Apartment and snow

Today we got the good news that Anna and I have bought an apartment in Seltjarnarnes, Reykjavik, Iceland. During the last 10 days or so we have been making offers back and forth with the owners, but today the owners settled with a price we thought was good for us.

The apartment is in a house with only three apartments, it is the top most one, 107m2, and has a garage of almost 30m2 and the some additional storage-rooms in the basement. The view and the location is excellent and is just perfect.                    To bad we have to live in a small coal-mine apartment in Svalbard;0). It will be good to be in Svalbard and pay down the small loan while being abroad!



This afternoon summer did not show up, but king winter did - temperature dropped to -1 and heavy wet snow has been falling since then. Maybe there is a chance for some skiing tomorrow;0)

I have already started packing my things which has to go to Svalbard. Some things like books and summer clothes will be left behind in Iceland, as well as the cars (which will probably be sold). Arriving in Svalbard I will get a 42 square meter apartment fully equiped. Anna is handing in her master thesis in tourism on Tuesday and then she will have to finish working in the company. Therefore she will not be able to join me in Svalbard until the end of July or early August. Then she will have some time to get used to the fact that she is moving far up north and I can also focus 100% on my new and exciting job in the business of mining geology;0).

When Anna joins me in Svalbard, we will get a larger apartment. This one will be empty so we will have to empty the nearest IKEA-store which is in Oslo, Norway and stuff it all together with x number of boxes of clothes and equipment into a container and ship it to Svalbard...

I am trying to get Icelandair to open up a flight-route from Reykjavik to Svalbard, to shorten the travel on vacation to Iceland, reduce the price and make it easier for visitors, but i hardly think they will do this favour to us;0)

The weather here in Iceland has been quite bad and changing in April, with snow, sun, rain, sleet, wind - all in the same day - several times a day!

I got a job!!!!

In the end of March i flew to Svalbard again for two job interviews, one as a logistican at the Norwegian Polar Institute and one as an exploration geologist in a coal mining company. It is not every day that i fly alost 10 000 km for some job interviews;0)

Yesterday I got the good news that i have been offered a job as an exploration geologist at SNSK (Store Norske Spitsbergen Grubekompagni) on Svalbard. I will be doing everything from drilling cores, planning drill sites, logging cores, working with GIS, office work etc. all  of this in an Arctic region.
This will be great and I am sure I will learn a lot...

My new job will start May 15th, so now I have to pend the time wisely. I have to do some packing and sorting out what to bring with me, maybe buy an apartment here in Iceland, sell my car etc...