Swedish Adventures: Days 13-15

Tuesday evening, we finally made it back from our epic road trip.  The rest of the trip was then spent around Stockholm and - to be honest - was somewhat less "thrilling".  But less thrilling was what all of us needed at that point.

Wednesday was our lay around the house and recover day.  Nothing exciting there.

On Thursday we headed out to a nearby island to visit the Vasa Museum (Huge warship which sunk in the 1600 but recovered in the 1960s and was miraculously well preserved), the ABBA Museum, and the zoo.

Friday was City Hall and the LDS Temple.  Sweden seems to take a great deal of pride in their city halls.  When researching places to see, basically every city recommends that you stop by and tour the city hall.  Stockholm's is especially incredible.  They hold the award banquet for the Nobel Prizes here and have a room entirely covered in a gold mosaic. We went to the temple in the afternoon.  I am truly grateful that temples cover the earth and provide members of the church with a place to serve, find peace, and seek guidance.

This trip has been incredible.  Part of me wants to stay forever, but another part is really excited to sleep in my own bed again soon.

Stockholm from the ferry which took us to the museums

The Vasa - a well preserved (previous) sunken ship

A full view of the "Gold Room" in City Hall

Closer view on one wall so you can see just how gold it was

(18 million gold-leaf tiles)

LDS Temple

Swedish Adventures: days 8-12

I haven't had much internet access the past few days.  After finally seeing the midnight sun- we went on a road trip through Norway! (Which I guess means the bulk of this part of the trip is not a Swedish adventure.)

On Day 8, we left Kiruna heading to Mo-I Rana, Norway.  However, we decided that we wanted to take the scenic route along the Lofoton Islands- enough of a scenic route that we wouldn't make it to Mo-i Rana until the next day. The Lofoton Islands are beautiful. In The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy, Slartibartfast claims that he won an award for having designed the coasts of Norway.  I probably would have given him and award too.

We drove along fjords, mountains, and narrow roads.  Several hours, 13 bridges, and 20 and 4 halves tunnels (half tunnel pictured below) we finally made it to Å, the town with the worlds shortest name (pronounced oh-uh...like uh-oh with the syllables flipped). Finally arriving around 1 am, we found a place to sleep for the night to resume our adventure the next day. 

We woke up early and jumped on a ferry to travel back to the mainland (4 hour ferry is faster than taking the scenic route back) and reached Bodø just in time for church.  After church, we headed off to Mo-I Rana.  However, we didn't actually get all the way to the city.  We stopped just outside at a nice little campsite at the base of a mountain. 

The next morning began with a short hike up the mountain and a tour of a cave. It was definitely one of the more interesting caves I have ever been in.  There was an underground waterfall for starters. Over seen several cave lakes and streams, but not a full fledge waterfall (pictures are on my camera- I'll post them when I get home. Additionally, the floor of the cave was nearly entirely covered in what felt like beach sand.  And the most interesting part was the granite boulder...in a cave in a mountain which contains no granite.  There is a lot of speculation, but no one is quite sure how a large granite boulder found it's way nearly half a kilometer into this cave. 

After our cave tour, the epic road trip finally turned back toward Sweden. The afternoon was all driving, but the last day of the trip was a little more exciting.  We stopped near Mora to view the Dala Horse factory. The Dala Horse is a common decoration among Swedish houses. They are hand carved and painted with bright colors and flowers. 

Our last stop was Mockfjard. We have ancestors from this little town, so we stopped in and looked around before finally heading home and falling asleep in our lovely beds. 

Waterfall as we came into Norway

Norway has a lot of troll statues...not sure why

Norwegian beach

This is a half-tunnel; we drove through 4 of these

half-tunnel from the outside

One of the less stable looking bridges we crossed

Sign with the shortest city name ever

Finally got a little sunlight the next day

Crossing back out of the arctic circle. More trolls

Cool monument marking the arctic circle

Dala Horses

Joshua on a giant dala horse

Talitha on a smaller mechanized dala horse

Swedish adventures: Midnight Sun

We saw it!!!! There it is- a picture of the sun at midnight.  The clouds rolled in an hour later and it's been raining for 3 hours now. But we saw it last night! I took a hundred or so pictures with my camera- so more will definitely be posted.

 

Swedish Adventures: days 5-7

Wow! I didn't realize I had been vacation for a whole week until I wrote out the title of this post. It has been an incredible week! 

Wednesday consisted entirely of driving through Sweden. Beautiful country. We started the day in Stockholm and ended in Kiruna, the north-most major city in Sweden.  We even crossed the largest suspension bridge in Sweden.

