Jen's first from field

I have arrived!

After more than 24 hours travelling, I am in Longyearbyen, Svalbard.  My home is Barrack 3, and I am right across the hall from Yuribia.

I arrived at 1 am in the midnight sun and cold rain.  The sun sneaks around the mountains outside my window.   I love this ever-present sun for every minute right up until I have to go to sleep.  Then I get annoyed that it won’t go down.  We’re getting on better terms now that I have taped the window curtains to the wall (geo-tip: never forget to pack tape).

Yuribia and I are both enrolled in AG332 – Arctic Terrestrial Quaternary Stratigraphy.  We are studying with eleven other glacial students from Canada, USA, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Germany, and Iceland.  We began the course with rifle safety training.

My first round of shots was much better, but I didn't think to take a picture of it =(

Here is someone who lives nearby.  I see him every morning.

We have completed three days of seminar classes, including a presentation given by the students on an assigned topic (mine was "Seafloor fingerprints of the Svalbard-Barents Sea deglaciation", Yuribia's was "Glacial History of Kongsfjorden").  We are scheduled to leave for our cruise on the Stalbas tomorrow morning at 9 am, for nine days of stratigraphic fieldwork.  We are spending today packing and watching the rain.  It is quite cold, but very very beautiful.  Here is the view of Longyearbeen glacier from my front porch.

And one last picture of Yuribia and Liz, an American student from the University of Buffalo, in Longyearbyen.