My journey of a thousand miles (or at least it seemed like it) started in Glemminge with a single step onto the landing. Then I went back in because I forgot my boots. And then it could begin på riktigt, for real. From there it was on to Ystad station, and from there I took the Pågatåg to Malmö. I was a little early and there was no one around. Though I did watch an unconcious man being carried out by station security along with two distressed looking women. I went and grabbed a bite to eat at the Burger King. When I got back there was a gigantic crowd cueing to get on the train to Stockholm, and what's more, there was another crowd getting off the train from Copenhagen.
So there I stood like a Japanese commuter for a while. Finally I got on the train and it was a few hours to Stockholm central. While I was waiting, a beggar came along and told me his troubles. "No work for two months", that kind of thing. I told him I didn't have any money. Then I was feeling a little hungry so I bought a smoothie. After that I caught the night-train to Östersund.
From Östersund it was an age or two on the bus. It was at this point that all the traveling started to get to me. I hadn't eaten in a while, hadn't showered. Neither had I gotten any kind of decent sleep. So this part of the story is not that interesting. There was, however, a lot of beautiful scenery along the way. A sight for sore eyes you could say.
Aaaand finally, finally, late Sunday night, I arrived at Kiruna station. Tired and smelling of low tide. All in all it was a 29 hour trip.
I was picked up by a man named Ulf who drove me to the hotel. I hadn't eaten in a half day so warmed up a taco pizza I found in the Vandrarhem, Youth Hostel downstairs. I soon discovered that suffering is a dish worst served slowly... it was an extremely spicy pizza. Rotary was able to book me a nice room last minute so I slept well on a double bed. Aaaaah Gud vad skönt, how nice...
- - Monday - -
The next morning I met up with Ulf again and he took me to the station to pick up the rest of the arrivals. We were divided into two groups and taken around on a tour of the city. Our group was just about every girl and Nick and myself. Not that I'm complaining, I'm a big fan of women in general. They showed us the town hall which looks like a cinderblock from the outside, but is beautiful on the inside. There were lots of pieces of Sami art. The architecture was really beautiful as well. We also visited a church with Sami inspired architecture. At the hotel and got our rooms sorted out. I had to abandon my beautiful suite for a bunk bed. Sigh...
Ulf took us to the school, where we were all given a presentation by the tourism program. They introduced themselves and welcomed us in five different languages although nearly all of us were English speaking, either from the US or Australian. There were a few from New Zealand and Brazil as well as one from Mexico and one from Argentina. We were given a slideshow of Kiruna that showed the nature, the mine, the Sami people and reindeer. That was followed by a pizza lunch. Swedish pizza is different than American pizza. I can’t really explain the subtle differences but I think that Swedish pizza is better.
After lunch we boarded a bus to Jukkasjärvi, the famous ice hotel. They gave us a presentation about the hotel about how they harvest the ice and build the rooms. Sometimes the hotel isn’t big enough so they just add a couples rooms to it. The nice thing about a hotel made of ice is that you don’t have to live with your mistakes for longer than a year. They also make ice plates and ice glasses and have an ice bar which is sponsored by absolut vodka.
We went in the room where they have all the giant ice blocks from which they make all of their ice furniture and everything. The interesting thing about the ice hotel are the exhibits. All the fancy suites have their own individual sculptures and themes. Every year they hire new artists from all over the world to create the pieces that decorate the rooms. One was an eagle’s nest with giant carved claws and ice eggs and one was a cutlery drawer with long iced forks and spoons in it. There were lots of cool designs.
However, true to style, I left my camera in my room at the hotel and therefore have not even a singular picture to show for trip there. All of these are from Brandons camera. We had free time for the rest of the day. Some of us went sledding, but I stayed behind with some others and played an epic game of Apples to Apples.
- - Tuesday - -
The next day I made my way down to the school from the hotel and had a Swedish breakfast of open face sandwiches and yogurt covered cereal. Then it was onto the bus and far away to Narvik in Norway. There is something of a special relationship between the cities of Narvik and Kiruna. Iron is mined in Kiruna and then sent to Narvik to be shipped out to the rest of the world. Along the way we stopped at two ski resorts and saw some beautiful mountain slopes.
When we arrived in Narvik we ate lunch on a cliff that overlooks a beautiful fjord. According to the local guides, there was a huge naval battle in the fjord during World War II. Then they let us loose into the city. We started at a multistory mall complex where we wandered for a while. There was a rather massive shoe which we had some fun with. From there we continued our wandering through the city. There were some interesting statues, a mine, and tank and a massive mirrored triangular monument. It was definitely more interesting than St. Johns at the very least.
I think that perhaps the most interesting part of the Narvik trip was the bus ride. People quickly divided into three cliques. The Swedes in the tourism program who sat in front, the girls in the back of the bus (and me) and a group of people underneath us in a little room in the bus. What’s more interesting is that they each came up with their own nickname. The people sitting near me dubbed themselves “Aussicans”, (Austrailians + Americans) and the people below called themselves “Australasians” for no discernable reason as it was Australian and New Zealanders and Americans and not even one person from Asia.
The Swedes did not participate in this racial re-identification, but they did try to give us the occasional speech about the local area. They told us about the Sami people, permafrost, ice fishing, etc. However, the Aussicans were rather more preoccupied with what they considered to be more interesting conversational material like the lyrics to Rude Boy and how great Glee is.
That night we were treated to what I understood to be a traditional Northern Swedish dinner. It was rengryta (reindeer stew), potatismos (mashed potatoes), lingon (lingonberry jam) and bröd (bread). The Australians tried to get everyone to try Marmite, which I found to be quite good actually. The Swedes were less enthusiastic, I heard comparisons to mud and fungus.
While we ate, two girls in the Estet (Art, Music type thing) program gave a truly excellent performance. Then after we had eaten they brought on a Sami singer who “jojked” a “jojk” for us. It’s a traditional Sami art form, kind of like singing and chanting combined. It’s kind of a guttural sound. The intent is to express your feelings, as it is with regular singing I suppose… The guy who jojked was pretty funny and he jojked and sang for a while. Then we exchange students went up in groups and sang something from our home country. We sang Star Spangled Banner, the Australians sang their national anthem, the Mexican girl sang La Cucaracha and the New Zealanders did the “Hukka”. Or “Hakka”. I’m not really sure, New Zealand accents aren’t the easiest to understand. I guess it’s some kind of Maori war chant adapted by New Zealander sports fans.
After that we took some photos of all of us together, exchange students and Swedes. And that was Tuesday.
- - Wednesday - -
The next day began as the first two had with breakfast at the school. Someone had dragged out a ping pong table so a couple of us played for a while. I did ok, but Dave from Australia had a crazy serve that was almost impossible to return. Some time earlier (it may have been the day before, I’m not really sure) we had an epic game of ring toss. We played three at a time while one person served as the ring-getter/traffic guard for people who wanted to get to the room adjacent. We decided that if you threw the ring in an interesting and difficult way then you would get double points. Incredibly, I was able to hit the middle pole with a backwards throw thus giving me 100 points and winning the game.
After ping-pong, we were then divided into two groups. One group went out to go on the ice and our group stayed behind to speak with the English classes about our culture and going on exchange. There were four of us (two Americans and two Australians) who talked for about an hour or so, explaining everything from sports to English slang. The class seemed pretty shy and we only got a few questions. However, the second we left the classroom, they got very loud and talkative.
When we all had finished with our class visits, everyone ate lunch together.
Then the groups switched places and we went out to a little resort-type area where we donned badly fitting snowsuits got ready to go snowmobiling. We got into these sledges that were attached to the snowmobiles and went on a bumpy, tooth jarring ride to the frozen lake. At the lake there were a couple of challenges set up. Once again we were divided into groups and each given a different task to do. It was explained that we would all compete to see which group was the best.
We named ourselves “Super Svenska Apa Mariner”, which means super Swedish monkey sailors or something. We started off with fire making. Fortunately, Christoffer is a boy scout so we got it going fairly quickly. After that we drilled an ice fishing hole in the ice, ran through various obstacles with drunk-o-vision goggles and did cooperative skiing. The last one was just two two-by-fours with four sets of shoelaces attached to it which we had to take around a set of cones.
We were convinced that we were the fastest for all the challenges but as it turned out, we didn’t even make third place. I think Team Massively Stimulating, composed mainly of Aussicans, came in first in the end. Afterwards we sat around a fire and ate hotdogs. Before we went back, they gave us a chance to go out on the snowmobiles. It was the first time I’ve ever driven one, it was really fast!
It was tacos for dinner later that night. Swedes tend to eat tacos with a knife and fork, which worked better actually, given that I’d loaded so much onto my tortilla. The last thing we did that day was a scavenger hunt around the school. I was not very enthusiastic about it, but I went around with my group and looked for the clues that they’d hidden. After that, it was just free time. Chad tried to get a game of Ghost in the Graveyard going, but it didn’t work out so well. Then they played Hide and Go Seek, or something similar. Ian stayed in hiding for nearly twenty minutes. I just played ping pong the whole time.
- - Thursday - -
The next day was a day for goodbyes. I was scheduled to go
home around one o’ clock on the plane along with three others. The rest were going home later on the train. I went from Kiruna airport to Arlanda in Stockholm. I slept for most of the trip, ate some awful Chinese noodles from the airport 7-11 and slept some more. Then from Arlanda to Ängelholm in Helsingborg, then a taxi to Malmö and the Pågatåg home to Ystad where Lena picked me up and took me home. I slept for a very long time after that and stayed home from school on Friday.
Now I have seen Sweden top to bottom, or perhaps bottom to top would be more accurate. Sweden is a long country; you could compare it to the distance from the southernmost point of Texas to the Canadian border in the north. I met lots of new people, from all over the world living all over Sweden.
I experienced a lot of new things, reindeer on the side of the road, reindeer in a stew, Norway, snowmobiling, Sami traditions, and seen the wild beauty of the north with its mountains, forests and fjords. It was an incredible journey, helt och hållet.
Authors Note: This blog post is definately one of the longest ones I've ever written, so that is why it is so late. Apologies.
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