Advertisement
Published: March 5th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Mannequins!
Creeps outside of a shop! Hej alla igen!
It has definitely been awhile since i've last written. I apologize! Our group is now long gone from northern Sweden and Jokkmokk. We have moved quite a long distance south to a town of around 12,000 people, Mora (kinda like our Mora in Minnesota). But, before I get into MORE about Mora 😊, let's talk about the Winter Market in Jokkmokk. The Winter Market today is based off of an even that has been happening between Sami for about 400 years. People from all over the north would come to get together and trade goods, mostly. Now it serves a similar purpose but is quite different as well. Many, many, many people from all over, come for the market. You can buy a lot of the same things you could back when the market first started, like furs, jewelry, knives, meat and these awesome reindeer fur boots with the curled toes! But now along with all of the Sami goodies there is a lot of crap there as well. Just like any fair in the U.S. they've got all the shirts with "witty" sayings on them and cheap plastic toys, as well as the framed pictures of all
your favorite rappers. I tried to stay away from those types of things and got instead a traditional Sami bracelet made with leather and pewter thread, a hat with all shades of blue, a CD with my favorite yoiker (the traditional Sami style of singing is called yoiking!), and a few gifts. Jokkmokk is pretty quiet, so it was amazing to see the town transform into a huge market, with vendors and people crowding the streets. It was fun to practice my Swedish, asking different vendors about the things they were selling. There were a lot of cultural events happening during the week, such a folk dancing lessons (TOTALLY a blast), films and activities at the Sami museum and special dining experiences as well. My favorite food in Jokkmokk has got to be reindeer. At the Sami school, they have a food program and so almost everyday during the week they put on lunch. The popular item was renskav med mos (reindeer and mashed potatoes). Mmmm! It was served with a gravy and lingon berry sauce on the side! Another thing that will stick out in my mind was the reindeer races. It consisted of unruly reindeer, making one lap
around the track dragging their uneasy passenger behind them. Two reindeer would go at a time and when they came to the end of the track they kind of just kept on running, usually tossing their driver off the sled in the back. Sooo great and so much fun! After things died down a bit, we had one more week in Jokkmokk. I found out that there was girls basketball team in town, so I decided to check it out. The girls were high school aged and haven't had so much exposure to basketball so it was interesting to see how they played the game. I was super nervous, going to the gym by myself, but I met another American, Bethany from South Dakota, who practices with them as well. She made my feel like less of a dork about coming to practice and helped me understand what was going on in practice! She is teaching English at the middle school in Jokkmokk and has been there since the fall (?). Holla girl!!! During that time we made an unscheduled road trip, even FURTHER north, didn't even think that was possible. First we spent the night in Pajala, which is
Daaaam!
This dam was painted with Sami art. on the border between Sweden and Finland. Because we were so close to Finland we bugged Roland to take us over the border. There was no border control so we crossed the river, and took pictures of us running around in Finland for like ten minutes. It had to be done! Then next day we went to Jukkasjarvi where the Ice Hotel is. It was amazing! The hotel itself has an ice bar, along with almost 70 rooms, I think. Thirty some of those rooms are the art suites, in which artists have created a themed room, complete with ice art. It's was like nothing I have ever seen before! The beds are padded with reindeer skins and are actually quite comfy. Yes, people actually sleep there over night! But, it's quite expensive and they make all the guests wear these huge, royal blue snowsuits all the time! So, if you don't mind being a little unfashionable and having an empty wallet, I suggest you check-in to the Ice Hotel! We also visited a mining city, Kiruna. It's the farthest north I have ever been and will probably never go farther. If anyone is interested, check it out on maps.google.com,
enter Kiruna, Sweden and then zoom out to see its relation to the U.S., pretty cool! After we got back from our trip we had to start thinking about wrapping things up in Jokkmokk. How weird! This leg of the trip has been so different that anything I have ever done before! It was a real bummer to leave Jokkmokk and I HATE saying goodbye to people so that was not fun! But now we're on to a new city with new people and places to explore.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 17; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0336s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb