Blogs from Norrbotten County, Sweden, Europe - page 5

So day 2 gets a bit better :) I had a plan and had reached out to other exchange studnets on facebook. As suspected the other exchange students were feeling like me! So several others were interested in joining Hannah and myself to do some shopping and finding out where things were. At this point I have met two roommates - Valentine and Adraline both from France. Adraline shared my concern for finding our way onto the university as it is a 30 min walk with quite a few turns. So we decided to try this walk together....better to get lost with company :). So we did miss one turn but not to bad for a first go! We met Hannah and 9 other studnets on campus for a bit of a tutorial. First things first ... read more

Kiruna, 02.07.2011. Kiruna die Bergwerkstadt, war bis vor nicht allzu langer Zeit, flächenmässig die grösste Gemeinde der Welt. Nun hat diesen Titel eine Gemeinde in Australien. Die Fläche von Kiruna entspricht in etwa der Hälfte Hollands. Kiruna ist die nördlichste Stadt Schwedens. In der Umgebung wird Eisenerz abgebaut. Damit die Vorkommen die sich unter der Stadt befinden abgebaut werden können, wird sie in den nächsten Jahren um 5 Kilometer nach Osten verlegt. Als wir am Freitag ankamen feierten sie in der Stadt gerade ein Fest das „Kirunafestivalen“. In den Strassen standen Jahrmarksbuden und Karusselle. Auf zwei Bühnen wurde musiziert. Am Tag gratis (Amateurbands) und am Abend gegen Eintrittsgebühr. In der Nacht - die hier ja ein Tag ist, flog die ganze Zeit ein Heli über der Stadt und dem Campingplatz. Wahrscheinlich veranstalteten sie Rundflüge. Zudem kamen ... read more

So here we are again, After we left Abisko national park we kept on driving as close to Lulea as possible. On our way down South we stopped in Kiruna about 100km from Abisko national park, an industrial town known for its iron ore. It has a very recognizable church completly built out of wood. We had a look in town and the senior year of secondary school were celebrating their graduation in a very peculiar way. Every class got his own truck with banners, they were drinking alcohol, shouting stuff, very amusing. We bought some postcards and returned to our car. Just outside Kiruna we found a sign towards the ice hotel that is built there every winter. We lost the sign but we found a very quiet place to sit and have some lunch ... read more

On the morning of the wedding I was woke up with a kiss from Nikki, Nikki and I are extremely competitive, to the extent we even make wishing each other happy anniversary a competition, I knew that as soon as I opened my eyes she was going to say something along the lines of “Today’s our wedding day” so I had to beat her to it. After the kiss and before I opened my eyes I said “Happy wedding day” I heard Nikki laugh at which point I opened my eyes and whispered “I said it first” followed by Nikki saying quite loudly “No that’s cheating”. Ah what a great way to start the day lol. We had to meet at the reception at 9am to go in to Kiruna to register our wedding and sort ... read more

This past weekend I went for a trip up north to a town called Kiruna which lies about 150Km inland from the Arctic Circle. It was an amazing trip to say the least and I'm totally glad I decided go. My friend Brian had called me earlier in the week letting me know a bunch of his friends/other exchange students were planning a trip and to book a train ticket if I was interested. It took me about a day to decide and I figured why not, I had been planning to go up there anyways at some point so I might as well do it while its primetime to go. The trip began on Thursday (January 27th) when I woke up and realized I had nothing packed, no cash, no groceries, and I only had ... read more