If any of you have read my ‘about me‘ page, you would agree that I could be considered as one of the worst kind of travellers, and certainly not someone you want to get stuck travelling with.
But time and again, as I mentioned, people do get tricked into travelling with me. This time round, it was 3 of my now friends that I got to know here in Berkeley who had to feel the brunt of travelling to the Grand Canyon with me.
And unlike most other trips where my annoying sides are only showing once I’m already on the road, I was already being quite a pain right through the planning stage for this trip.
I basically went into a panic episode when I found out that I would be sleeping in a tent in the freezing cold. I contemplated (out loud to my travel mates whom I barely knew at that point) about pulling out from the trip because I didn’t want to die in the cold I didn’t have any experience in winter camping. And in the process, I might have made one of my travel mates freak out a little too.
But before you discount me completely, this is the part that I’m always proud of myself. My love for travelling is often great enough to conquer my fears. So before completely deciding to bail out from the trip, I decided to go on a research rampage, finding out as much as possible about winter camping and hiking at the Grand Canyon.
How cold does it get?
Will you die sleeping outside in subzero temperature?
Are there any animals?
Can I hike in Grand Canyon without hiking shoes?
How steep are the trails?
But the real question that I was trying to answer was: Would someone like me – a beginner (and somewhat unfit) outdoor traveller, who has no skills in camping, lighting up a portable stove let alone cooking on it, setting up a tent, blowing up sleeping pad,… the list goes on (I did not tell them these. They found out on their own pretty quickly the moment we arrived at the camp site.) – be able to survive a three-day two-night camping trip and hiking at the Grand Canyon?
Almost exactly a year ago, I made the decision to uproot myself from Singapore and move all the way up north to Denmark. I remember it was during the Easter holidays that I had a long conversation with my parents about quitting my somewhat decent-paying job and pursue something completely different (and one that is potentially not going to pay me very well).
It has definitely been one of the best decisions in my life.
I have learned a lot of new things, become a little street-wiser (although I know someone who thinks I still have a looong way to go, to the extent that I need to live on the streets in Nairobi before I can even be somewhat decent. Yep, he is brutally honest, but we are also still friends, which probably means that I agree with him), travelled to some amazing places in Europe, seen the Northern Lights and lived in two new cities (so far).
But it has also been one of the most confusing situations that I have got myself into.
I have been having a lot of difficulty in updating what’s been happening in my life on this blog. Whenever I sit in front of my computer, I simply do not know what to write. Not because nothing has been happening and that I have very few things to update. In fact, I have a whole Airbus-sized-cabin to update, but I just can’t find a way to do so.
The A380 that brought me here.
At first I couldn’t quite place why this is the case, but these days I have come to realise that the reason I have been having some writer’s block about my own life is because things have been happening so fast that nothing has properly sunk in on me yet. I left Singapore, my home for nine years, last September, tried to settle into my new home Aarhus, only to find out a month later that my supposedly one-year stay would be cut short to mere 6 months because I got this incredible opportunity to finish my first year of Master’s at UC Berkeley. So within a span of half a year, I have had to move across three different countries in three different continents.
Hello, it’s me I was wondering if after all these weeks you’d like to hear What I’m up to in USA They say Cal’s supposed to be sunny But all I see is rain here
Hello, can you hear me? I’m in California studying at UC Berkeley But don’t you worry ‘bout me I’m still moving to London before I graduate next year
There’s a time difference between us And a million miles
Hello from the other side I must have moved a thousand times From Indo to SG and then to Denmark For a whole year I never seem to be home
Hello from the outside At least I can still send Whatsapp To tell you my dear friends that I’m missing you And you still matter to me though I don’t see you often anymore
Hello, how are you? It’s so typical of me to talk about myself I’m sorry I hope that you’re well I did at last make it out of Aarhus where nothing ever happened
It’s no secret that the both of us Can’t wait to leave the place
I still have a lot of things that I want to write about my trip in December. There is a story about my first encounter with the whales somewhere in the Norwegian Sea, there is something to say about my visit to the charming city of Bergen, or when I somehow found myself in Paris for the last day of 2015 and the first few days of 2016. And I haven’t even talked anything about my (almost) annual ritual of visiting Stockholm yet.
But something happened that completely snatched my attention away from all these things: the arrival of February.
Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing bad about February. In fact, February is generally an excellent month: a lot of my close friends’ birthdays are in February, Chinese New Year often falls in February, and 2016 is a leap year, how exciting!
