When we woke up on Monday morning, all we could see outside our rooms was one huge cliff with thousands of birds. And when we learned that we would be cruising in our zodiac through that, we could not be more excited.

We hopped onto the zodiacs and cruised through the clear, cut blue waters straight to the huge cliff. As we raised our necks to see the vast expanse of birds, you could not help but notice the constant frantic activity not only by the hundreds of thousands of birds perched on the cliff but also by the ones flying through the clear blue sky overhead.

Our zodiac driver took us as close as we could to the rocks and even drove in and around them so we would be able to see exactly what it is like to be an Arctic animal.

And all of a sudden we saw a little dark brown splotch moving around – it was an Arctic fox. But before you knew it, it had run across the hill, behind rocks, and out of our sight. And that was the Arctic was all about – being quick on your feet and always attentive because before you know it something rare as ever could be gone.

After 90 minutes of cruising around in the beautiful Alkjefellet, we were back to the ship for a riveting lecture on polar bears by Brent Houston, a naturalist from Montana.

He told us everything we could possibly know about polar bears. Right from how to distinguish between male and female polar bears to different adventures he has personally had with polar bears.

And almost as if he could tell the future, a polar bear was sighted later that day. But this time it wasn’t just a yellowish white rice, it was right in front of us floating on pack ice.

We spent hours and hours on deck watching the polar bear up close and took lots and lots of pictures. Lucky for us, we had the most cooperating polar bear ever imagined. He put up with us as our captain tried to inch closer and closer and posed for us for hours on end.

Our day filled with polar bears wasn’t done quite yet. We had a polar bear movie that night and then we were off to sleep.

Today was our last day in Svalbard, and we ended definitely ended it with a bang.

In the morning, we were out in the Andoyane Islands, an area filled with several mountain ridges, red stones, and large glacier fronts. However, the minute we stepped out onto the beautiful beachfront, we noticed loads and loads of plastic on the ground, which really disturbed us.

So right away, we started picking up all the plastic on the beach until we could not hold it in our arms any longer. We asked for large white trash bags to put all the trash in. And by the end of it, we had collected nine whole bags of trash weighing about 125 pounds and there was still a lot more.

It was extremely shocking to see that much plastic washed up on the shore not only for us but also for everyone on the ship. But at least we had done our job and picked it up.

After picking up trash all morning, we were pooped. We had lunch and then we were off again for a zodiac cruise to explore Monacobreen, which was absolutely breathtaking.

Monacobreen is a large glacier named after Prince Albert I of Monaco. However, due to climate change the glacier has retreated drastically in past years but still remains a 5 kilometer glacier front.

It was a life changing experience to be cruising around in a sea filled with ice chunks while watching the huge glacier. Every so often, you would hear a thunderous booming sound which signified the carving of the glacier. Watching that was nothing but surreal.

Didn’t I tell you we ended the day with a bang?

Soon we cruised our way back to the ship, listened to a couple of lectures, had dinner, and watched a movie.

Iceland is filled with many amazing things. So for today’s adventure, each passenger was allowed to pick from either a whale watching excursion or a tour around northern Iceland focused on highlighting its diverse geology.

Having already had a whale watching trip back home in preparation for the trip, we decided that it would be much more interesting to explore Iceland’s jewels.

So we hopped onto the buses for an action packed day in northern Iceland.

First stop was a beautiful waterfall that looked almost like Niagara Falls. But the difference here was we were allowed to get extremely close to the actual waterfall. We could hang our toes over the edge and even take pictures that made us seem like we were falling off. It was another sight that was too beautiful to even taken in. It seemed way too perfect to be real.

But of course, one of the most attractive spots at this location was the gift shop, where we all bought various sorts of items that signified our presence in Iceland.

Next stop was a quick walk around a park filled with rocks that were supposedly land trolls that have been frozen into rocks. After that we headed to a family style lunch that was positioned in an area filled with land craters.

Just when we thought we had seen enough of northern Iceland, we were off to a park filled with geysers that spewed sulfuric acid. And let me just tell you, that the smell was horrendous. There’s definitely no doubt while they call this location Devil’s Kitchen.

