Green ChristmasWith only one day to go before Christmas (in Sweden it's celebrated the 24th), we had a bit of shopping to do, so took the opportunity to also wander around Haparanda. Not a large town, it's only a few minutes' walk anywhere we need to go. While parts of town are quite modern, the city center has lovely old buildings and traditional houses. In the center square is a beautiful old hotel.
After lunch, we walked through some of the small shops in town and made our way to Konditoriet, a little bakery cafe. That's right, team, it was pastry time. Fika! Here's what they had in the case:
And here is what we had. Sydney said that was both the biggest and the best cream puff she'd ever had. I had my usual danish, what they call wienerbröd here. Robert had a completely delicious almond cake I've never had before. (Roland had that weird cheesecake topped with jello...I get it, but, no.) I was surprised in the bathroom by this scary little Santa hanging on the wall. He's not only creepy but he looks like someone. If you know who, please tell me.
Heading home after fika it was getting a bit dark; the lights were on, though, and it looked like a little fairy tale town. Sydney confessed today that she's never made a gingerbread house. We shopped around and got what we needed, then decided that for the candy decorations, we'd skip the grocery store offerings and shop at Candy World instead. Candy World is not only a great name for any shop but it's also a warehouse sized candy store. We have an amazing selection of sweet decor for our house.
Once home, engineer Roland designed a house template and Sydney and I rolled and cut and baked. We had a fun idea to cut holes out into the cookies and melt candies in them for windows. Sydney monitored our experiments. The houses I've made were always held together by icing, but these geniuses over here straight up melt sugar in a frying pan and dip the pieces in hot caramel and stick the house together. As we were assembling, we kept seeing northern lights photos being posted online and checking the aurora forecast and realized we had to get out there. Once the house was together, we set it aside until tomorrow. With our toastiest layers on, we grabbed the cameras and drove out into the woods north of Haparanda. It was bitterly cold tonight, -10 C (that's about 15 F), but once we got out of the car it was awhile before we remembered our numb fingers.
I picked up some sparklers at the grocery store, thinking we'd do some fun long exposure pics with them, and threw them in with our stuff at the last second tonight. It was a bit much, but then so am I, I suppose.
You can see the ghost of Robert's face to the left of the sparkler lights here.
Beyond magical. I can't believe our luck this year with every bit of this trip. After a stressful few months I feel completely refreshed and after being around people I love so much, my heart is filled to bursting with happiness and gratitude. I am looking forward to a very relaxing holiday tomorrow with my wonderful Swedish family. For everyone who's been following this adventure with me, I'm so happy to have you along. Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. I hope your holiday is filled with love and light, goodies and magic.
Tomorrow: Swedish Christmas dinner and the finished gingerbread house. God jul!
Northern lights, reindeer gamesI wrapped up my post of ice hotel photos about 2:30 this morning. Restless from a post-dinner espresso, I kept checking the sky out our cabin window for aurora. I checked twice, gave up, lay down. Checked one more time. Saw the green come shimmering across the sky over the snow wall and ran to get Sydney and the camera. Robert joined us and we spent about 40 minutes watching one huge wave of green swirl and dance across the river, overhead, beyond the horizon and rising moon. These are not the greatest pics but I want to share regardless, as it's something I know we'll never forget. The sled dogs were howling in the mountains across the river and it is obnoxious to keep saying "magical" all the damn time, I know, but. Yeah. Magical. I had hoped beyond hope for Sydney to see the lights during this trip. She was gobsmacked.
This morning we said farewell to our little Olaf outside our cabin.
We headed across the street to a fine example of a Swedish hotel breakfast: a little bit of everything. The sky started lightening by 9 am and even though the sun never comes up this time of year, we still had a stunning light show all morning long. As we went to leave the hotel, we heard the cacophony of sled dogs. Here they are, raring to go. I thought they'd be huge, fluffy dogs, but they are small and strong and eager and LOUD.
My mother-in-law spent a year in the nearby town of Kiruna when she was young and told us about a beautiful old church in Jukkasjärvi. The sky was on fire when we came up to the church and I took a few shots and a short video of the sky and the howling sled dogs in the distance.
The church is 400 years old, and has a stunning mural inside.