Our primary goal in Kiruna is to see the midnight sun. From late May to mid-July, the sun doesn't set in Kiruna. I'm obviously catching the tail-end of this event. We stayed up last night hoping to see the sun not-set, but the clouds refused to budge. We are making one last attempt tonight, praying that the sky might remain clear. Tonight is our last shot (it's supposed to rain all weekend) so I'm really hopin for clear skies.

Even without them, Kiruna has been fun to visit. We saw the Kiruna church, a beautiful traditional-style building built in the early 1900s.  We took a short trip out of Kiruna visit a Sami museum and learn about the native Sami people who live here and herd reindeer. I even had a chance to let a reindeer eat out of my hand.

After seeing the reindeer, we returned to Kiruna to enjoy a dinner of local cuisine: reindeer, moose, and wild boar.  The reindeer was probably the most tender "steak" I have ever had an opportunity to eat. We finished the meal off with ice cream and warm cloudberries- which have a texture much like raspberries, but tastes like peaches when cooked into peach cobbler. I am happy.

It is almost 10 pm locally. The sky is mostly clear...with a patch of clouds taunting me right by the sun.  Fortunately, the sun will move further north in the next two hours. This is one of the most interesting aspects of Kiruna. The sun appears to be an hour from setting just north of due west around 8 pm. It then moves almost horizontal for the next 4 hours, slowly dipping closer and closer to the horizon.  Though I didn't see the sun last night, the sky appeared much as a normal sunset would- then began to grow steadily brighter as the sun began a slow climb back up and south. Hopefully- I will get some good pictures tonight to show everyone. 

Suspension bridge

The van in which we are experiencing this epic road trip

The steeple of the Kiruna church.

Beer and Dreams

I don't drink alcohol, and as I result, I've never tried beer or wine or any other alcoholic beverage.  I've never had much of a desire to even try beer- in the few times I've been aroubd it, the smell has been enough to squash all curiosity...but Sweden has beer-flavored soda which I was informed "had to be tried as part of the Swedish cultural experience." I was satisfied to discover that it tastes much like it smells and I have even less desire now to ever try real beer.

The champagne-flavored soda, on the other hand, was incredible! Almost the taste of a Martinelli but with 12 times the carbonation. 

After being exposed to a little of the "Swedish experience", we headed off to bed.  I was exhausted at this point. My flight left at 5:30 Monday evening and arrived at noon on Tuesday; unfortunately, I had not slept much on the plane. So- my head hit the pillow around 9:30 and I was probably unconscious by 9:31.

In the past month or so- I actually haven't dreamt much.  My day was often emotionally taxing enough that my mind just shut down all together once I fell asleep.  Previously, when I did dream, I always knew they were dreams from their sheer absurdity- like traveling to the moon by being launched from a circus cannon or riding the Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disneyland in an inner tube. Today's dream started absurd, but after driving home in my English-style hover-car, I walked into my parents kitchen and helped my ex-fiancé and my mother make dinner.  It was so normal. There were dirty dishes and missing cabinet doors and we couldn't find the worcestershire sauce in the fridge. We laughed and talked and just sat around acting like a family.  It felt so real.

Then I woke up and he wasn't there and it was 3:30 in the morning and the sun was rising...it was too much for my brain to handle at once. After a vain attempt to fall back asleep, I sit here- my body saying "sun's coming up, let's get up too" while my brain responds "it's 4 am, go back to bed; you're going to regret this in a few hours."

View from my room at 3:30 AM

Swedish adventures: day 3&4

Well- I made it to Stockholm! The 10 hour flight really wasn't that bad. I even got a bit of sleep (and a lot of cross stitching...).  I arrived just after noon (local time) and we've been taking the full tour to get back to the house which has given me a chance to see a lot of Stockholm. It's beautiful! I've included a few pictures here of what I've seen so far.

Photos from the Zoo

 

Swedish Adventures: Day 1

Admittedly, today's adventures were not very Swedish. But the vacation has officially begun! I flew out to California last night so that I might first spend a weekend with my brother and his family in their new home.

My flight arrived around 12:30 last night. My brother picked me up and brought me to their house and I headed off to sleep pretty soon after. I then woke up just before 8 because the sun was up and my nephew was awake so why stay asleep.

The morning began with the grand tour of the house and breakfast. Next, we played around with my brother's virtual reality headset.  This was followed by a long walk trying to shake off the lingering motion sickness.

The afternoon was spent at the zoo.  We had so much fun. My nephew is getting Old enough to notice and find interest in the animals.  My favorite was the fruit bats in which he repeatedly waved and said "hi", waiting for a response. (He didn't do this with any other animal- just the bats). Just outside the zoo is a park designed to look like animals: elephant slide, turtle to climb, etc.  It's a rare opportunity to take a picture of you nephew crawling in a hippos mouth. Pictures to come- as soon as I can figure out how to do so from my phone...