearing in the twilight. I took a deep breath and drank refrigerator-temperature air into my thirsty lungs. I looked to the northern horizon and silently nodded to the darkness that is encroaching on my world at 19 minutes a day. I turned slowly back towards Nybyen, setting my sites on barrack 11, where I would soon be greeted by frantically-studying classmates. Marching back to the dorm, I held on to my minute of serenity in the midst of the chaos, because of all things, I cannot afford to forget where I am and why I'm here.
If there is such a thing as paradise on Earth, Svalbard is most certainly it.
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