A little Tromsø time

We have definitely had our fair share of adventures in fjords surrounding our little island of Tromø, but we have managed to find some great fun on the Island as well. I am at home with the kids on Tuesdays and Fridays. The other days of the week they are at the barnehage. On these days off, we often head to the amazing library in the city center, go on a nice walk or bike ride along the harbor (now that the snow is gone – it used to be a ski) , or check out one of the cool museums in town. This past Friday was a beautuful sunny day so we went for a nice bike ride in the morning  Odin is quite fond of his new skill which is riding down the steps in the city center. He can lap it about 10 times in the amount of time it takes Adelheyd to make her way across the center square. Of course he has a good audience of people drinking their coffee and sitting outside on the sidewalks as is typical with European cafes.

After the bike ride we headed up to the University in the afternoon to check out the NordNorsk Vitensenter (science museum and planetarium). Since it was a sunny day there was no one there, really we were actually the only people in the entire 4 story science center for 3 hours, including watching an IMax style film on the Aurora Borealis – alone. Maybe there is some sort of unwritten code of conduct that you cannot do indoor activities in Norway when it is sunny and warm outside…or perhaps everyone was already off on some weekend adventure given that it was Friday and no one really works in Norway, especially on Fridays. Anyway, we had a spectacular time having run of the place. No waiting to play with any of the exhibits. It was quite an impressive museum.

A couple of my favorite exhibits were the air guns where you have to shoot a ball into the correct hole. A TV screen shows you a piece of garbage and the correct color recycling bag it goes into, you have to shoot your ball into the corresponding colored hole. This brings up a fun little fact. The Tromsø Kommune (the municipal goverment body) supplies every household with colored recycling bags – green for food compost, red for paper, blue for plastic, orange for tin cans, white for regular garbage. You toss all the bags into your regular garbage can on the curb and they take it away – very nice. You can also bring all of your soda/beer cans and bottles to the grocery store and pop them into a niftly little machine that gives you 1 kroner back for each can/bottle!

Another great exhibit was racing your friends on one of three modes of transport to see which was the most efficient. The modes of transport included a row boat, a bike, and a kicksled. Only in Norway. If you don’t know what a kicksled is – here is a nice picture that Jackie took while she was visiting of her trying out someone’s kicksled. They are quite common modes of transport in the snowy winter. I kinda wanna bring one back to Missoula:)