Since about mid March I’ve actually had homework to do so I’ve been spending a lot of my time around my apartment doing that and have fallen behind on these posts a bit. I’ve had a couple great trips though so I’m going to catch up!

On March 14th Katie was able to fly out here to visit me! It was her spring break so we talked about what we both wanted to see in Norway and decided go to the Arctic Circle! Her first couple days were in Trondheim so I could show her around and meet some of my friends here. The night she got here it got cold and we got the first real snowfall since before I came here in January. She definitely brought the Minnesota weather with her. While I was showing her around Trondheim it was snowing on and off all day. We also went curling for the first time with a big group of exchange students.

On the 17th we caught a flight to Tromsø. When we got there the weather was as good as you could ever hope for that far north. It was sunny, clear skies, and about 32º fahrenheit (0º C) with only a slight breeze and it stayed that way pretty much the whole time. We found our hostel, made dinner, and set out to find a good place to view the northern lights. On the East side of the city there are a few huge mountains. In between them there are some really nice skiing and hiking trails that we thought would be a good place. The first night the skies were clear, but we didn’t see any lights. We were able to get some really cool pictures of the full moon rising over the mountains though. It was incredibly bright! On our way back to the hostel right in the middle of town we did finally see the northern lights. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a good place to take pictures of them since we were in the middle of town.

The next day we set out to explore the city. Despite the population of Tromsø only being about 70,000, it is a big tourist destination with cruise ships stopping by throughout the day so there was a lot to see around the city. We went to a lot of cool shops and even stopped at the northernmost Burger King in the world! In the evening we set out again to see the northern lights, but this time at the south end of the main island in Tromsø. We found a nice dark spot along the coast, but it was really windy there. We held out for about an hour without seeing anything, but we had to head back.

On Wednesday we visited the Ice Cathedral. It looks really cool from the outside, especially when it is lit up at night, but the inside wasn’t anything too exciting. Our next stop was the cable car up the mountain near Tromsø. We got there about 30 minutes before sunset so we could walk up the mountain and get a good view. The top was completely covered in snow, but luckily it wasn’t very hard to walk across. After the sunset we had dinner in the cabin up there while waiting for it to get dark again. We walked up the mountain again, but this time to try to see the northern lights. Finally we got lucky and were able to see them! They started faint over Tromsø so it was hard to see them over the light from the city, but slowly they moved further away from the city so we could get a good view. It turned out to be a great spot!

Thursday was our last full day in Tromsø. Katie and I stuck around the city again. The highlight of the day was visiting the Polaria Museum. They had some interesting videos about the Svalbard Islands and the northern lights. We also got to watch them train seals.

On Friday we flew back to Trondheim. For Katie’s last couple days in Trondheim we hung out with a few of my friends and went hiking on some trails near Trondheim. Katie had a really early flight home so she had to catch a bus to the airport at 3:45 AM on Sunday! We had a really great time though and I’m really glad she was able to come visit!

I didn’t really do any homework the whole time Katie was here despite having a couple big projects to do so the next week was all catching up before my next trip to Oslo, Stockholm, and Riga! More about that in the next post!