Day Two

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.