After that smelly trip, we were back to the ship just in time to hit the showers before our daily recap.

Next stop on our Arctic adventure was Greenland, but to get there would take a couple days at sea.

The expedition staff had arranged lectures for the next two days that ran each hour for all passengers so that we all wouldn’t go crazy with not being able to leave the ship.

But in between those lectures, we found different ways to make ourselves at home either through playing games, watching movies, or just mindless talking and bonding with each other.

One flight. A two hour wait. Another flight. A bus ride. And then an even longer bus ride. Not quite there yet, but we are one step closer to the top of the world. We are in Oslo, Norway!

It’s hard to believe that just 28 hours ago, we were standing in the upper school’s back loading zone tagging our bags and weighing our suitcases in preparation to board the bus off to San Francisco Airport after giving our final hugs and waving our goodbyes to our parents through the bus window for the next two weeks. Months and months of meetings have gone into this. It’s hard to believe we are finally here. We were finally going to the Arctic.

The wait for our plane to take off was almost excrutiating. Watching every international plane before ours line up one by one and then take off was almost like watching the minute hand never move to the desired position during a boring class period. There was a mix of emotions from uncontrollable excitement to see what this rare opportunity had in store for us right to the absolute nauseousness in our stomachs of leaving our normal routines to something so extraordinarily different.

Some of us slept, some of us watched movies back to back to back, some of us played video games, and some of us enjoyed the space of an empty seat next to us. But once those nine hours and twenty five minutes were up, I think it was safe to say that all of us were extremely excited to be off the plane and rid of the mediocre airplane food.

Because of the delay taking off from SFO, all we really had time for at the Amsterdam airport was walking from Terminal E to Terminal B, getting the official Dutch stamp in our passport, and discussing Amsterdam staples like tulips, chocolate, and kinder eggs (which are oddly enough illegal in the United States because of choking hazards). But it was still a good break and refresher for our next flight to Oslo, Norway.

And snap, we were there. That two hour flight went by quicker than ever especially since most of us crashed during the flight only waking up upon hearing the wheels of the plane touch the ground.

Right from disembarking the plane to seeing the two Scandinavian men in yellow Abercrombie & Kent vests holding a placard that read “Harker School”, everyone could feel that awe of a new exciting dimension that they had just entered – but that doesn’t mean we weren’t tired.

We were pooped, but Harker kids don’t take breaks right! Through the rain, we were directly headed to the Vigeland installation in Frogner Park, Oslo.

It would not be an exaggeration to say at all that Vigeland’s sculptures were absolutely jaw-dropping. Centered around the cycle of life, Vigeland’s attention to detail and extreme sense of symbolism took us to a new world. The whole park was absolutely breathtaking, and our tour guide could not have been any better. His calming accent and spectacular sense of storytelling was exactly the thing we needed to wake us up from our tiring journey.

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Ready to get some rest now? I’m afraid not. We got all of a one hour break at the hotel to shower up and then back in the bus to visit the Fram Museum which houses the first ship built in Norway for polar research.

But by that time, all we wanted was FOOD. After listening to a rather long welcome address, we were finally able to put our hands on some food at the museum’s buffet. However, some of us didn’t get the perfect meal we were wishing for and so settled for a rather large serving of bread. Must add, that our dinner was slightly interrupted by a man who tripped with a wine glass in his hand and was cut all over from the damage of that fall. With a pool of blood everywhere, it would be safe to say that it was a rather eventful close to our dinner.

But before we left back for the hotel, we took a look inside that ship!

Other guests might have thought that we looked like little kids at Christmas. We ran around the ship looking at every secret room, staircase, or tool. We even enacted scenes from Titanic and pretended to bail buckets of water out of the ship. It was an amazing end to our day.

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Finally! We are back at the hotel, but for the ladies it is rise and shine at 5 AM for our flight to Longyearben. The guys get to sleep in (why!) since their flight departs later. They say it is up to Abercrombie & Kent to decide those things, but who knows maybe it’s just Dr.B’s extreme desire for more sleep talking!

