Impulse trip

First off, an explanation.

Two weeks ago an email arrived from Brads Dad saying he was in France on work and did we want to meet up? A flurry of emails later and we were booked on a flight to Paris from Oslo, ditching our flights back to London (RyanAir/cheap so no major loss).

So with very little notice we found ourselves in Paris! Arrived quite late at night, made our way to the hotel and caught up with Brads Dad over a beer or two.

Only had one full day together, so we chose to spend it at Versailles, wandering around, taking in the decadence.

Hall of mirrors, Versailles

Notre-Dame

Next day Brads Dad left and we moved hotels. Mel got struck down with a supervirus, making life unplesant and confining her to the room for 24 hours.

After a quiet last day of our trip we wandered down to the train station and caught the Eurostar home. 5 weeks away and it's good to be back in London.

Budget tip of the day: if you can't book the Eurostar early to get cheap fares, try travel on a weekday instead of weekends or pick a departure time that's early in the morning or late at night. Heaps cheaper.


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Location:Paris

Oslo with OJ

Arrived in Oslo after the second 'longest train ever'. 25 hours from Kiruna to Oslo, with stops in Boden and Hallesburg.

On the train

Met O.J. at Oslo station (an old hockey buddy of Brads) who was kindly letting us stay with him for two nights. Spent that afternoon relaxing, drinking beers, catching up and telling war stories about the good old days of Varsity hockey.

Next day O.J. had to work so we wandered the city of Oslo, seeing city hall, national parliament, city opera house and other usual 'touristy stuff'.

Parliament

Nobel Peace Centre

Filled our last morning in Oslo with a wirlwind 30 minute sprint through the National Gallery before catching a train to the airport and a last minute flight to Paris!

Cheers O.J., good to see you again.

Budget tip of the day: Oslo opera house, it's free to visit and in the summer you can climb it!!


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Location:Oslo

Arctic Adventures

Wow, what a place. Arrived saturday night after a 25 hour train/bus marathon. Kiruna is not a big town, we found our hostel just by walking round for a bit. Kiruna isn't a happening place on a Saturday night, so we picked up some ice cream and beer from the nearby gas station and settled in for a night of card games with our new American friend AJ who was also staying in our hostel.

Sunday wasn't much better. Pretty much everything was closed and we spent most of the day trying to organize our artic adventures. On the upside, since the sun just skims the surface of the sky you get amazing colours in the sky throughout the day.

Monday morning AJ and us were picked up at 9am and taken to Camp Alta, where we dropped our bags and got ready for our snowmobile experience. First step was to put on a very stylish one piece windproof suit (a one-sie). Next was warm socks, combat boots, two pairs of thick mittens, a helmet and goggles. Then we were off! With Mel taking control at first, and Brad on the back as photographer we raced round a frozen lake, through a forest, over another lake and then arrived at our destination: the Ice Hotel.

Sunrise over the frozen lake

Snow mobiling

Inside the ice hotel

We had a couple of hours to explore the ice hotel, which was pretty amazing. There were about 70 rooms, some of which were pretty standard- bed of ice and a couple of ice chairs and table. Others were designed by artists, each unique and some quite unusual.

By 2pm darkness was encroaching so it was back on the snowmobile (Brad in control) to return to camp. A camp fire and feast of reindeer stew was waiting, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

The evening consisted of watching the stars, sitting by the camp fire on comfy reindeer skins, drilling holes in the ice and ice fishing. Brad tried the sauna and even enjoyed a dip in the lake (twice!). Best of all - seeing the northern lights!

Drilling a hole for ice fishing

Tuesday morning we went cross country skiing round the lake, watching the sun rise. It was hard work, but a lot of fun.

Cross country skiing on the frozen lake

Now we are heading for another 25 hour train to Oslo.



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Location:Kiruna

Longest train ever

On the train, it's 8:26am (just hitting the 12 hour mark) and we've stopped in a place called Vännäs to let people off.

Not a bad nights sleep, six people on bunks in our cabin but it didn't feel too cramped. Train is however running 1.5 hours behind schedule.

Overall, sleeper trains come recommended.

Set up for the night....

.....Then wake up to the view

Update: train was so late our connection from Boden to Kiruna left without us. No problem, we were told a bus would be waiting at Boden to take us the rest of the way. Currently at Boden sitting on a bus, hoping it's the right one.

