Aurora Hunting and Fjærkre

So, I have always wanted to see the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights (actually, for that matter, I've probably also wanted to see the Sourthern Lights-Aurora Australis, but am much less likely to see those).  So, I think I've gone out 4 or 5 times to try and spot them in the furthest place from city lights that I can reach by walking (since the T-bane system stops at midnight, and there are few night busses on weeknights)-Sognsvann.  So, let it be known that on November 12, 2012 (awww, cute number coordination) I may have "seen" the Northern Lights for the first time.  I say "seen" because someone else took a picture the same time that I was there, and it definitely shows the lights, although they must have been faint, since all I saw on the horizon was greenish haze.
This was fairly unimpressive, so I went out again on Wednesday night, since the Kp index (which predicts the strength of the aurora) was high.  Unfortunately, it was foggy/cloudy, so these are pictures of the northern horizon:

So, that might be Northern Lights!  The sky on the left side was also pretty reddish, which I couldn't get a good picture of, and it wasn't the sunset, because the sun sets at 4pm by this point.  Anyway, checking on my aurora-monitoring sites, I find out that Michigan (!) got really rare red auroras (http://spaceweather.com/).  Meanwhile, I'm stuck here where it is resolutely cloudy, when I know cool stuff is going on up in the atmosphere.   GAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Anyway, when the weather is clear you have to get outside and enjoy it-I'm beginning to appreciate the wonderful weather during the summer and the Norwegian compulsion to be outside as much as possible when it's nice.

So, here's the lake:

Fun fact: I finally took the time to translate some of the green signs along the trail.  Apparently, there used to be a croft farm by the lake, where in 1865 they kept a horse (en hest), four cows (fire kuer), two sheep (to faar), and poultry (fjærkre).  It was shut down due to water restrictions in about 1914: now only these foundations are left:

Basically, I listed off those animals so I could add fjærkre to this post title-I was looking through my posts, and I noticed that I had used every extra letter except "æ", which I thought needed fixing.  Now, I'm no expert at bird identification (as my ornithology professor can attest to-I tended to call anything small and brownish a sparrow), but I think this is a Common Goldeneye:

This should be a fun weekend: I plan on going to buy tickets to see The Hobbit on December 12th tomorrow-yes, you read that right, the movie comes out 2 days earlier than in the US!  Ha!
Also, this:

Lord of the Rings marathon-this was the original way that I first watched the films, and I've been told that this will be the extended versions-I'll let you all know how to shout "You shall not pass" and my personal favorite quote: "Until at last, I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountainside!"