Till next time! (or really the next time we have WiFi)

Waiting at the gate for our charter flight full of Le Boreal passengers to Longyearbyen felt a little awkward. Let’s just say that our ages would have brought the passenger age average down significantly. It didn’t seem like the elderly folk appreciated our presence especially when they saw that our very own Edward had “smuggled” two loaves of bread through security and was holding and coddling it like his own baby.

Sharanya Balaji

20 minutes prior to landing, everyone’s eyes were glued to the window. We were in a new world that was absolutely indescribable. The ice and snow on the mountains was more that we imagined it to be. It was the most perfect view you could have ever imagined. We truly did feel that we were in Santa’s home.

Sharanya Balaji

Since there were no bridges directly to the airport, we had to walk out in the open from the airplane to the baggage claim in the airport. The cool air was refreshing and reminded us that we were actually in the Arctic. We were finally here.

After picking up our bags in baggage claim, a young Norwegian man came by and labeled all our bags with the little blue circular stickers that said “Spitsbergen Travels.” Each of the bags with these circles would go to the ship while we went on a tour around Longyearben, others would not. Did the bags of bread that Edward cared about so much get labeled? They didn’t. What a shame.

As we entered the tour buses, we were handed blue lanyards to signify that we were a part of the same tour group. We drove around the town of Longyearbyen, which was not all more than two long roads with buildings around them. We stopped at the town cinema for a lunch in the theater where we also gave up our passports in exchange for our room key cards.

Stephanie Huang

The theater seats were hung up and the room was filled with huge tables of American soda that had Norwegian twists. As we were served our courses one by one, more and more elderly people gave us questioning looks since we didn’t really fit in with their age group.

After having lunch, we boarded the buses again and were taken to a museum that documented many of the animals that Svalbard is none for. It was exciting to see life-sized models of the animals that we had hoped to see throughout our ship.

After visiting the museum, we were finally off to the ship.

As we drove up to the dock, our cruise liner “Le Boreal” was growing larger and larger. It was unreal to believe that we were finally there. We just wanted to see what it looked like inside.

As we walked inside the ship, Captain Garcia and his crew members welcomed us with a handshake and a hot refreshing towel. At the end of the line was a man who scanned our room key card and assigned another crew member to personally guide us to our rooms. Right from that moment we could feel the extreme luxuriousness of the ship.

When the greyish brown wooden door swung open, there were two welcoming beds awaiting us with our boots and parkas neatly placed upon them. The room was much more than we ever expected.

A South African accented man (who is really our cruise director) spoke over the intercom and recommended us to try them both the parka and boots on just in case we needed to switch them out.

After everyone had gotten adjusted into their rooms, there was an emergency drill and a welcome meeting. Then all passengers were off to sleep excited for what our Arctic adventure would have in store for us.

After waking up from our first night of comfortable sleep and having an absolutely luxurious breakfast in the morning, we headed to the overly comfortable theater for a mandatory briefing of proper zodiac protocols and plans for our first landing.

Hearing the descriptions of the locations we were going to that day and the passion in the staff members’ voices made our excitement uncontrollable. We immediately rushed to our rooms to get dressed for the infamous 8 degree Celsius weather. Although some of us wore four layers and some of us just one, we were all unified in wanting to finally put our feet on the Arctic ground for the first time.

Step one, step two and in the zodiac we were.

Riding in the zodiac for the first time was nothing but refreshing. There is nothing like feeling the cool breeze hit your face, hearing the zodiac cut through the deep Arctic waters or seeing the clear blue water ruffle as the motor of the zodiacs powered through.

As the zodiac washed up onto the shore, our expedition leaders reminded us of our perimeter and how long we would be allowed to stay.

Our first landing was nothing like what you would expect the Arctic to be. Naturally, you would assume that the Arctic to be filled with icy plateaus but Isfjorden was actually filled with luscious green hills that had a variety of flora, fauna and loads of reindeer poop on the permafrost – which was perfect for our research projects. However, we didn’t bring any equipment out onto the field yet since it was just our first landing and we wanted to understand what a landing was like first.