There is just one tiny little detail that is different about this year’s February compared to the previous years (apart from the fact that I am spending Chinese New Year away from my family for the first time in my life): I’m moving to a different continent at the end of the month.
It certainly does not feel or seem like it at all since I don’t have anything sorted out for the big move yet. I have no visa (hopefully it is on its way), no flight booked (although I already have a very rough idea which one I am going to take), no accommodation (okay, this is the real problem I think, although I have a few kind souls who are on the lookout for me).
But I’m not here to complain about my administrative problems. Instead, what I’m trying to say is that the realisation that I’m leaving this month brings in another sinking fact: my time in Aarhus from now on can be counted in days.
It felt just like yesterday when I wrote this post about my first impressions of Aarhus just after my arrival here. But when I read through the post again, it felt like ages ago since my first visit to ARoS, when I lost my wallet and found it back thanks to Danish people’s astounding honesty, when interactions with my class mates were mere awkward exchange of conversations with strangers.
But how times have changed. Back then I had no clue that I was going to leave the place so soon and that some of the people here would be very dear to me.
And as for Aarhus, after almost 6 months, I have managed to take the place for granted – for a good few months up until before Christmas, I had formed a view that the place is a mere small ‘city’ where you could get nothing done and nothing much to do – accompanied by perpetually horrible weather which ‘sucked the energy out of you’ (to quote a friend), you would practically want to do nothing else but escape from the rain and get into the comfort of your room (although I have to admit I’m extremely fond and proud of my room – see above picture). For someone who had previously lived her whole life in the world’s capitals (Jakarta, Beijing, Singapore, Copenhagen), I found this change in energy level unexpectedly hard and unsettling.
It was not until my last day in Aarhus in 2015 before I left for Oslo for my trip that I realised I had not taken enough time to appreciate the city and its beauty. I had been so engrossed in my little bubble at the outskirt of the city (hereby known as ‘the countryside’) that I failed to notice some of the beauty it had to offer.
As much as I think that the Northern Lights are one of the most incredible natural phenomena, I find it a pity that Tromsø is known for simply that – a gateway to see the Northern Lights. There seems to be very little else known about the city – most people out of the Nordic countries have never even heard of its name before, when in fact this place has so much to offer and is absolutely gorgeous.
I was guilty of exactly that – I came here aiming and caring for nothing but seeing the coveted aurora borealis. And knowing my tendency to not do any proper research before visiting a city (in a bid to be pleasantly surprised), I almost had no idea what was waiting for me at the largest town in Northern Norway.
Not only did Tromsø pleasantly surprise me, but it also took my breath away with its Arctic city charm. There is no earth-shatteringly famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Colosseum in Rome, or the Buckingham Palace in London. Instead, what Tromsø boasts is its own existence: a cold place in the Arctic with 24-hour darkness for a few weeks in the winter, the midnight sun in the summer, and of course the occasional visits of the Northern Lights. It is also nestled on a beautiful landscape with both mountains and the sea decorating its view – together with the city lights emanating from the houses, it makes for an absolutely breathtaking sight.
The warm city lights contrasting with the white snow are possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
Despite not visiting any museums nor tourist attractions when I was there, I left the city being charmed endlessly. Tromsø showered us with many little things that made every moment so precious.
And it started the moment we landed at the Tromsø Airport.
Being greeted by Father Christmas.
My trip started rather horribly with me losing my luggage at the Oslo airport (due to my supreme idiocy). But it was instantly cured the moment I stepped into the airport building as we were welcome by the sight of this familiar guy waving at us.
It was a much needed warm welcome to our coldest destination; naturally, we couldn’t leave without taking a picture with him.
I’m pretty sure he was smiling underneath that big beard.
Parties and large gatherings generally confuse me. Anything that requires me to divide my attention between more than two people at the same time or where I’m required to make any kinds of small talks makes me nervous. This is why I normally retreat to the shadow of a bar the moment I get there, or speak to the same person whom I’m comfortable with for the next three hours and refuse to move my legs to speak to someone else across the room just in case I bump into a person that I have to make small talks with on the way there. It’s worked well for me so far and I think I have a mutual unspoken understanding with fellow party-goers whereby I normally ignore most people and they do me and that is the start of a beautiful friendship.