Update 2. Still on the bus. It's now 2pm, the sun has set and it's well on the way to being dark. On the upside we just saw a Moose on the side of the road. Awesome

Update 3: Reindeer!!! Lots and lots of reindeer.


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Location:Vännäs

Skating in Stockholm

We arrived in Stockholm after a 2.5 hour bus from Örebro on Monday and checked into our first hostel. We wandered the pedestrian strip of town, trying hard not to faceplant on the icy pavement.

walking into old town

view over old town from the south


Tuesday we visited the old town, admiring the narrow cobbled streets, amazing churches and stopped for a hot chocolate at Chokladkoppen, which came highly recommended to us and lived up to all expectations. Next stop was a tower which we climbed for great (COLD) views of the town, then a visit to the city museum which was very good (and warm and free).

City centre by night

Wednesday was really cold, a public holiday and not really condusive to sightseeing. We moved hostels and immediately took advantage of their free ice skates and headed to the local park where there was a nice free skating area. In the evening we partook in the hostel Swedish Meatball experience and learnt to make meatballs out of moosemeat then ate them for dinner- YUM!
Skating adventures

Today the snow was back and so we ventured out to the Vasa Museet, which is a museum with an old wooden war ship from the 1600s which sank on it's maiden vouage just 1km from the port. It lay submerged (and lost) for 330 years before it was found, salvaged and eventually turned into a museum. It was pretty amazing, and the museum described all the rumours as to why it may have sunk.

Tomorrow we hope to make it to the Nobel museum before we catch our overnight train north to Kiruna.

Budget tip of the day: Stockholm is EXPENSIVE, no way around it. For some free wintery fun, head to the closest hilly park you can find and go sliding. Its fun, brings out the inner kid in everyone and best of all, free. Then you've got the valid excuse that you've 'earned' that expensive coffee.


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Location:Stockholm, Sweden

Old friends, new adventures

Arrived in Örebro, Sweden after 5 hours of trains from Copenhagen. After Copenhagen, Örebro was very snowy. Staying with Karin, who did her student exchange to Yellowknife in the same year as Brad. Had a good time catching up, exploring the castle, drinking wine, looking at old photos (then feeling old) and eating too much at all-you-can-eat Chinese.

Brad and Karin

Orebro Castle

Awesome to catch up, and thanks Karin and Marcus for having us!!

Budget tip of the day: hit up old friends, it's good to catch up and you get a roof over your head at the same time.


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Location:Örebro

New years in Copenhagen

We caught a train from Hamburg to Copenhagen. Highlight of the trip was the train boarding a boat to cross the Baltic Sea to Denmark.
Sea crossing


Had splashed out and booked a budget hotel room, arrived to find out we had been 'upgraded'. Room was the smallest hotel room in the history of the world but that's ok, it wasn't a dorm. Spent our first night in Copenhagen blobbed in front of the tv, eating shawarmas and doing as little as possible.

Next day was New Years Eve, we wandered the town, climbed the round tower, visited some royal gardens and, of course, had danishes. The evening plan was to go to town hall square, everybody we'd talked to had said the new years fireworks were amazing there. We got there at 11pm to find that, counter our misguided expectations, the fireworks 'display' was actually just every drunk Dane bringing his own fireworks and letting them off in a crowded city square. Important to note that all the banned fireworks in NZ are still available here. After several near misses, we retreated to watch the show from relative safety (ie we only got hit once there). Despite the amateur nature, it was a good show, just a little strange from our kiwi point of view.
Round Tower
Crazy fireworks of death


New years day was COLD, -10C plus wind. We went out to visit the little mermaid statue and wandered around the royal palace and stopped in the national museum for 15 minutes to warm up. Visited Christania that afternoon, a hippie commune taking up a city block that claims independence from Denmark. Interesting to visit, but perhaps better in the summer where you can sit outside at one of their cafés and enjoy the sun.

Little Mermaid

Have to get up shocking early tomorrow to catch a train to Örebro...

Budget tip of the day: Sj sells 'last minute' tickets with big discouts 24 hours before a train leaves, but sometimes you'll need to be flexible with times. We got Copenhagen to Örebro half price, but had to leave at 6am.

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Location:Copenhagen