Stephanie Huang

Our first steps on Isfjorden were similar to a little kid’s steps at Disneyland for the very first time. We all ran across the area touching each point of the perimeter and taking dozens and dozens of photos. We were not even afraid to go up very close and personal to the animals. In fact, we got just 5 feet away from reindeer and got pecked on our heads by the vicious Arctic skuas who did not appreciate us encroaching on their nesting sites.

Edward Sheu

We were up for anything. We ran up and down hills multiple times in our bulky parkas and unwieldy boots. Two of us even did the famous whip and nae-nae on the cliff of the landing site. (I think it’s safe to say that we were the very first ones to ever do that in the Arctic – how cool is that?)

After that eventful first landing, we were back on the ship for a yet again luxurious lunch buffet that was followed by an expedition recap led by the expedition team (a tradition that will be carried along the trip). There they not only reminded us of the prior trip but also what we could expect at our next stop, Poolypenten or home of the walruses.

This would be the first landing where we would be allowed to take our science equipment onto the field. But since the landing was a beach landing, we were not able to find too much that we would be useful for our specific projects.

After washing up on shore on our zodiacs, we followed a trail of red flags that would take us to a location full of the 3,000 pound brown skinned animals – walruses. Dozens of them were piled up, cuddling with each other while dozen more humans clad in red parkas watched them in utter silence. All that could be heard was the rather frequent clicking of cameras.

Sharanya Balaji

It was quite shocking to be so up close to these animals. They didn’t really bother at all that we were around. It’s one of thing to see them in your local zoo, but to see them up close in their own habitat is absolutely amazing.

After an hour of watching them sleep, fight, and play, we were back on to the zodiacs and on to the ship.

It had just been 10 hours since we started our Arctic expedition, but we felt like it had been a week. We had done so much, seen so much, and more importantly walked so much. We were off for a good night’s sleep but unlike America, in complete sunshine.

We woke up to a rather interesting combination of pure excitement for finally being able to get of the ship and extreme nausea of the rocking of the ship. Our beds moved side to side and taking a shower was quite the challenge with the soap constantly falling off the stand. As we walked through the hallways and down the stairs, we started to feel like the intoxicated passengers on the boat since we couldn’t walk in a straight line and could not estimate where the ground was underneath our feet.

As we tried to put food into our mouths with shaking hands during breakfast, our expedition leader announced over the intercom that it seemed highly unlikely to land in Greenland because of the thick ice conditions which would make a safe landing impossible. That meant that we wouldn’t be able to visit Greenland at all this whole trip.

This was probably one of the biggest let downs of the whole trip considering that we had spent two whole days at sea and were just dying to get out. But I guess that’s just how the Arctic is. It’s highly unpredictable since weather conditions can change faster than the snap of two fingers.

So we were back to our mindless fillers of time – card games, watching movies, and playing the piano.

But then we were in for a treat thanks to Dr. Gary Blickenstaff who knew one of the passengers who happened to be one of California’s State Assemblyman, Rick Gordon, who also actively works on legislation related to climate change. Seems almost perfect right?

So while we cruised off in the rocky waters, we had a nice cozy chat with Gordon who first told us about himself, how he got involved with the state affairs and also what he has been doing as an assemblyman for the past five years.

He told us about how California has been doing a great job so far promoting renewable energy, but still has a lot of work in spreading awareness to more of its civilians. We were able to ask a lot of questions that helped us understand more how the government actually works. It was incredibly interesting but we still wished that we would be able to get off the ship and touch Greenland.

For our last excursion ever, we were out on the island of Flatey – an island that only has 6 people. Imagine that?

It was a beautifully quaint town that was nothing more than one kilometer long. During our two hour stay in the island, we were given a presentation by one of the residents in the church and were offered a chance to watch an Arctic tern show.

But most of us were preoccupied because today was presentation day.

Throughout the trip, we had been conducting personalized research projects where we received assistance from not only our teachers but the highly acclaimed expedition staff. By this point, everyone on the ship was pretty curious on why these teenagers had been lugging around scientific equipment wherever we went. So we thought it would be cool to share our findings at the last expedition recap, which would take place right after this excursion.

