Baby steps

I took the fact that I was having a tough time keeping my eyes open during the Norwegien version of the U.S. hit show “So you think you can dance?” as a sign that perhaps jetlag wasn’t going to be a huge deal. It was about 10:30 last night and my body was saying in no uncertain terms that it was time to shut the light off and go to sleep. The woman at the front desk recommended I head off to the airport at 6am for my 8am flight to Tromso, so doing the math backwards, I figured I could get almost 7 hours of sleep if I went to right to bed.

FAST FORWARD 90 minutes

My eyes popped open and my body said - “what the heck are you doing sleeping in the middle of the day?” Not to dwell on what happened over the next five hours before my alarm went off, but let’s just say I didn’t sleep much of it.

The breakfast at the B&B was simple but fantastic (as hungry as I was, it could have been pretty much anything and I would have been happy). Fresh bread, a selection of cheeses and meats (if you’re in to meats), jelly, caviar, nutella, big bowls of pickled fish (which I avoided) and a fancy coffee machine that made just about anything you wanted. I wolfed down four big slices of bread with cheese and drank two café mochas to hopefully offset the urge to pass out that is bound to hit me at some point today. With a full tummy, I loaded my bags in to the airport shuttle and headed off to the airport.

Being so early on a Wednesday, I was surprised to see so many people at the airport. I actually had to wait in line for about 20 minutes to check in my bags, but once that was done, I made it to the gate pretty fast and boarded the plane where I’m now sitting in a window seat two rows from the back of the plane (20F).

The Captain just came on the intercom and mentioned that the current weather in Tromso is snowy with a forecasted high of -2 degrees Centigrade (roughly 28-30 degrees Fahrenheit). What I meant by “baby steps” in the title to this entry was that my thermal transition from “somewhat comfortable” to “kill me now, I can’t take it anymore” is at least going to happen in stages. This morning I went outside with just a t-shirt on and I was fine. I’m guessing the temperature was in the 40’s. I’ll get to spend 2 hours in Tromso somewhere in the high 20’s, and then hop on a plane for Longyearbyen where things are hovering in the Fenton’s deep freeze range (-15 to -20 degrees). The crazy part (and something that I actually had to plan for last night) is that I need to have clothing with me on board to work with all three (t-shirt weather, snow weather and I can’t feel my face weather)..

That’s all for now!