The World, from my perspective

I went on a flight today; well actually I went on three flights today but they all led to the same place. A place so distant and far north that I'm even impressing some of my very-well travelled friends. The place? Svalbard! Yes, I'm in friggin’ Svalbard, and will hopefully stay for the next six months waiting tables at a pretty damn nice restaurant up here. Now how did I ever end up at the top of the world? It all started before I went to Norway this autumn to work as a butcher when I a few weeks into August still hadn’t gotten a reply. So I set about applying for jobs pretty much everywhere and this included Svalbard. Come September and the maitre’d sent me an e-mail and after a few phone-calls and several more e-mails we came to the conclusion that I was suitable for the position and should stay over the summer season. So early this morning I boarded a flight in Stockholm and seven hours later, after a truly magnificent view from the plane, I touched frozen ground in Longyea...

I left Israel two weeks ago now and am just about to head off on my next "grand adventure", this time up to the frozen north where the polar bears roam and the icebergs are born. But I've been keeping myself busy with all sorts of things while waiting for my flight to leave and my imminent transformation into a human popsicle (I'm hoping I'll be lemon flavoured, but the odds say vanilla). As you may guess, most of my time was spent buying clothes so I'll survive. Clothes I also need here in Sweden, since Lord Winter has completely taken over and holds the lands hostage under his white snow coat. Basically, it's really friggin' cold, which I didn't really approve of at first, but now I'm getting used to it. Considering I'm now the proud owner of a really thick down winter coat and some other great winter gear, I bloody well should be used to it (don't ya think). But anyway, buying clothes isn't much of an adventure according to me (t...