Right before our Cruise Director, Jannie, got into the details of our departures, the Harker School took the stage for each of us to give one minute presentations about our research. And they were all truly awed. We did a great job presenting such high quality information.

Coming off the stage with smiles, we didn’t know what was going to hit us next.

After all the departure information which already made as super nostalgic, we were shown a 17 minute 39 second slide show presentation of our travels. 17 minutes and 39 seconds seems like an incredibly negligible amount of time to capture the life changing things we had been doing for the past couple of weeks but it surely did leave a couple tears on our faces. It was incredibly bittersweet.

It was hard to believe that what we had considered home for the past two weeks, we would be leaving behind forever and never coming back to. Ironic because isn’t that what I said on day one before we left for the Arctic in the back loading zone of the Harker School?

But no fear, we had one last tour in the afternoon on buses where we went through the lava trails of Iceland and a shark museum.

After that short excursion out, we were back to the ship where it was very visible that everyone the ship was very sad to be leaving.

To soak in our last couple of hours together on the ship before leaving bright and early for the morning, we just hung around and packed (of course) trying to get ourselves comfortable with leaving our beautiful home, Le Boreal.

Marwan. 6 foot 4 inches. Lebanese from Paris, France. Waiter.

But he wasn’t just a waiter to us. Only two days had passed and we already knew he was our friend. He talked to us about his previous travels. He told us about his family. He joked with us. He gave us milk before we sat down at the table. He knew our order without us telling it. He made us excited to come to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He easily became our favorite person on the ship (besides the captain of course).

We never wanted to get up from breakfast because we were leaving behind our friend, but we had to because there was an announcement of spotting beluga whales. Seven of them in fact, right in front of our ship.

Sharanya Balaji

Once the beluga whales disappeared again, we are off to Ny-Alesund, one of the northernmost towns in the world. There we were strictly told to stay in the perimeter given since a mama bear and cub had been spotted just 48 hours before.

This wasn’t hard given that Ny Alesund was nothing more than one main road no longer than 200 meters with buildings on the side. But one building stood out to all of us – the gift shop. And trust me, we bought everything. We bought postcards to post in the northernmost post office in the world, stuffed animals, t-shirts, pens, lanyards, sweaters, and even Norwegian candy and gum.

Sharanya Balaji

All of us immediately wrote postcards to our families and friends and posted them in the northernmost post office in the world. How cool is that!

Jack Rothschild

After exploring a little more and hearing the story of the famous explorer Amundsen, we were back on to the ship heading towards Fjortende Julibreen, also known as the 14th of July glacier.

But before our landing, all of the passengers went to the theater for a expedition recap to hear of the plans, but there was a ring on the intercom, which was either extremely good or bad news. Lucky for us, it was good news – that same mama bear and a cub that had been spotted in Ny Alesund days before was right on the port side (the left side) of our ship.

I can promise you that that theater had never cleared out so quickly before. It was a stampede. People rushed to their rooms to get their parkas and cameras so they could find the best views of the bear. But even with binoculars, the view was nothing more than two grains of rice! Yet, everyone took pictures and felt that this was an omen for more and more polar bear sightings.

With high spirits, all of us got down at our next landing, the 14th of July glacier, which was oddly a rather warm location despite being a huge chunk of ice. On one side of the landing was a huge glacier, while the other side was a huge expanse of tundra filled with reindeer poop, flora, fauna, and permafrost. It had a little bit for everyone’s science projects.

Jack Rothschild

After a great landing, our zodiac drivers took us on a longer route back to the ship. A route that passed through the guillemot’s colony (an Arctic seabird). There were hundreds and hundreds of birds. You would never expect to see that many birds at a time, trust me.

However, our day wasn’t over yet. In fact, it was just getting started. We had a cocktail dinner reception with none other than Captain Etienne Garcia, the captain of Le Boreal for the past fifteen years. However, we barely got to see the captain during dinner. We sat in a fancier restaurant on the second floor this time, where we served meals course by course.

One hour went by. Still not done with dinner. Another hour went by. Still not done with dinner.

Dinner that usually takes us 30 minutes, took us two and a half hours that day and we never got to see the captain. All of us promised each other that we would never eat at that restaurant again. Wouldn’t we all rather have dinner with Marwan on the sixth floor?

