Catching up with my son
Son-of-Furtheron's continues his Arctic adventure. We had a great Skype catch up call with him last night. What a fantastic thing Skype is frankly!
Good news is he is liking the work and enjoying himself studywise. That is key it would be a disaster to travel there and not enjoy that side of it which occupies so much of his time.
We were catching up on the bizarre costs of things. Chicken is particularly expensive apparently so he is living of Salmon which is by comparison a bargain - he gets four fillets for about £7! Tea is another expensive luxury so he is very grateful for the large box of tea bags we sent to him and great expense... the woman in the post office thinks I'm nuts no doubt, and I found out the other day it is a good job he isn't in China. Caffeine is a prohibited import into China so if you have anyone there you know, don't ever send them tea bags - it'll be illegal! And probably pointless given they already have all the tea in China!
His "great big bushy" Arctic explorer beard is coming on very well - although he had trimmed it up this week a bit as he had 3 interviews, over Skype again, for PhD places starting in the Autumn. He's done all he can no just wait to see if he gets and offer and hopefully one that he wants and can work with his girlfriend who already has one lined up at Birmingham. Ideally they want to live together and one or both of them commute as needed.
Some great quotes... "It has warmed up -20°C is ok it is when it is -30°C and windy it is really cold". "I think the cheap mince I buy is probably reindeer". "Svalbard reindeer are more dense than Welsh sheep. I mean they eat grass and live here where there is heck of a lot of snow above the grass." "I don't get out too much, biggest hassle is finding a spare rifle, despite this place having the most firearms per head of population anywhere in the world". "I saw the sun probably for the first time today since January in England".
So all good.
Good news is he is liking the work and enjoying himself studywise. That is key it would be a disaster to travel there and not enjoy that side of it which occupies so much of his time.
We were catching up on the bizarre costs of things. Chicken is particularly expensive apparently so he is living of Salmon which is by comparison a bargain - he gets four fillets for about £7! Tea is another expensive luxury so he is very grateful for the large box of tea bags we sent to him and great expense... the woman in the post office thinks I'm nuts no doubt, and I found out the other day it is a good job he isn't in China. Caffeine is a prohibited import into China so if you have anyone there you know, don't ever send them tea bags - it'll be illegal! And probably pointless given they already have all the tea in China!
His "great big bushy" Arctic explorer beard is coming on very well - although he had trimmed it up this week a bit as he had 3 interviews, over Skype again, for PhD places starting in the Autumn. He's done all he can no just wait to see if he gets and offer and hopefully one that he wants and can work with his girlfriend who already has one lined up at Birmingham. Ideally they want to live together and one or both of them commute as needed.
Some great quotes... "It has warmed up -20°C is ok it is when it is -30°C and windy it is really cold". "I think the cheap mince I buy is probably reindeer". "Svalbard reindeer are more dense than Welsh sheep. I mean they eat grass and live here where there is heck of a lot of snow above the grass." "I don't get out too much, biggest hassle is finding a spare rifle, despite this place having the most firearms per head of population anywhere in the world". "I saw the sun probably for the first time today since January in England".
So all good.
Skype has been a life saver for us although not to the same scale as for you. My son will be home for a week today and then we won't see him again until May but then he has to go for drill exercises this Summer. He may be in college but it's really like he's in the military already and Skype has been a blessing when he gets to use it. I'm so glad you got to see your son too!! Not sure I could eat reindeer but I suppose when you have to, you don't think of Santa. ha ha ha
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