On to Tromso!
Trip Start
Jun 30, 2008
1
4
21
Trip End
Jul 21, 2008
Tromsø,
North Norway,
Norway
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tromso is about 20 degrees F cooler than Oslo. It felt nice, though. Afterall, this is a polar trip. We took a bus from the airport, which is on the mainland, to Tromso proper, which is on an island. The bus driver dropped us off right next to the hotel. That is a far cry better than the previous hotel, which we had to walk 10 blocks to get to from the train station.
We were staying at the Viking Hotel. It is newly remodeled and is pretty nice on the inside. There was one problem, though. The hotel decided to make a triple rather than have one person take one room, like we did in the Carlton. So, that means that the two profs and I (the only males) were the triple. It is a little weird rooming with the profs.
After we settled in, we walked down the waterfront and took a bunch of pictures. The Tromso waterfront reminds me a little of Houghton, MI. It has a main street running along the water with a semi steep hill behind it. There is also a bridge.
We walked down to the Norwegian Polar Museum. It contained all sorts of paraphenalia on the history of the Arctic and famous Norwegian polar explorers like Amundsen and Nansen. It was pretty interesting and they had a lot of unique artifacts. They went into detail on activities like trapping that we had not seen before. The displays included a graphic series of pictures that showed a polar bear kill being recovered and disected.
When we went through the museum, we split up to do what we wanted for the rest of the day. I went with Lindsay, Angel, and Courtney and we ran some errands. I finally got some money exchanged and picked up some postcards.
We met up for dinner at this fancy place called Steakers. We were told by the hotel that the restaurant had a special: all you can eat steak for 159 NOK. Turns out that it was actually about 290 NOK. Some people were freaking out. It was a good meal, but not worth 60 USD. I got a chance to talk with some people on the trip that I hadn't gotten a chance to yet.
The recommended budget was screwed up. The recommended budget we were told to estimate about 350 USD for about 18 meals. That comes out to about 20 USD per meal. That is steep for the US even if eating out for every meal. In reality, that is not near enough for Norway, though. There are high taxes and high salaries, which equal a high standard of living. 40-50 USD is not unusual for a decent meal when eating out. The budget was decided upon with the thought that people would buy groceries. In this situation, that is completely unrealistic, in my opinion. First, that would assume that our hotel rooms were equipped with refrigerators (a few are). Second, it would also assume that we had time to go to the grocery store. The first few days we were so busy that we barely anytime to grab food at a restaurant. Third, the city hopping is not conducive to buying groceries. Most people have no room in their suitcases and there is the lack of refrigeration. This is the first MSU trip to the Arctic so we are the guinea pigs. At least I have a job. I feel bad for the students.
After dinner, Madison and I went to this bar called Bla Rock. It was this kind of run down "rock 'n' roll" bar. We had a couple beers each (beers are 50-70 NOK) and talked for a while. Then I headed back to the hotel and tried to sleep in the 24 hour daylight.