Due to the extremely painful delay, we were given a later bed check, a check conducted by our two Harker teacher chaperones to ensure that everyone was safely in their rooms. But as the later hours started to progress, we started to see more and more intoxicated passengers pass through the hallways. It wasn’t long before we realized how much alcohol was actually served on this ship.

Just when we thought we would be able to get off the ship, we were wrong yet again. The ice conditions in Greenland were so severe that it was made clear that any visit to Greenland would just be simply impossible. So the expedition leaders and the captain decided that it would just be better to go straight to Iceland and see if there was a possible landing at Grimsey, an island located on the edge of the Arctic circle.

We couldn’t be happier to hear that we might possibly get the chance to get off the ship. We were prepared well in advance of our landing time. The minute we got onto the zodiacs the fresh air took us back. Putting our feet onto the ground for the first time in four days was such a relieving feeling. Our feet finally got the sense of stability, a sense that there was actually ground supporting us beneath our feet.

After getting over the fact that we were on ground, we were absolutely taken a back by the pure lusciousness of the green grass ahead of us. All that was seen ahead of us was green for miles and miles, which was shocking for such a frigid environment. We followed this yellow rectangular sign that read “Arctic circle Heimskautsbaugur,” to none other than the Arctic circle.

Reading that sign in the cool breeze that we had been lacking for the past couple of days was an unreal moment. Cruising the Arctic is a surreal experience in itself, but to actually have that experience solidified with something as tangible as reading a sign that implies that the Arctic Circle is just a couple of meters ahead is a crazy feeling to say the least.

And there it was – a large pole in the middle of a circular stone that had directions to major cities across the world like New York and Tokyo.

We all stood by it, took pictures, and simply took in the fact that we were standing on top of the world.

As we continued walking through the island, we were met with huge cliffs that overlooked clear bluish grey waters. They looked as if they had been taken out of the most perfect of perfect movie scenes or laptop wallpapers. It was a sight that really could not be captured with a camera. It was a once in a lifetime view that I surely know will never be replicated.

To add to the perfect landscape were thousands and thousands of puffins, birds that look like the cutest fake bird stuffed animal for a little toddler. And just when we thought the scenery could not get any better, we took a long walk around the island where we were met with dozens of sheep and horses which perfectly complimented the beautiful green landscape and cool breeze ahead of us.

Our stay at Grimsey was way too short because before we knew it we were back on the ship in the middle of the deep blue ocean heading our way to Iceland.

While having breakfast, we noticed that there was extremely dense fog outside the ship. And that is never good news. Fog is never safe for landings because the expedition staff won’t be able to see if there are polar bears in the vicinity. So our expedition leader was left with no choice other than too cancel this morning’s landing.

So without Wi-Fi, we found different ways to make ourselves at home. We battled it out through card games, made weird Mii characters on the Wii (the actual Wii wasn’t working), played the piano, and tried to play mind games on each other.

But soon enough, we made it around in the afternoon to a nearby fjord known as Whalenbergforjeden which again had the perfect scenery to help with everyone’s scientific research.

And to no surprise, we saw the Le Boreal crew bring tables out to the shore where they would set up dozens of glasses of champagne for the elderly passengers to enjoy as they explored the Arctic terrain.

Champagne on an Arctic fjord? I can confidently say that everyone had different opinions of that.

However, while all the passengers enjoyed their treats, we filled each other in on a rather interesting and highly entangled gossip story about some of the passengers on the boat. Trust me, that was our treat even though everything we discussed could have very well not been true at all.

But soon we were back on the ship for another expedition recap before dinner.

But during dinner, another ring on the intercom came on. It was a papa bear.

Everyone rushed out again, and somewhere in between I fell down the stairs, twisted, and rolled my ankle. And although I was left holding my ankle in the pain on the bottom of the stairs in an extremely painful position, it was an incredibly powerful moment for all of us on the team.

Some people went to get pictures and others helped me wobble back into my room, but after we all just spent hours in my room playing games, talking, and laughing with each other. It brought us closer together than we could have ever imagined.