{"id":780,"date":"2011-01-19T07:02:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T07:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=780"},"modified":"2014-08-22T14:31:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T14:31:53","slug":"svalbard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/svalbard\/","title":{"rendered":"Svalbard"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

I briefly thought about spending 3 months in Svalbard. \u00a0If you are aware of the archipelago half way between mainland Norway and the North Pole, you are likely wondering why I would think about living there? \u00a0Svalbard is a group of islands where polar bears roam, where the global seed vault is located, and over half of the archipelago is glacier. \u00a0Svalbard lies between 74 and 81 degrees north, bulging into the Arctic Circle. \u00a0Despite its extreme northerly location, the islands are not as cold as other areas of the world that are further south. \u00a0The other 40 % of the archipelago that isn\u00b4t glacier is covered with beautiful mountains and fjords. \u00a0You may think that was a reason to want to live there. \u00a0Wrong again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I was explaining to a friend that I had to go home because my work visa was denied, she said `Hvorfor ikke dra til Svalbard?\u00b4 \u00b4Why not go to Svalbard?\u00b4 \u00a0The letter I received from the Immigration Office stated that if I wanted to come back to Norway, I would have to remain outside of the entire Schengen area (which is most of Europe) for at least 3 months. \u00a0However, Svalbard is a \u00b4freezone\u00b4 of sorts. \u00a0Anyone can live and work there without a visa. \u00a0It goes back to the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 which limited the Norwegian governments ability to collect taxes to that of financing services on Svalbard. \u00a0I guess the government doesn\u00b4t care as much about who is there and who is working or not if the government can\u00b4t collect taxes. \u00a0That<\/span> is why I pondered moving to Svalbard for a short while. \u00a0If I had a friend to go with me besides my dog, I would have thought more seriously about it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I actually became good friends with a Norwegian-Canadian who lived on Svalbard for about 3 months. \u00a0And not for any political reason, but just because he wanted to. \u00a0He was by himself and wanted an adventure to start a series of traveling adventures. \u00a0My friend said that it was an excellent, quirky little place. \u00a0It got a bit lonely at times, not only because he was by himself, but because they are so isolated up there. \u00a0He did make a number of friends and found interesting things to keep him busy. \u00a0Then he moved to Troms\u00f8, which is where I met him.<\/p>\n

If you were in my shoes a few months ago, would you have gone to Svalbard?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

I briefly thought about spending 3 months in Svalbard. \u00a0If you are aware of the archipelago half way between mainland Norway and the North Pole, you are likely wondering why I would think about living there? \u00a0Svalbard is a group of islands where polar bears roam, where the global seed vault is located, and…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13377,13376],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-spitsbergen","tag-svalbard"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1797,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions\/1797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}