HOME.
June 11, 2024 - In-Tromsø, cont.
Tuesday morning, I pack up and check out of this hotel - I unfortunately have to transfer locations within the city again due to changing my original itinerary. I leave my luggage with the front desk and go to return my bike, a one day rental that has turned into two now. After I drop off the bike, I return to the library to work for a bit. Once 3pm rolls around, I head to the next place for check in. It was sunny earlier but now it’s started to rain. The light drops mist my face as I walk through the city with my bags. The next hotel is a cute bnb style building, far less corporate than my previous bookings here in Tromsø. It sits at the top of a park on the side of a hill. Once checked in, I immediately head off to visit Tromsø’s Polar Museum, the last item on my to-do list here in the city. It’s a short walk over to the Museum, which occupies a small red two-story building sitting dockside in a quiet district of town.
The exhibit is all about polar exploration of Svalbard, and a self-guided tour packet leads me from room to room as I learn about the earliest settlers and adventurers on the island. Some of the information I already knew - there are quite a few exhibits about the amount of suffering and death that followed early inhabitants of Svalbard: trapping, hunting, freezing, and starving. I wander through the first four rooms on the first floor of the museum, which largely covers the aforementioned content, after which I ascend a set of stairs into an area dedicated to more modern exploration efforts. These include airships, weather balloons, and planned expeditions/voyages racing to the north pole. Taxonomy of arctic foxes, musk ox, polar bears, walrus, and seals can be found throughout the museum. In one room a chest full of explorers and trappers’ travel journals sits behind a pane of glass. I only make my way through half of the second floor before I’m ushered out - it’s closing time. There’s a third floor I’m unable to spend time with, quickly stepping through this area to exit through the gift shop. I quickly inquire if the gift shop is selling any of the maps that sit in placards up on the wall - they apparently are all out of maps. The security guard is becoming curt with me at this point, and reminds me that the museum is closed. I step out quickly, the door swinging shut behind me.
I find some dinner at a local burger spot in an older section of town, and then grab a slice of cake as dessert from a different shop. I stop by a convenience store on the way back to my room; it’s a strange, trendy store called ‘Normal’, washed in white tones and plastic wrapped packaging. I don’t have an analog for it back at home; the closest thing I can think of is the MINISO store in Chicago’s Chinatown except for toiletries and personal hygiene products. I work a bit more from my hotel room before stepping back outside to make a phonecall back home. Tromsø has been nice, but it’s time to move on to my next destination.
location: tromsø, troms (NO)
ext air temp: -- F
relative humidity: --%
dew point: -- F
wet bulb: -- F
ground temp: --