Aurora borealis

After a busy week of class and readings, and a really interesting Thanksgiving dinner at a cafe in town owned by a New Yorker, 20 of us exchange hooligans got on the train to Boden at Uppsala Centralstation. The first leg of the trip was on a sleeping train, which I've never been on before (and don't necessarily want to be on again...) the trip lasted from about 6:30pm to 7:30am, 870km. We had several 6-person compartments which we crammed with winter jackets, boots, and food. We had to wake up early to switch trains in Boden, and got on a regular train headed to Abisko and beyond. After about 4 hours, half of our group got off in Kiruna and headed to their hostels/tours. Another 100km/1 hour later, the ten of us got off at Abisko Östra, the tiniest train station I have ever seen. It seemed that the old station was under construction, so what was left was one of those temporary metal construction boxes with some benches inside and a laminated piece of paper on the outside that said "ABISKO OSTRA". We knew Abisko was small, but we had no idea that the hostel was quite literally several steps from the train 'station'.

We didn't have a happy first impression of the place. We go through the front door to a very strong unpleasant smell, are told that our rooms are still occupied so we should go find the grocery store and come back later, that their new sauna isn't ready yet, that there are only a few litres of hot water, and that there is no possibility for dogsledding the next day.

So, we left to walk around Abisko (population: 85). There were only three or so inches of snow, and luckily it wasn't icy, so we used up the remaining hour of sunlight to take some pictures of the 'village' (as our northern lights tour guide called it). We found the one supermarket, the school, a couple of houses, and lots and lots of shrubby little trees. Abisko only gets 300mm of rain per year, meaning it's classified as arctic desert, contrasting to the area all around it, which gets in the thousands of mm's, and has an average temperature at least 10 C colder. For example, it didn't get much colder than -10 C while we were in Abisko, but the girls in Kiruna saw -20 C on their thermometer in the middle of the night.

Around 9pm we suited up for our nothern lights tour. Some girls borrowed one-piece snowsuits from the hostel, which they all LOVED and wanted to buy one for themselves afterward. We all got headlamps and followed our guide up the mountain to a viewing spot. It was a lot of waiting and worrying, because it was fairly cloudy, and of course not everyone gets to see the northern lights when on the tour. 10:30pm is supposed to be "magnetic midnight" when the bulk of the activity happens. By 11pm when we were supposed to go back down, we were jumping around trying to stay warm and trying not to feel too disappointed that we hadn't seen anything. JUST as we were about to head down, we saw a greenish cloud. Within a couple of seconds, loads of clouds lit up, and the clear patches in the sky were suddenly filled with greenish floaty stripes, in funnel shapes and bands. The best one looked like a glowing tree standing on top of a nearby hill. It was magical.

It only lasted a few minutes. My camera couldn't see anything, but one of the girls brought a tripod :) I stole a couple of her pictures. We were SO happy after that.

Since the days are so short at 68.3 N, we woke up the next day and set out straightaway towards Abisko National Park. It was Sweden's first national park, partly inspired by Yellowstone, established in 1909. I WILL go back there in summer, it's supposed to be absolutely incredible. It was incredible in the winter as well. We hiked the path called Kungsleden, which seems to be the most popular path (about 10km) past the lake, along the river, past the mountains. We started at about 9am, when the sun was 'rising' (we never saw the sun all day!! it was too low in the sky), and by 1pm when we started to head back, it was already getting dark. My camera was dying all day, but luckily each time I turned it on, it seemed to have enough battery for one more picture, and then shut itself off. Then I turned it on again, snapped a quick picture, and it died again... this continued for several hours. Hah.

Back at the hostel we met another group of exchange students from Uppsala, some of whom me and Annika had met at the Hostbal at Snerikes!! It was quite funny. The hostel only had a capacity for about 35 people, and we were 21 from Uppsala.

After a solid 28 hours in Abisko, we got back on the train home, arriving to 2cm of frozen snow in Uppsala. Without the dogsledding, our trip only cost about 1200 kr ($175 for 34 hrs on trains, tour, bed). Money definitely well-spent.

I made a super-cool 7 minute Youtube video of some of my pictures, a few from others, and a couple videos I took as well. 

If you don't have 7 minutes, or want to see ALL *my* photos, here is the link to my photos from the trip...