BLUUUUR

The last four days in Kangerlussuaq flew by and we were always busy! So I really didn't have much time to blog. But the last few days we had were amazing! Most notably we went back to point 660 and got to drill holes in the ice to place ablation sticks in. :) I also managed to fall on the ice... again. But hey "I bruised my butt in Greenland" Awesome.

Eating ice I chipped off point 660

My favorites, Dana and Aggu :)

Drilling holes on the ice!

Then the next day we went out and dug soil pits near lake Ferguson and analyzed the soil we had. We dug all the way down to the permafrost. Which isn't what I expected. It's not like ice under the soil, it's literally FROZEN dirt. After group awesome dug our soil pit, I sat in it. :) I sat on Greenlandic permafrost, yeah. 

All in all, this trip is more amazing than I ever would have imagined! I'm so thankful I was able to experience it. :) 

Much love,

Sydney

Mud Fight

Sunday July 8^th

Today definitely made up for every bad day we’ve had here. I just needed a little reminder to cling to the little things to help me get through the day. :) Although the two and a half hour lecture on climate and evolution this morning was absolutely thrilling, I did get a tad distracted by my games of solitaire (I won every game, BT Dubs). After our “oh so exciting” lectures we finally got to head out into the field! We drove just a few minutes past the airport to what looked like a huge pit full of mud. But, it’s actually a great place to find fossils! Rikke told us that we might get lucky and be able to find fish fossils! Well, I guess it was my lucky day cause I actually found one! After crouching in the mud digging for at least half an hour I found a really cool fish fossil, complete with spine and fin imprints! However after an hour of sitting in the mud, the inevitable happened: a mud fight. You see, Fie was complaining that her forehead itched, but her hands were dirty so she didn’t want to itch it. So, being the kind individual I am, I walked over there and sweetly scratched it for her. Apparently she didn’t appreciate my act of kindness because she returned the favor by throwing a huge handful of mud at me!  I turned around and, as nicely as possible, said “Fie, that wasn’t very nice, I was only trying to help.” Hahaha. Not really. I went over and smudged mud all over her face, and it literally started a full blown mud war with about six of us from the group.  It was hilarious and some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time! On the way back to base camp we had a great talk in the back of the truck too. Who would have thought I’d be in the back of a truck, with a Physicist, a Danish girl, a girl from New York, covered in mud, in Kangerlussuaq Greenland? Yeah, no one.  Quite the experience if I do say so myself. Haha.

 We had just ten minutes to clean ourselves up and then head the Meterological institute to learn about the weather forecasting for all the airlines here. Which was cool, cause I’ve never even thought about that aspect of weather.  And then, possibly the highlight of my day… DINNER AT THE AIRPORT! :) Thank God for real food. We had steak.. I think, and fries and corn. Oh man. It  was amazing. I couldn’t have been happier. Plus tonight is movie night I guess! So we’ll get to watch mean girls! I haven’t even seen TV in the last two weeks, so this is quite the treat. But as great as this is, I can’t wait to be home. Only a few more days!

Much love,

Sydney

mmm, whale

Saturday June 7^th

Today was absolutely the most boring day ever. But tonight was one of the most hilarious. We didn’t really have anything to work on so we mostly had the day off.  We went to the airport, and bought some souvniers for people, and then came back to base camp and did nothing again. Tonight was a ton of fun though. We had a Greenlandic dinner and spent the evening playing old Greenlandic games.  I actually tried whale! It doesn’t taste bad, however it was the concistency of rubber.  They also had salmon and little shrimp. After we ate a little we played some of the most interesting games… I’ll definitely have to show people once I get home! Haha.

yep, that's whale

 But I never would’ve imagined how much I would like some of the people here. They’re hilarious and we always just have a blast. I literally snort constantly, my laugh has turned into a short laugh and then tons of snorts.  It’s pretty emburrusing. And the real problem is that once I start snorting, I think it’s funny, so then I laugh harder and well… it’s a vicious cycle.  But tonight, I can’t even remember what was so funny, but Rikke, Fie, and I were literally crying laughing. 

Aggu is definitely someone I'm gonna miss

And I'll miss group awesome like crazy <3

Needless to say, it was a good night. It weird to think that in just five days I’ll be leaving this place I’ve been living for the last two weeks and in all honestly, I’ll probably never see many of the people I’ve met ever again, which is a sad thought because I’ve made a lot of really good friends. But I try not to think about it and just enjoy the time that I have here. But I can’t wait to come home and see everybody, and I’m actually looking forward to the Arizona heat! Maybe my fingers and toes won’t be so frozen all the time!

Much love,

Sydney

Vomiting Caterpillars

Friday, June 6^th

Today was an awesome day! Instead of taking the trucks out to the glaciers, we all got to ride on this huge tour bus out to the field site. Once we got there, we went on yet another uphill hike (because everything here somehow manages to be uphill both ways). Once we got up to one of the peaks, We met with a few undergrad students who are helping a grad student conduct his research on plants and roots. However, I found the most interesting person there to be Michael Avery (Mike) a student at Penn State who is studying ecology. He studies caterpillars and invertebrates, specifically the Eurois Occulta. We learned that he spends a lot of time making them vomit, which is one of their defense mechanisms. We found one of the caterpillars that he studies, but apparently it wasn’t a very smart caterpillar because it never figured out how to pupate, so it was probably going to die any day. Mike said he could only make the caterpillar vomit if it was warm (and let me tell you, it was not warm out there) so I sacrificed one of my hand warmers to warm it. Once we warmed it up, Mike made it vomit for us. Haha it’s surprising how many people with stand in a little circle just to watch a bug vomit. Then Mike told us about a strange fungus that has been taking over the caterpillars and slowly taking over them, and then making them climb to the top of plants, where they die and then release the spores of the fungus.  It’s called Zoophthora Radicans. After he taught us about the caterpillars he gave us little collection vials and we walked around collecting any bugs we could find. I even convinced Maeve to let me kill her caterpillar so I could take it home and give it to Mr. Farr (my science teacher). The best part was that once we put it in the alcohol it vomited and pooped. So I now have a vial with a dead caterpillar, caterpillar vomit, and caterpillar poop. Pretty cool, huh? After that, most of the group went with Mike to a further hike but Dana and I stopped half way up and stayed in a little field of flowers we found.

