Wow, what a long exciting journey! Chad and I are on our luxury train ride back home to Gothenburg (compared to other train rides). We have about 3 hours left on the train, so we thought we would give you an update of our trip!

On Thursday evening (03-20) at 6PM, we headed off to the Gothenburg central train station which is just down the road from our apartment. We had to get ourselves prepared for a long trip. Waiting for us was an 11 hour train ride in a cabin with 4 other Suedes, then a 12 hour bus ride, then finally another 1 and half hour bus ride ending in Kiruna. Sweden is a very long country, so this trip was like traveling from Greensboro, NC to Dallas, TX. We took a limited amount of luggage, but still wish we could have consolidated a bit more. We had to take a backpack full of food; we had 6 diet cokes, 5 sandwiches, plus a few other junk food items. We hoped that it would be enough to get us there without having to buy expensive food on the train and during the bus stops.

During the trip up, we mainly spent our time sleeping, reading books and looking at the country side. Most of the homes typically in Sweden are red wooden small homes, however some are yellow. The further north we went, the more snow we saw on the ground. One of the 4 suedes on the train was very social and actually offered both of us a beer.

On Friday night, we arrived at our destination in Kiruna at 8:30PM. To our surprise, we only had to walk 5 minutes to the Scandic hotel where we were staying. The hotel itself was very nice and I think it was the largest hotel in town. See a picture of the hotel below. It offered a free full breakfast and the restaurant/bar was the local’s favorite, so it was quite busy. After checking in, I was able to talk Chad into going to the bar for a drink before bedtime. The bar was small with live music and overall the perfect “bar” atmosphere. I can understand why it is so popular.

We had a pretty relaxed Saturday morning. Our bus ride to the Ice Hotel wasn’t until 10AM, so we slept in and then had a big breakfast! I don’t think I have eaten so much food for breakfast before. They had everything you could ever want (except biscuits and gravy): scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, cereal, waffles, oat meal, your typical cold sandwiches for the Europeans, and the list goes on… It turns out the bus ride to the Ice Hotel was free! I guess the driver was being generous on Easter weekend. So, the money we would have spent on the bus ride was now going to be spent on at the Ice Hotel! 🙂

I was told by many people, that if you ever got the chance to make the long trip to the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi which is 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, it would be well worth it. During the 30 minute bus ride there from Kiruna, I hoped that I (we) would not be disappointed.

Well, the other folks were right! It was truly amazing. Every year in November, the artists and workers start building the Ice Hotel. Most of the rooms are complete at the end of December. Each year the hotel gets bigger and bigger. This year is the 18th season and it contained 60 rooms.

There were about 20-30 artistic rooms, where different artists from all over the world applied for the chance to design an Ice Room. Many apply for the opportunity, but only a few get their design approved. It is a shame that these amazing pieces of work will melt in mid-April. Every year, the Ice Hotel is rebuilt in a different form. In the beginning, people thought that this was a crazy tradition, but you know what, they have a totally different opinion now. There is a lot of money being made now and there is nothing else like it in the world!!! What an incredible place to see…

After viewing a few of the rooms, we took a guided tour where we learned a lot about how the hotel is made each year. Below you will see some excellent pictures by Chad. The last one is my favorite of the room with all the ice circles!

The hotel also has an Ice Church which is mainly used for weddings and baptisms. There are approximately 150 weddings each year from couples all of over the world who want to get married in a unique place. The baptisms are mainly performed for the local families in the area. It’s kind of funny because we went from visiting the Ice Church to the Ice Bar.

The Bar is the main hangout for those visiting. Drinks are served in a real ice glass! They make a million ice glasses per year! In order for liquids not to freeze in the ice glass, mixed drinks with vodka are only served. Of course we wanted to buy a drink to take in the whole experience! There are actually 4 other Ice Bars in Europe, one in Stockholm, Copenhagen, London, and Tokyo. All the ice for each bar though comes from the original Ice Hotel here in Jukkasjarvi!

Our bus back to Kiruna was at 2:40PM, so we had some time to waste before our dog sled evening adventure which Chad will describe next…

Rhonda  (PS: Check out Chad below at the bus stop looking not too excited… 🙂

That afternoon we had an early dinner at the restaurant/bar downstairs. I had sautéed Reindeer which is fairly common. Overall good, but it needs more spice/flavor.

At 6 pm, our guide Dyson (I’m not sure how to spell his name) showed up at the motel to pick us up. He was wearing a coat made from reindeer. He had very long gray hair and a beard. To Rhonda, he looked like an Arkansas mountain man. We cruised around town and picked up 5 more people and headed to Jukkasjärvi to get geared up with very warm clothes.

Upon arrival at the sled dog area we were given some warm boots, hat, mittens, and a suit to wear. Lots of layers worked great. I decided to take my tripod and camera and it turned out I could not use them due to the extreme cold and the fact it was so dark. Anyway, myself, Rhonda and another person got on one sled and the rest on another. Each sled held up to 6 people. The first thing I noticed was the dogs were very small. After asking, I learned the smaller dogs with good coats and not to much hound blood, do the best. Large dogs use more energy trying to stay warm. We had 12 dogs pulling us.

We went for about 6 kilometers and met up with the other sled at a cabin in the woods for tea, coffee, and sandwiches. We sat around a table bundled up for about a half hour and enjoyed all they had to offer. They talked about sled dog racing and the business they had built up over the years. Dyson informed us it was about -25C and it was going to get colder. He made sure the front of the sled people were covering their face properly otherwise they would suffer frostbite with the breeze.

Along the way I did manage a few snapshots. However, the camera started freezing up. Another passenger, Lou, had his camera completely ice over trying to photograph while riding. This kind of activity is not good for camera equipment.

On the way back a full moon started to rise. It looked orange and hung large over the horizon. All you could hear were the dogs, a few commands from the musher, and the sled riding over the snow. It was a great time.

(One note here. For some reason my left toes froze on the sled ride back. I was riding fine one minute and the next minute I couldn’t feel my toes. I believe I stopped the circulation in my leg for a short while. My toes quickly cooled with no blood circulating. Once I realized my toes were froze, I quickly made some adjustments. It took me a while to get them thawed out!)

The next day we went largest wooden building in Sweden, the Church in Kiruna. It was an amazing building and was very large. You can see the bell tower on the right hand side. Everyone walks to Church as only about 20 cars can park anywhere near it.

Later that day we started on our way back home after getting lunch.

We went to the Kiruna train station to meet our train at 2:10 pm. Just before 2:10 there was a Swedish announcement that a train derailed and it would be 1 hour before our train arrived. Rhonda scrambled to get the announcement translated. Within the next 2 hours they had the train running and picking us up. We also learned they held up all other connecting trains along the way. This was excellent since we originally had only 16 minutes to catch our connecting train. Below is a picture of the Kiruna train station.

We made it to our connecting train and road it for the next 20 hours. The ride was good, but very long. You can see Rhonda below in our room. The second bed is right above her head.

Overall the trip was excellent. I need to learn how to speak and read Swedish. Life is definitely more interesting when you can not understand what the announcements are saying. We relied on very friendly Swedish people translating everything for us.

Chad

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