Voicy does Norway

RedViking said:
Maybe @Voicy misunderstood what photos I was talking about and ran away. Need more photos of Norway please.
Click to expand...

Awh man, just when I got all my boudoir shots developed you go and cancel on me. :(

Anyway, as luck would have it I'm currently in Svalbard (4th time's a charm). I've written about Svalbard before on here. It's a fascinating place and there's a reason that you'll find a ton of documentaries on it, as well as weird facts and features.

Fun fact: You don't need a visa to come to Svalbard and you can stay as long as you like - but there are catches. You need a job offer in order to rent a place to stay - and the only flights in and out are from Norway, so you first have to get a Schengen Visa in order to fly there...unless you want to take your chances by boat. (Not recommended).

Snapped some pics, hope you enjoy:

The view flying into the Peninsula:

svalbard flyin.jpg

My poor attempt at a Panorama view just outside of town:

svalbard panorama2.jpg

A view of the town.

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The main pedestrian street through all the shops - leading down to the university.

longyearbyen2.jpg


Don't feed (yourself to) the Bears!

Polar bears are serious business. You're not allowed to step foot outside of town without 1 person in your party having a gun/rifle with them.

Just a few months ago a Dutch tourist was mauled to death while camping right next to town - they had to shoot the bear which died in the airport parking lot. Sad case.

svalbard sign1.jpg

svalbard sign2.jpg

I didn't get a chance to stop by the Seed Vault this time, it's all blocked up now due to construction and nonsense. I've managed to go inside once for work - weird place indeed.
 
Nope, doubt very much you'll see them unless you go on expedition somewhere.
 
Took the floof for a bit of a trip around the island to find some new places.

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Even though we're in the deep arctic, there are some hidden gems around where i live:

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This is in the field right across from my house for the floof's daily poops.

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This last one was taken in a place called Lofoten on the same island range as mine, which is a bigger tourist trap than Cape Town in December.

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As for daily life stuff, I'm sure this is probably already common tech but for those who haven't seen, we got this implemented around 2016:

You can choose self-checkout at most grocery shops. When you get there you scan your profile barcode from your phone, it auto-loads all of your coupons and unlocks a scanner for you to use:

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So as we shop, we scan items and place it straight into the shopping bags so it's ready to go.

Then at the self-checkout counter, we just scan in our profile again, pay by card (or phone profile) and mozey on out.

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I've only ever been control-checked once, where a clerk comes around and scans any random 4-6 objects in your cart to see if you registered it. Pretty chill. (But I still feel like some Game/Macro type security guard is going to stop me to go through my ENTIRE till slip. Tsek.)

I apologize if this is old hat, but my parents were convinced it was black magic ****ery when they were here for a visit.
 
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