The artic circle

Hej hej to all my faithful readers back in Aus (eliza that may just be you at this stage???) I hope you are all enjoying the sun and the holidays that come with it.
So last week Tegan (friend from school and college for those who dont know her) came up to Sweden as part of her month long european adventure. I thought that this was good cause to leave Lund and actually go somewhere else in Sweden for pretty much the first time since being here. So where better to go that inside the arctic circle to Swedens northernmost town Kiruna.

Kiruna is actually a really interesting place. The whole city's population is in someway related to the LKAB iron ore mine that dominates the town. The first thing you see as you enter is this huge basically man made mountain where they dump all the shit that comes out of the mine. There was recently a decision made to move the whole town a few miles away so that the area under the town can be minned. It seems that everyone in Kiruna are more than happy to move, which i guess is more than reasonable given that unlike the rest of Europe the city is only 100 years old and without moving the town it would essentially die anyway due to the fact that nearly everyone works for a mine related job.


The Kiruna LKAB mine experience. This was a nice break from the cold. Underground it was 8 degrees, better than the -20 above ground!












So anyway Kiruna being in the artic circle was cold.....damn cold! Poor tegan coming from a summer of 35 degrees was like a walking michellen man in her 6 layers that included a very sexy pair of leg warmers. We went to ice hotel.....it is crazy, see the photos. We also went on a train ride to Abisko National Park, and went down 500m into the mine, and saw the northern lights and perfectly geometrically shaped snow flakes! Definately a unique experience and worth putting up with the coldness and rudeness of our hostels manager Klaus......he did his best to live up to all the stereotypes that southern swedes have about the people from up north! Oh and we also ate raindeer kebab! DElicious!!!




A bed room in the ice hotel, they were all indivisually designed













The ice bar in the ice hotel, where you could drink absolut vodka out of ice cups.......for a mere $20AUD a shot.








What the??

















Itchy Mooooooose and a very satisfied tegan!














The one thing we didn't experience in Kiruna that we wanted was the sighting of moose or elk or whatever you want to call them. So on our day in Stockholm we went to Skansen park and managed to avoid taking in any of the many cultural activities and old buildings that the park contained and devoted our day to the viewing of Scandenavian animals! They were cute.....and we found and even got to pat our itchy moose. He did only have one horn, but was 100% moose none the less.



The otta was cute too! he is alive also.











So now I'm back in Lund about to say bye to my last australian friend from last semester. It is sad but at least we all will meet up again in the not to distant future:)