I had a morning flight with a stopover in Tromsö. We had to get out of the plane with our carry-on and then through the passport control and back to the plane. There was some confusion as to where the passport control was (I wasn’t the only confused person!) because one sign said Arrivals and another said Longyearbyen and no sign said passport control. It turned out that the passport control was at the gate. It’s not that big an airport…

I just have to mention the salad we got on the flight to Longyearbyen. It was the tiniest salad I had ever seen and I regret deeply that I didn’t take out my phone and snap a picture. I’m telling you, it was epic! The only thing big about it was the jokes we made!

Svalbard is in the same timezone as Sweden so there was no adjustment, and we had the afternoon to go about town. Well, town and town… there’s about two streets in Longyearbyen and that’s it. Hard to get lost! But me and my roommate skipped the town and checked out the local wildlife – there’s a spot with a lot of eider ducks nesting right by the road and you get really close to them. And they like to lie on the road, blocking traffic!

I really like the eider ducks. They have the loveliest call and even now I only have to think about that soft ooing and I’m transported right back to Svalbard in my mind!