 We made hippie flower head bands, laid in the flowers, and took pictures. :) We were probably there for at least an hour before the rest of the group hiked back down and we all got back on the bus. Let me just say the best part of the bus ride was watching everybody try to sleep because we were driving on the bumpiest road ever created. And to make an amazing day even better, we got to eat at the airport instead of Thai food. :) It was a good day.

Much love,

Sydney 

Kellyville

Thursday July 5^th

Today was so long. I feel like each day is just taking longer and longer. It’s probably cause I miss everybody so much…  Anyways, today we went to the Radar facility in Kellyville (a tiny town with only seven people) where we  got the longest tour of my life. I just feel so tired it’s impossible to focus, but it was kinda cool just cause the radar is so big.

 We also got to see their laser and a ton of pics they took of the Aurora, which is beautiful. I made it a new goal of mine- I want to see the northern lights before I die. Actually, I’ve decided it would be the best date ever, to sit under the northern lights with someone, I just think about things like this all the time. :) Anyways, after we went to see the radar we came back to base camp where we had two skype interviews, and honestly I was so dead tired, I can barely tell you anything about them… But I know we were talking about the ice bridge, the airplanes that are taking Ice measurements until the new satellite launches in 2016. After our lectures we had a break for dinner, which was, again, thai food. -__- After dinner we had a small social activity where Maeve taught us how to make paper trebuches and we launched m&m’s and ate tons of chocolate. Life was good. :) Dana and I also “tamed our eyebrows” finally. New we’re feelin pretty, well, about as pretty as you can feel when you never wear make up and are somehow always dirty feeling. Anyways, in all honesty I can’t think of much to blog today, all I can think about is how much I miss people, and how much I wish I could just see everyone. Being here definitely makes me appreciate seeing everyday, and being able to talk on the phone until I fall asleep. It’s the little things I miss. I also want a watermelon eegee sooooo badly. Well, I hope all is well in the states and I’ll be home in a week! :)

Much love,

Sydney 

AMUURICA

Wednesday The Fourth Of July

Well  first off,  I have to start todays blog by telling y’all about last night! Last night we finally got wifi for everyone, even on our phones. I was literally so happy when it started working that I cried. You never realize how much you appreciate those things until you don’t have them anymore! Anyways after Dana and I had mini freak outs we just sat around smiling at the internet for hours. I even got to skype a little. Hearing the voice of someone you miss is an amazing thing. :) Anyways,  I went to bed smiling like a little school girl last night. Today was amazing as well! Happy Fourth of July America! This morning started out patriotic with Dana and I waking everybody up waving an American flag and singing the star spangled banner! Probably the best duet anyone here has ever heard, in my opinion. After our morning singing session, we had a short presentation by Karen and Kyla, research scientists studying  the biogeochemistry of glacial meltwater. They took us out near Russell glacier to collect water samples. Before we went out on the site the Danish and Greenlandic students asked us to sing some patriotic songs, so of course we did! We sand God Bless the U.S.A., Yankee Doodle, My country tis of thee and any others we could think of! Then in all the languages, we all sang twinkle twinkle little star! Which was so cool sounding! Then we went out to the field site where it was absolutely freezing. Luckily, Malene let me borrow her infinity scarf so I wrapped it around my head and kept myself a little warmer. :)

After we collected samples we went back to KISS, the scientific research center near base camp, to analyze what we had found. We learned that each tiny sample had hundreds of bacteria in it (which I already knew ;))  and we also attempted to measure the amount of iron in the samples, but unfortunately that didn’t work! However when we were looking at the bacteria on the slides, it was amazing because it looked like a galaxy. Each little bacteria that we had covered in a stain looked like a little greenish-yellow star, which was so nice cause I haven’t seen stars since I got here!  Once we were done at KISS we came back to base camp to start the Fourth of July festivities! We blasted country music and had burgers and hot dogs! We also decorated everything with red white and blue, flags, and other obnoxious American items! It was awesome!  We grilled our burgers on these tiny charcoal grills, but they tasted so good! We also made brownies that we cooked in weird cardboard/paper/box/container things. We even stuck individual American flags in each brownie! I also walked around all day saying “AMUURICAH!” It was a good time.

We sat outside and ate our delicious American food and had a dandy good time, it was wonderful. :)  I had two burgers, a coke, a brownie, chips, and then I went and bought vanilla ice cream. Who would’ve thought we could have such a great Fourth of July in Greenland? It was a blast!

Also, I keep forgetting to mention in my blog, but you know what I’ve noticed? When you get really cold, fashion literally STOPS existing. Like I couldn’t care less what I look like while I’m here as long as I’m warm, and I feel like everyone else thinks the exact same thing! Haha so when I look super awkward in all these pics, I’m sorry,  I blame the weather!

 Anyways, even though we just got internet, it’s looking like we won’t have it for long, but I’ll try and keep up on my blog! I hope y’all are doing well and I’ll be back in Arizona in T-minus 8 days! Take care everyone!

Much love,

Sydney

Quick Update

Hey y'all, so you may have noticed that I stopped blogging mid-trip, it's because our internet in Kanger was down and it took a lot to be able to post. However, I kept all my blogs in a word document so I'm gonna post it all today :)