Blogs from Norrbotten County, Sweden, Europe - page 8

I am sitting in the library of Lulea Tekniska Universitet, where Kai takes engineering classes. The town of Lulea is in Northern Sweden, only a two hour drive from the Arctic Circle. It looks just like Northern Minnesota with an array of coniferous trees, birch, and lakes. I had a week off from classes so I came up here to spend time with Kai. On Sunday, I reserved three trains from Vaxjo to Lulea (totaling 20 hours of travel). On the second train bound for Stockholm, there was some delay and we waited at a stop outside the city for an extra hour. I asked around to figure out what was going on since the speaker on the intercom was addressing the passengers in Swedish. One guy was trying to catch the same train out of ... read more

Greetings again! I recently took a trip to Stockholm for the weekend. I arrived around 9pm Thursday the 11th and met Emily and our friend Cassy a pub close to our hostel. We took the subway to a couple of pubs around town to get a feel of what Stockholm had to offer for our sightseeing weekend. I purchased a subway pass that allowed me 8 rides for about $27 (each ride was good for one hour of transport). Not cheap, but nothing is in Stockholm. It is more expensive than Luleå. Stockholm is a fantastic city...much larger than I had anticipated. The hostel we stayed in for the first night slept 12 people in bunk beds. I woke up in the middle of the night because of a voice that seemed very close to me. ... read more

Today is midsummers' eve, the brightest day of the year. The sun just does not want to set up here in the north this time of the year.... read more

This morning right after breakfast I took Enrico walking up on Skirvo, a small mountain near my parents' house. It's not a very high mountain, only about 500 meters above sea level, but you get a fabulous view from the edge of the cliff at the top. We walked and climbed up the south-east side of the mountain through old forest, across the top and down the steep west side. It's quite hard work and we kept a high tempo in order to leave some of the mosquitoes behind. But it's worth the sweating and tripping over loose rocks, the view is beautiful! Later in the evening after having had mum's elk meat casserole, we went fishing on the lake. A storm cloud was just heading our way and the wind picked up a lot, so ... read more

At 6.16 am on Sunday morning we arrived at Älvsbyn train station after 13 hours on the train. I rather like train journeys and managed to sleep fairly well (my tip: always bring a pillow on a long train ride!) but I'm not too sure about Enrico. Anyway, we sat next to a very nice girl from Massachusetts, US, who was travelling on her own. I don't think she had spoken to anybody in a while, because she spoke constantly without pausing or breathing from 5 pm to midnight. That's when I picked up my book and started reading. It was very interesting to hear about her travels through the Middle East and Europe - but enough is enough! We spent yesterday doing nothing at all. My mum looked after us and cooked for us. She ... read more