So it surprised me beyond words when, a week or so ago in the bar, people started approaching me to speak to me. I found out later that it was mainly driven by two things: my last blog post about the series of Murphy’s law happenings in December (thank you for all the messages, comments and concerns by the way. I did not expect it to cause quite a stir since I feel perfectly fine most of the time, but I am still very touched by it all); and the Northern Lights.
Until then, I thought that I was the only weirdo who wanted to see the Northern Lights so badly. I mean, someone even called me ‘crazy woman’ in my face for going even further north from Denmark to Norway during the winter when most others were travelling south in search for more warmth and the sun (I take being coined a crazy woman as a compliment by the way). But from my conversation with people and the reactions to my Northern Lights pictures, it turned out that a lot of people did want to see them, but I guess was the only weirdo who was crazy enough among my class mates to actually do it.
And since I seem to have reignited the sparks in some people to tick this off from their bucket list, I thought I would share some tips from my trip to Tromsø which I believe would be helpful in planning for Northern Lights trips (especially at the last minute).
Getting to Tromsø is not hard, considering it’s at the Arctic.
Tromsø is located in Norway (albeit a very northern part of it). This means that as long as you can get yourself to Oslo or other major cities in the Nordic countries, you will be able to find flight connections there, thanks to SAS and the more affordable Norwegian Airlines. I live in Aarhus, Denmark (a rather inaccessible city to say the least), and in order to get to Tromsø, I had to take a flight to Copenhagen, then to Oslo before finally landing at Tromsø. It was pretty straightforward, especially considering how far north Tromsø is and how Aarhus has the smallest international airport I have ever seen in my years of travelling.
Tromsø is an easy city to navigate and extremely beautiful.
Tromsø is a small city, and the airport is very accessible from the city centre. There is a direct public bus that takes you right to the city centre and to the biggest shopping mall in the city. The city centre is very easy to navigate (and this is coming from someone with a horrible sense of direction), and you can pretty much walk to all the main attractions.
Plus, the city is beautiful, both during the day (though the sun never rose during the three days we were there) and at night.
And if you are lucky, some random Tromsø guy would approach you and teach you how to fish while you were admiring the view.
Be prepared to spend a few nights there. We saw the Northern Lights after our second try and people have been calling us extremely lucky. Apparently some people waited for a whole week and still did not get to see anything.
The thing about the Northern Lights is that there can be no guarantee for you to see it. We have been preached by the tour companies and the tourism websites that there are 3 necessary conditions for you to see the Northern Lights: the sky must be clear, there must not be any light pollution, and the Northern Lights itself must be active. This means that you could end up with a really cloudy day, and you could spend the whole night chasing for a clear sky and when you found an opening among the clouds, you could see all the beautiful stars twinkling at you but no Northern Lights in sight because it was not active.
Clear sky + minimal light pollution but no Northern Lights on our first attempt. To be fair, the view was still gorgeous.
So you would have to come back the next day on a different tour and hope that all these things are aligned. I have got to be honest with you – the uncertainties can be nerve-wrecking so always be prepared for the worst!
This was the only Northern Lights we saw on our first attempt. It lasted for about 2 minutes.
I realised that this turned out to be a very long post, so I have decided to give subtitles to each event (it must be the influence of all the academic writing that I had to do last semester) and you can just pick which of these interest you the most. I could have broken these into a few posts, but I think it is paramount to put them all together to show what a month it had been.
Happy New Year!
First thing first, I figured that most of you would probably not realise that I have updated the ‘about missruslee‘ page, so do check it out!
Now that it is January, I feel I can very safely talk about December last year (!!!). Some people might refer to the month as a series of unfortunate events for me, but I prefer, as I told a friend of mine who faced similar predicaments at one point in the month, to think of it as Murphy’s law being at its full force and me somehow having guardian angels in the form of strangers, neighbours and classmates.
So here goes, in chronological order:
The Prequel
To be fair, it was not entirely December’s doing. It probably started some time late November when, for reasons only the dear bus driver knows, the Aarhus Airport Bus decided to leave without me even though I was already dragging my luggage to board the bus. It was probably the first panic attack that I have had in years, when it sank on me that there was a real chance that I could have missed my flight to Copenhagen, which would mean that I would have missed my connecting flight to Shanghai, which would mean that I would have had to miss my best friend’s wedding where I was the maid of honour.
