Lecture Day
Trip Start
Jun 30, 2008
1
5
21
Trip End
Jul 21, 2008
Tromsø,
Norway
Friday, July 4, 2008
We headed to Akvaplan-niva, near the Polaria in Tromso. Akvaplan-niva is a private organization, which specializes in studying the Arctic marine environment. The professors had arranged for us to hear 4 lectures from people who work there. We heard one lectures by an American, two by Norwegians, and one by a Frenchmen. The topics were an overview of the Arctic environment, oil and its effect on the Arctic environment, POPs, and and overview of Arctic land mammals. We had lunch at Akvaplan-niva with the lecturers. I sat by one of the Norwegians, and so got to ask questions about Norway and what it is like to live here.
After Akvaplan-niva, we went to the Polaria, which was an Arctic discovery center. There we saw a movie on Svalbard. It was one of those 5-screen setups like we saw in Oslo. There were also live exhibits of seals, crabs, anemoneas, and fish. The seals were trained and some people got to see them being fed and trained.
In the building next to the Polaria, there was a sealing ship almost fully enclosed in a glass building. The Norwegians like to enclose their historic ships in buildings. The ship was well preserved and displayed such things as how the hull was constructed and how baby seals were killed.
After the Polaria and the sealing ship we were done for the day. Madion, Lindsay, and I went to get a beer and dinner. We went to a bar called the Barometeret, which was kind of a nice little dive that played rock. We walked around for a bit trying to find a reasonable place to get something to eat. Most places were at the 170 NOK and above level. We finally found a place called the Grunder. It was a swank place, but had decent prices. I paid 112 NOK for something like a chicken pot pie - except it was 100 times better.
Then we met the rest of the group back at the hotel and proceeded to scour the town for as cheap a beer as we could find. We eventually ended up back at the Barometeret, which the girls liked. I went home at 11:00pm, but the girls were still going strong.
