So yeah. There is this conference on Norwegian-Russian relations in the Arctic that is being held on Svalbard next week. When I first heard about it I thought it would be cool to attend, but I forgot to ask my thesis supervisor/professor if there was any opportunity for me to go. (He is the leader of the project that is arranging this conference, and my thesis is also attached to the same research project.) Enter the summer vacation; by the time I came back to the university, I had completely forgot about it.. until I happened to read about it this week. I sent an email to my professor, and he told me that, unfortunately, they couldn’t afford to invite me, but if somebody couldn’t come I might get their ticket. I thought that this was it, and was resigned to reading summaries about the different lectures and discussions when they came back home again.
This Friday I got the good news. I’ve never been to Svalbard before, so it’s certainly going to be an exciting experience. We even get to go to Pyramiden, a Russian ghost town not that far from Longyearbyen, where the conference is being held. That’s going to be an interesting trip, especially since I love urban decay and “contemporary” archeology. It might also provide some inspiration for something I am working on. I might post more about that later.