But I made it to the flight in the end. In the midst of my panic attack, two very kind strangers saw what happened (including me running after the bus with my luggage flailing), approached me, and sorted things out for me. They called a taxi, and one of them waited for me until the taxi arrived to explain the situation to the driver (since I was in no condition to speak due to the said panic attack), and the driver assured me that I would still make it for my flight and I would be compensated by the Airport Bus company for the cost of the taxi (which amounted to a whopping DKK 567 or USD 82, unheard of for me even if I decided to take a tour of Singapore in a cab).
Still can’t believe I made it.
The Flight Delay
I think I was not destined to take the airport bus during that trip. On the way back to Aarhus, my flight from Beijing to Copenhagen was delayed by more than an hour due to the horrible weather in the capital of China.
I am so behind my travel writing that before I know it, it is Christmas Eve. Since everything is closed here in Oslo (and pretty much the whole of Europe, probably), I decided to finally tie myself down on a chair in my hotel room and write.
The problem is, I don’t even know where to begin. Should I start from the time when I flew from Aarhus to Shanghai just for the weekend? Or my perfect weekend in Stockholm celebrating Santa Lucia? Or when my room got broken into by two thieves? Or when I was caught in snow blizzards with some friends in Copenhagen?
But since it is Christmas, I have decided to talk about something happy and share with you a little secret for a beautiful photo spot in Tromsø (and also because I don’t have all the pictures from the other trips in my computer), which we discovered by accident while taking the bus from Hamna to Tromsø city centre.
In a bid to see the Northern Lights from the comfort of our room, I had decided to book an Airbnb flat away from the city lights. But the problem with that was that in order to reach most of the attractions in the city (including to go for a tour to see the Northern Lights), we had to take a 30-minute bus ride. And because of the remote location, the public transport route did not exist in Google Map. Thank goodness our Airbnb host was extremely helpful and Norwegian people are as willing to help strangers as Danish people that we managed to locate the obscure bus stop amidst the pile of snow that covered the city.
Our bus stop was just round the corner from this bend.
If you think I love travelling, you need to look no further than my parents to understand why. I grew up in a family where travelling is an annual ritual (we would have a big family trip for two weeks every year) that I have no idea how to live my life any other way.
Now that the kids have grown up with two of us living abroad, my parents seem to bear the torch of our family tradition very well. They would be in China one day, Thailand next, some other city in Indonesia afterwards and Singapore probably a few weeks after. Sometimes I lost track of where they are, and would wake up to a constant stream of pictures of them posing with some landmarks that were definitely not anywhere near our home in Jakarta.
So, really, I could just blame it on the genes that I am spending so much time (and money) travelling, all in the name of satisfying my sense of curiosity. Not that it is a bad gene to have, I have been having the time of my life for the past few years exploring new places around the world.
However, it is a bit ironic that the very thing my parents have inspired me with, this unwavering sense of wander, is what makes me unable to be with them on this very special day. Today marks the 30th year of their journey together as man and wife, and here I am, way up north in a different continent and very much wish that I could be there with them today to celebrate.
My parents haven’t just been parents to me, their (slightly rebellious) daughter. They have been my role models in life, work and relationships. They are the rare example of how long-distance relationships can work (they spent several years in different countries and continents before getting married to each other), they teach me the meaning of being with each other through thick and thin, and simply how you can make things work if you have the will to.
Their humble journey started from their hometown in Medan, before eventually moving to Jakarta where they started to build a family while still trying to make ends meet. Now when they can afford to live comfortably, they have decided to spend the time conquering city after city with each other.
And just enjoying each other’s company, basically.
Even though things haven’t always been easy for them and my family, it is heartwarming and refreshing to see their determination all these years through the hardship in life, and learning together to overcome their differences to be where they are today.
One of my favourite travel quotes comes from one of Malaysian Airlines advertisement campaigns (before their reputation went down due to the missing planes saga). I remember stumbling upon it on my way home from work and just stood there thinking that this pretty much sums up what I wish for in my life.
My parents have been lucky travellers who find that great someone in each other to journey this life together. I certainly hope to find mine too one day.
Just a little pause from writing on this blog for this month. In the midst of midterm hiatus and finals looming just around the corner, this blog thus has to take a backseat for now.
In the meantime, enjoy this lovely rainbow over Aarhus on one of my happiest days so far here. It is hard to imagine that this was only last week, since at the moment I am ‘trapped’ in the first snow blizzard for the year in Copenhagen.
I will come back with more updates, that’s a promise!
missruslee 