Tromsø New Year’s Eve 2022/2023
Inhalt/Content
Museum tour and Northern Lights hunt
The first full day was mainly planned for museums. Nathalie got up very early to go running outside. Since it was practically dark all day anyway, it didn’t matter when she went running. Although she took the headlamp with her that we had bought beforehand, it was not even needed since everything in the city was brightly lit. (Note from Nathalie: Really every path is illuminated. Of course, otherwise it would be practically unusable in winter. I jogged around a small lake and the biggest problem was not the darkness, but rather the snow, because in some places it was quite slippery and in other places I sank almost up to my knees in snow. But it was still fun!) When she returned, Mark and I were also up and ready for breakfast. Nathalie told us about something she had researched before running. You can buy tickets in Tromsø for a Northern Lights chase that takes place on a boat that sails towards the Arctic Ocean. This increases the chance of seeing the Northern Lights because you are moving away from light pollution. In addition, the operators offered a guarantee: if you don’t see the Northern Lights, you get a voucher for a ride on another night. That sounded fair. Since the boat tour was that evening (and fit well into our plan) and there were still tickets available, we reserved them early in the morning.
First, we headed to the Troll Museum. Although it was supposed to be the deepest polar night in Tromsø, we already noticed that it wasn’t so dark in the morning and around noon. This was due, as mentioned before, to the many lights, but also the sky was slightly light blue, which made it feel more like a long morning that ends later in the night.
The Troll Museum itself had a rather high entrance fee of about €15, although it was comparatively small. It consisted of only three rooms and was thus about the same size as the Bee Museum in Weimar. However, it was equipped with better technology. In addition to the huge pictures and figures that were described in Norwegian and English, there were also a few stations with tablets where you could take photos in AR and have them sent to an email address for free. Of course, we did that too and took photos of ourselves next to virtual trolls. In general, there were a few funny and unusual ideas here to entertain visitors and it was good that we were there when the museum opened, as larger groups of visitors came shortly after us, making it more difficult to take photos.
After leaving the Troll Museum, it was already around noon, so we walked through the city center to look for souvenirs. Nathalie and Mark were still convinced that we had to hike up Sherpatrappa in the winter. We had already done this in the summer, and it was not easy then. To do it in the winter, we would need boots with spikes, which are, as one can imagine, very expensive in Norway. Luckily, we passed by a store that sold spikes for attaching to our own boots for around €15, and they had the sizes for our boots available. So we quickly grabbed them, and in the store, there was another interesting item: the lightweight backpacks mentioned on the flight. Here, they were even more expensive, which is strange since things are usually more expensive on airplanes. However, they did not look as great in person as they did on the flight. But there were still lightweight and foldable backpacks from another brand, and I fell in love with one in blue, so I bought it. I used it for smaller trips during that vacation, and it became an important companion for me on subsequent trips to Weimar and elsewhere. We also visited a comic/manga store, the city library, and a few other sights.
Once we arrived back at the accommodation, we finished the rest of the soup from the previous day. In the early afternoon, we went out again to do some shopping for food and also to visit another museum: The Polar Museum.
The Polar Museum was actually only a few meters away from our accommodation. It was significantly larger than the Troll Museum, but less digital. There was a lot of equipment to see, which was used, among other things, for Amundsen’s expeditions, as well as some stuffed animals. The museum was thus much more tangible and provided insights into how difficult the undertakings in the deepest cold were.
That time until our Northern Lights hunt at 9:00 pm we spent entertaining ourselves by playing the board game we had gifted Mark for his birthday and some cooperative games on the Nintendo Switch. This worked out great because both Mark and we had our Switch with us and therefore had enough controllers. Additionally, Mark had a combined USB-C and HDMI cable with him, so we could connect one Switch to the TV.
As we arrived at the harbor around 8pm, we started making our way towards the boat for the Northern Lights tour. It was a good decision to leave early, as there was already a long queue in front of the ship, and it grew to almost three times its size behind us over time. We heard many Germans among the guests, and even the gentleman who checked our tickets was German. Since there were so many people, we were worried whether we would still get good seats, but these fears were unfounded, as we quickly found a nice corner with a couch on the ship. There was also free coffee and tea for everyone. After all the guests had boarded the ship, we set off, albeit slightly delayed.
At the beginning of the journey, there was a short explanatory video on the screens hanging from the ceiling about how northern lights are formed. Inside the ship, it was cozy and warm, but out of curiosity, Nathalie went to the deck after a short time, even though it was naturally icy cold there. As soon as Nathalie arrived on the deck, the announcement came that the first northern lights were visible, so we joined Nathalie, who had reserved pretty good seats on the deck since she was almost the first one there. At first, we had to look very carefully because the first lights looked more like clouds or weak gray spots, but over time they became stronger and stretched out in a big arc across the sky and even began to dance. You could immediately tell who had a smartphone camera with night vision and who didn’t because regular cameras couldn’t capture the lights (especially the weaker ones) at all. Nathalie’s and my smartphone cameras were well suited for this, but Mark’s wasn’t quite up to the task. Some Chinese people on the deck were funny, who shouted “Oh!” and “Ah!” every time the northern lights became more visible. Even though this was partly intentionally done for fun (because the ship’s announcer also pointed out lights in certain directions), it felt like in Japan when we encountered tourist groups there 😅 Eventually, the Chinese tourists cheered the lights in the sky almost like they were rooting for a team, and it didn’t take long for us to get caught up in their enthusiasm and join in the cheering.
After about 2 hours of boat ride, we arrived back at the port of Tromsø and strolled back to our accommodation via the main street. Here, I would like to mention again how lucky we were to find accommodation in the middle of the city, as almost all activities were only about a 15-minute walk away. We also noticed a mobile kebab stand, where you could see that kebabs were significantly more expensive here than in Germany, with prices ranging from 15 to 20€.
