Svalbard reindeer

Oh my goodness! There's reindeer everywhere! And they're sooooo cute! Seriously, they are. They are Svalbardrein, which are shorter and more compact than the mainland reindeer. They have no natural predators up here so they just wander around town, looking for grass or moss or lichen or whatever to eat that they can dig out from under the snow and over the permafrost.

You often see them in pairs or threes, but never in big flocks like the mainland reindeer. I see them basically every day now that the light is returning, but I still find them utterly fascinating and endeering and yes and they're just lovely. Only managed to get a couple of decent enough pics of them so far as they tend to move just when I press the shutter.

New gear and Northern lights

Bought me some new camera gear a couple of weeks ago: a Sigma 18-200mm telelens, and I finally got myself a tripod. Ended up with an Induro Adventure AKP0 with a panorama head. Only took me a month or two to decide what to get. I may be good at spending money, but no one can say my purchases aren't well planned at least.

So, anyway, I recived my new stuff, only to let them rest and not really familiarize myself with any of it.  Yeah, I'm a real enthusiast...

The following Thursday however, the Dane comes slantering into the kitchen and says "oh, by the way, there's a northern light again tonight". Silence, then panic. Not just me, but everyone in my kitchen. Run to my room, get dressed sort of-ish, grab my tripod and my camera, ready to to take pictures of the northern lights.

I get outside, find myself a spot outside the reach of the streetlights, only to realise that I have no clue what goes where how on this tripod. Ending up spending half an hour fidgeting with the tripod, moving in and out of the streetlight because I had ofcourse forgotten to bring my headlamp. All the while glancing frantically up at the skies so that I at least experience this nights lights.

When I had finally got rigged up I only managed a couple of ok pics before the auroras disappeared. Who knows if I will get to see them again this year, aurora season being almost over and midnight sun times begin....

As always, my pictures, no stealing without asking for permission first.

se torsken du norsken!

About four hours until I have to get up and go to theoretical and mechanical lessons in snow mobile-driving. Practical stuff next week. Gargantuan cup of coffee to be made in the morning.
But that's not what I wanted to communicate to you this lovely night, with the snow finally drifting silently down outside my window in Ny-Byen.

I attend courses at UNIS - The University centre In Svalbard, and we're about half'n'half with Norwegian and non-Norwegian students. A couple of the students from last semester had already made plans to set up a Norwegian course for those who wanted to learn this peculiar, yet largely useless language. With us new comers arriving we were suddenly seven self-proclaimed Norwegian teachers, and the course was on.

The pictures are from last Wednesday's lecture, the second all together. Excellent turnout of 28 eager-to-learn students (well, one was Swedish and doesn't really count...).

We gave them a test and all on last week's homework, and worked in little groups, and wrote things on the blackboard, and we even sang a little song in Norwegian on the end there! Yes, a truly magnificent way of spending a particularly blah Wednesday evening!

Pictures! (My pictures, ask if you're thinking of stealing them)

 

going home, leaving quickly

I've spent the weekend in my home town with Manfriend and family and friends and dog.

I woke up Saturday to the sight of a fresh snowfall and many buried cars in the parking lot. It was beautiful.

Monday evening it looked a little more like this:

ok, so I might have made the colours look a bit more vomit-like than they originally were

The mild weather is following me [ref. the rain on Svalbard]. 

Go away. 

Oh yeah, and when I came back to Longyearbyen Tuesday afternoon it was a slight snowfall and at least some snow on the ground. Woke up Wednesday to rain and wind and river-like structures running down the road. Lovely.

So... what did you do today? - an excercise in smalltalk

So, here’s a bit of what I’ve done today. As if you care. But you’ll read it anyway, I’m sure of it.

• overslept (it's part of my routine)
• visited my friend at the asylum

the asylum

• ate lunch at IKEA, which consisted of a pizza slice, a hot dog, soda and an ice cream
• slept some more, and overslept slightly for the next activity
• played innebandy, also called floorball

source

The last time I played innebandy, which was probably almost a year ago, I ended up with blue polkadot-thighs. You see, I’m not afraid of the ball, even though I can’t keep track of it. This time I got away with three bruises and a head butt. 

• had a cup of coffee. Got ourselves a Nespresso machine for Christmas. Excellent stuff.

• slept again
• clipped the dog’s nails – the dog bled and was generally displeased with the whole affair after that first clipping gone wrong, except for the treats she was continuously given. And no more bleeds after that first one. 

the dog

it's aliiiiive!

