Arctic Adventure... here we come!

I need to find someone that can invent a teleportation device... I seem to spend just as much time getting to airports and hanging around waiting for my flight as I spend on the actual flights themselves! Oh well... it gets the trip started that much sooner!

My friend Jude and I decided that we wanted to try and see the Northern Lights way in March this year. Everything was booked and sorted by April, then we just had the long wait until December. Only thing is, the wait wasn't long at all, the time has flown by!

For a couple of months leading up to our trip I checked various websites (ever so slightly obsessively...) to see how quickly the hours of daylight were reducing each day and what the weather was like.  With a month or so to go before the trip it was thermal buying time... I didn't know exactly how cold I was going to be, so I thought it was better to go over the top than to freeze to death!  I bought... 1 set thermal base layer trousers & top, 3 thermal fleeces, ski trousers, thermal socks a cossack style hat and 10 hand warmer sachets... I already have a ski base layer top, thermal vest, ski jacket and ski gloves... would it all fit in my rucksack??  In a word... No!  Time to get out the suitcase!

Our flight to Tromsø was at 6.35pm from Stansted, so paranoid travellers that we are we arranged to meet at 3.45pm. Of course getting to the airport this early meant that we were forced to look round the duty free and take advantage of their 2 litres of Absolut for £15 offer and also meant we had to have a bottle of wine in the Wetherspoons while we waited to be called to our gate. Such a chore.

We were pretty much the only English people on our flight and seemed to provide much entertainment to all the Norwegian people round us as they listened to us (poorly) attempting to pronounce the words in the 'useful phrases' section of our guide book. I have learnt the following:

1. I cannot speak Norwegian... at all.

2. Norwegian letters are pronounced completely differently to how I think they are.

3. Norwegian people speak English better than me