Expedition Northern lights

Norway is famous for its nature, the fjords, the mountains but also the northern lights! before coming here I had promised myself that I would not leave without having seen them!

Since it is difficult to spot them in Oslo we headed north! So off to the capital of the north, Tromsø, we went! We got up waaaaay too early to catch our plane but the view from the plane was amazing. We could see white mountain tops peeking trough the clouds. When we landed I was immediately amazed by the place. It looked like wasteland, like nothing I had ever seen before and it was wonderful. We also immediately noticed the cold, so we quickly got into our car. This is when we noticed we had Christmas radio!!! Oh yes! and our 4 days of Christmas radio began! (so now I am a Christmas song expert whoop whoop!)

We started off by visiting the city Tromsø. We walked along the harbour. To heat up we visited the Perspectivet museum. It had an exhibition from Martin Parr "life is a beach" quite the opposite of what we experienced outside. When we were once again able to feel our toes we continued our exploration through the city.

After having seen the whole of Tromsø, we were headed to the second largest island of Norway: Senja. One of the best spots to chase the northern lights and full of impressive landscapes, hence we had our cabin here.

We were incredibly tired but determined to see the northern lights, so we stayed up. After hours of YouTube and late night chatter, our patience was rewarded and we finally saw signs of the northern lights. We dropped everything we were doing and rushed outside in our pajamas's and 100 layers of scarves, hats and gloves. When we got outside the only word that is able to describe it is MAGICAL. The northern lights were dancing above our heads, and we stood there in amazement. The goal of our trip had already been reached and we could go to bed in peace.

The next morning we woke up early to catch as much as possible daylight as we could. Since we were so far up north the sun already started to set around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. While the sun was still rising we held a little photo shoot. We lost a little track of time and THIS was our crucial mistake of the day. Because if you even slightly know me, you would know that nothing really ever goes the way it is supposed to go when I'm around. So since it was freezing cold our car was completely frozen, so we turned it on before we went for the photo shoot. But we left it to heat a little too long and we ran out of battery. YAY. UGH. WHY. And this is only where the problems started!. After calling parents and assistance companies it came down to us having to find someone to jump start our car. Problem 1: we don't know this car nor the location of the battery. Problem 2: We were half an hour drive away from civilization without any knowledge of cars nor Norwegian. 2 hours later we had located the battery and found a Norwegian kind enough to start our car and in possession of jumper cables. Even though we didn't understand a word of what he was saying he fixed the car and we could get going again. As much for getting up early... (but sunny side up: at least we had learned a valuable lesson.)

We packed our stuff immediately, turned on Christmas radio and got going to discovering the island. On our way we met some nice reindeers on their way to Santa. Later we visited the biggest troll of the world! That's something to be proud of! And a rock formation called the devil's jaw.

The next day was undoubtedly my favorite! We actually managed to leave early. During breakfast some reindeers were walking around in our garden. We were headed to the Polar zoo! The northernmost zoo of the world!!! (now you don't understand my excitement, I loooooove the zoo, even at home I love visiting zoos) so I was the happiest kid in the world. We were there around feeding time so the ranger took us around the park telling us more about the lynx, wolves and bears while they got fed. One of the Bears was an albino bear (the closest one they had to a polar bear). He kinda looked like he as washed a bit to warm, but was the cutest of them all. further we saw some moose, a deer that did not like me at all and some cow-goats.

On our last day we went on an whale watching excursion around Tromsø but without success. At least it was pretty ... So completely exhausted we returned to Oslo with loads of memories and of course pictures. So enjoy the pictures!