I'm spending this spring in Longyearbyen om the Svalbard archipelago. Quite a far bit away from hair modelling and such. So, this means, slight change in topics discussed on this blog from here on forth. Like the weather and rocks and minerals and every-day-annoyances and polar exploration and other cool stuff. But I won’t be able to stick to just that can of stuff anyway, nor do I intend to. This’ll still be a fuck all-blog, and a, from time to time, let’s discuss what this blog’s about-blog.

So, anyway, Svalbard is here:

source

78 degrees north and for the last week it has been raining non-stop. Plus wind. Equals slush-avalanches, equals closed roads, and staying inside a lot. Temperatures have dropped a bit now and today I walked home from school in what I would call a blizzard. Polar explores would probably just call it a slight breeze and go sunbathing. Except that the sun won't be back for another two weeks.

There were actually some upsides to the rainy, shitty, non-arctic weather. For my part anyway, and you know me, always positive and bright as light in the night. But more on this later. I have much I want to communicate, having postponed this re-uptake of the blog for about two months.

Toodles!

More hair

A couple of weeks ago I was offered a job in London for a client of TIGI's: Forresters. A hop, skip and a planeride away and I was in London again.

I love London. I don't really know the town that well, but it's just such a wonderful bowl of things and people and shops and places and let's not forget, I actually know the language. Practical.

Anywho, Forresters needed some hair to colour for a competition, well, actually they needed some pictures of girls with hair they'd coloured and then they can send in the pictures for the this year's best hair colouring, or something.

Anywaywho, the whole thing took place in the BedHead studio, where the Tigi DIY collection pictures were taken aaaand.... here are some pictures. They're not really that representative for the whole trip, they're mostly just the pics I liked the best.

Tuesday: arrival day

Arrived early in the afternoon leaving the rest of the day free. Enjoyed three hours of doing absolutely nothing while lying on my huge hotelbed and drinking tea. Became hungry, went to Waitrose and enjoyed the weather and the atmosphere of Chelsea on the walk back.

Aahhh..... Flowers. <3 ( <---- lame, I know)

I stopped by a cute little place I noticed last time I was in London, the Phat Phuc Noodle Bar, a tiny outdoor Vietnamese restaurant. I like! Great chicken noodle soup and edamame beans and lovely, friendly staff. Recommended! It's in Chelsea btw.

Back at the hotel, Charlotte and I met Annette on the hotelroof. (Annette Russell, casting chief, caregiver of models and not to mention wonderwoman.) We had some wine and wonderful conversation and the view was stunning.

Wednesday: Prep-day

Charlotte the monkey (yes, that is her name): 

Robs from Forresters. He was such a darling. (Imagine I'm saying this with a very posh English accent)

 Gemma from Forresters. Also cute as a button and supernice. Very photogenic woman, I almost ended up only selecting pictures of her, and often some other stuff.

Then I found the wigs.

 

 

 Colouring done and I'm bright orange while Charlotte is pink and purple. This is not a wig. And at Topshop we found shoes to match! Didn't buy though.

 We met Annette again for supper at an adoring french restaurant, La Bouchée. I ate the best French onion soup. And, Annette made us taste foie gras, very fancy, yes. It tasted... alright. Not bad, but not spectacular.

Thursday: The shoot

We were five girls: three skinny bitches, one monkey, and me. (skinny bitch = proper model)

Hair and make-up done! Very cool.  

 The Monkey, looking fab. Oh! btw, Charlotte the monkey has now moved to London to try and make it as a proper skinny bitch. Exciting!

 The stylist:

Finished result, me on the far right. They shot Asian girl in the middle again with her hair a bit more fluffed up.

Monkey, in progress of getting her brown hair back.

 

..and I'm back again/outfit

As I feared, yet again, a big three week hole since the last post. Ah well, no one reads this anyway. Or do you.....?

No lack of things to blog about, I mean, you don't really have to live an interesting life or say interesting things to have something to blog about. Whatever, I'm slow, let's just say it's 'ma thang' to blog about events two months after they took place.

But look! This is actually today's outfit. Incredible! Only reason this post exists though is that I'm waiting for episode three of a Game of Thrones to load through Megavideo. Almost makes me want to read the books for a third time.

 
My goal here was to try to look like a serious student who was going to her very important part-time job afterwards. I rather dislike outfit-posts actually. I suddenly feel like a mediocre wannabe fashionista. Don't like the word 'fashionista' either (And I am NOT trying to be one). But, alas, my narcissism took over...

Oh, feck it. One more!

This is where I discovered that flash could be useful.