last night i took the Connex Norrlandståget train up to Lappland, a 16 hour train ride in the night through most of Sweden. the train was sparsely populated, and as i'd missed my train the day before, i had to make due with just a regular seat instead of a couchette. i had the seat across from me to myself, but any rest i got was more of a compromise between dead exhaustion and cold awkward seating positions. though there was heating blasting near the windows, anywhere 6 inches beyond that was frigid and most people slept wearing their winter coats and hats, if they had any. most of the night i spent staring out the window, observing the strange light show created by the blue sparks of the train upon the snowy landscape. around 6:30 in the morning, i watched the sun come up from the dining car and for the first time i saw true winter. an hour later we crossed the Arctic Circle and reached the Gallivare station at 9:30am, where my hostess Patricia was waiting to collect me.
sunrise from the dining car
murjek station
a fellow passenger
as soon as i arrived, Patricia asked me if i wanted to go to the ICEHOTEL, since she had to go to Kiruna to collect someone at the airport there. i hadn't been too interested in the past, as Kiruna is 2 hours from Porjus and it is kind of expensive even to visit it, but i decided to anyway. luckily i still had energy at this point. the extreme cold soon fixed that, however. we got into the car and one of the first things i saw as we drove through the countryside was a reindeer sitting in a snow drift alone. Patricia later told me that the winter has been quite strange, and since the snow came so late and melted and then snowed again, the reindeer have been unable to graze and many of them are starving. this is at least the 3rd time global warming concerns have come up in conversation since i've been in Sweden, by the way. within the last week it has snowed a lot, and the temperature today was a pleasant -22 C, which, i must say, is one of the most intense things i've ever felt. there is no way to convey the entirety of the chill that takes hold, and once it does it is very difficult to shake unless you can find a substantial heat source. inside the icehotel though, it was only -8, which seriously felt great after being outdoors. here are some crazy photos of the hotel and me relaxing for a moment in the $600+ a night ice suites...
entrance to icehotel
lobby of icehotel
fancy ice hall
ice fireplace in one of the rooms
reindeer and rabbit skins are my best friends in these temperatures
sculputure in one of the rooms
bed
relaxing in my favorite ice room, one with some crazy icespeakers (background), a projector, a screen, and a stage with what looked like frozen trees and plants inside
circular bed
ice church
now i'm about to go lie down for a bit and take a nap so that i'll be able to wake up and hopefully see my first northern lights later on!
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