Umeå Intermission Part 1: Northern Sweden

Hard to believe it's been 4 years and 5 months or so since I started this, and also since I more or less left Canada.

Anyways, so this past week, there was an impulsive last minute road trip on Wednesday to go all the way to Abisko to check out the aurora borealis (northern lights).  Decision made wednesday around 15:30 to go, we hired a car with 5 of us, and were gone by around 18:00.  It's funny how travelling some near 9 hours or so in a car north of Umeå makes this school no longer seem so far north or remote.

Here's the highlights:

-Abisko sky station - on that mountain, supposedly the best aurora on earth, when it's happening, and not overcast (and you pay the fee to go up to the sky station instead of watching it from the base of the mountain)

-Lapporten - Gateway to Lapland, Abisko, Sweden

-Ice on Torneträsk - east of Abisko on along the E10

-Fellow APD1 Stephanie and myself at Torneträsk

-Biting on some glass-like ice - Torneträsk

-Ice pushed up in thick large sheets along the lake edge

-Lapland mountains across the lake

-ICEHOTEL entrance - Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

-Ice and Reindeer (fur) - our road-trip in short (I did have to stop once in the night while driving for the 6 or so reindeer crossing the road, very casually)

-UID impulsive road-trippers - Carlos, Shiy-Yen, Me, Priyanka, Stephanie (l-r)

-Welcome to ICEHOTEL

-Harvested Ice for next season - as explained by our tour guide

-Ice corridor - to the hotel rooms

-THE (original) ICEBAR - Jukkasjärvi

-ICEHOTEL Central hallway - with a chandelier made of ice

-ICEHOTEL central hall - toward the main entrance

-Ice room (or was it one of the 'snow rooms) - either way, one of the 'generic' rooms, that aren't custom done by a signature artist/designer (almost just as nice or nicer then the specialty rooms)

-Ice chandelier

-Lobby entrance ceiling/wall detail - inspired by trees

-Lobby entrance wall detail - with ice benches

-Torne harvested ice - so blue, so beautiful, possibly my new favourite colour

-the beauty of ice

-ICEHOTEL chapel - where a whole lot of weddings happen every season

-Ice Breakers - me, on the thrown of the 'Ice Breakers' dubbed room, done by 2 break dancers from Norway I believe (just realized this is one of the rare occasions I've actually worn my Canadian winter coat, as it's barely been cold enough to bother with)