Thursday 5th July 2007

Today we had to get up at 6am and that was a pure effort considering we didn't get to sleep until about 2:30am. The amount of light shining was still the same as when we went to sleep.

We went to reception and were briefed on what the days activities were going to be like. Group 1 then got on the coach to go to SvalSat which is one of the world's biggest commercial satellite stations. As we were driving up the mountain it was getting foggier and foggier we could barely see.

We arrived and took off our shoes (as was custom to do all over Svalbard) then went into a room where there was a massive wide screen TV. The man in charge then gave us a lecture about what SvalSat did. Most of it was very interesting, but because of the room being so warm most of the listeners fell asleep.

After the lecture we were ready to go and see one of the massive antenars (not sure if spelt right), but because it was so foggy and the buses weren't back we had to wait in case we were to be attacked by a polar bear, this was likely because 2 girls had been attacked there 3 years ago. Although Eddie and Craig didn't mind running there the man in charge still thought it was a bad idea.

We got the the antenar station and inside it was absolutely huge, they were massive moving dishes and there were lots of these all over the top of the mountain. There was a loud alarm that went off and all of a sudden the dish started moving quite fast as well which was a bit surprising. It spinned around just 2 metres above our heads.

After we came back down from the Sat station we went shopping in Lonyearbyen which was rather good fun, we bought lots of souvenirs for our friends and families. We also discovered that there was a Coop, even though people pronounced it as Co-op. We went back to the hostel and chilled out for a couple of hours then started getting ready for dinner. we had to walk into the town which was a 20 minute walk there, and a 45 minute walk back on a full stomach.

We went to this restaurant/bar that had an Arctic/African feel to it, if you can imagine that, and on our was down there we saw four reindeer which was amazing they were right in the centre of the town but when they saw a big group of people like us they quickly ran away. The waitresses brought out enough pizza the feed a small country, by the end of it we were in a pizza coma.

Back at the hostel we were told the briefing for the next day at then went away to do our video blogs and sleep. Day two down only eight more left woo hoo!

Wednesday 4th July 2007

Ok people we had no internet on the ship what so ever and during the time we were on land we were way way way too tired to actually do any work so please forgive us all for our laziness. just read the dates and it will tell you what we did on each day.

<---(This is the view from the plane as we arrived in Tromso)

So Wednesday the 4th July, I (kim) got up relatively early made sure that everything was packed and ready to go to Heathrow, I got there at about 10am and surprise surprise Ed and Craig were already there. So we checked in and then went to meet the other teams, I think everyone was nervous about meeting each other but it turned out fine. We just chatted and talked about what we did to win.

Then we got put into our travel groups where I was put with 4 other girls, Fiona, Jade, Kerry and Jess. Our teacher person was called Emily she was cool lol. We then got given our Edge jackets they were lush, girls had light blue and guys had navy blue, but i secretly stole Richard's dark blue one. It took a while for us to all get through security, then we had about an hour to do what ever we wanted. So while Ed and Craig went to the toilet I talked to Hallam who was from another team, we had both forgotten our toothbrushes and then went shopping for one.

We went and met up with everyone else and then discovered our flight was delayed so about an hour and a half extra later we boarded the flight.

We arrived at Oslo it was a bit chaotic, we had lunch which was really yummy, then went and boarded our next flight from Oslo to Tromso, i was next to Ed and Craig again but oh well. The flight was good as we were landing in Tromso we flew right over mountains which was great the view was fabulous. We had to wait at Tromso for about 2 hours and it was 11pm and still the sun was shinning brightly.

We arrived in Longyearbyen at about 2am we got on the coach and went to the hostel that we were staying at, it was a nice enough place to stay in. I shared with Fiona and Jade, Ed and Craig shared with Mark.

It was rather difficult getting to sleep because it was so light but we managed it. Day One down only nine more to go!