With daylight fading fast, we headed back south, towards our holiday in Haparanda. The sky was glorious for hours. We put on the Frozen soundtrack and sang along, still grinning stupid grins at our unbelievable luck with our one night in the Arctic Circle. ICEHOTELWe put up Christmas last night and went to bed early so we could head north to Jukkasjärvi first thing this morning. It's about a four hour drive north from Haparanda and we were lucky with clear weather and roads the whole way. I could not stop smiling today, even more than most days. Our first stop was at the Arctic Circle, for a cup of coffee and some fresh waffles.
The Ice Hotel was about another two hours north, and as we drove further it got darker and darker, even though it was only just past noon. We realized this morning that we chose to do this trip on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Still, with the snow the road wasn't too dark. The Ice Hotel itself is a sprawling complex of cabins (we have a heated cabin, not an ice room), restaurants, gift shop, and then the two ice buildings. We took a guided tour first then were able to explore all the rooms on our own. The hotel is right on the bank of the river Torne, and just like in Frozen, they carve out gigantic ice blocks from the frozen river. They start building in October. This is the 27th year of the hotel and their new building houses a permanent ice bar that will stay open all year. The walls and beds are made of ice blocks, then the walls and ceilings are insulated with "snice," a mix of snow and ice that keeps the indoors at a constant -5 degrees Celsius. There are some standard ice rooms (still amazing) and then artist rooms, where artists from around the world come and create their own unique designs. I didn't drag the tripod with me and the rooms are quite dark, but I think you can get a decent idea of just how breathtaking this place is. I most definitely sang "Let it Go" at the top of my lungs all day. No more words, just pictures!
Stockholm to Luleå to HaparandaMy niece Sydney had to take a train through the ice storm in St. Louis up to central IL, then another train up to Chicago, then a taxi to the airport, then her flight was delayed two hours, then she flew for ten hours to Stockholm. I was so nervous and anxious waiting for her, I swear she was the last person from her flight to come out of customs. I was very un-Swedish in sweeping her into a huge hug and carrying her off into the airport. We checked into our next flight very early and I loved how our luggage was a neon rainbow.
Once the sun finally started to go down, the real show was out the windows.
Solveig is also a prolific and extremely talented watercolor artist. She was so generous to let Sydney and me choose a few to take home with us. This bad collage doesn't do her work justice! Check out her instagram! We left Luleå in a hurry after dinner as the weather was turning nasty, with rain and temps just at freezing. That same weather that made Sydney take a train back home. But we have snow tires! And we plodded northward to Haparanda where Robert's mom was waiting for us. Twice while driving, the radio suddenly blasted horns and off-key guitars, then someone started talking in Swedish. This is their emergency road information system! The warnings were about moose that had made their way onto the highway much further north. It scared the shit out of me. First thing this morning we headed out into the sun to show Sydney a little of Haparanda. This is the bank of the Tornio river on the Haparanda side. Across the water there is Finland, with the rail bridge silhouetted. I was excited to go to Taavolagården, a gorgeous cafe and antique shop we visited last year. The buildings are all painted that bright iconic red. Inside one outbuilding is the Loppis, or flea market. Sydney found the perfect lil Santa in the Loppis and he came home with us.
...and the cafe on the other. We had fika! Sydney, Roland and I had gingerbread. Robbie had a special cream puff.
The light is golden and glorious as ever up here, as is my sweet Sydney. I got her to make a shadow T-Rex. I love T-Rex. Is the plural of T-Rex "T-Rex?" The sunset goes on and on.
Here is a final pic of the sunset today, and I'm not even ashamed to have taken it from the grocery store parking lot. While you do get a shorter day up here, it's a short, stunning, technicolor day.
Swedish HospitalityJessica's kitchen window looks like it belongs in a magazine. She's got the whole house decorated so perfectly. Even on a cloudy morning, the view from the kitchen is charming and cozy: the perfect spot to sip your coffee and think your thinks while you wait for the toast. This is a typical breakfast I have whenever I'm in Sweden: toast with butter, gouda cheese and julskinka, which is Swedish style Christmas ham. We sometimes have nice pickles on it, too. This morning I got my first taste of julskinka of the year, but it won't be the last.
These electric advent candles were in my room, and the view was so nice of the red garage and the snowy yard.
Robert's brother Roland met us and the lot of us went to have a quick dinner. We ended up at a cool 50's-retro style burger place called Lily's Burger that's owned by actor Joel Kinnaman. The burger was a lot like an In-N-Out and the decor was adorable. Last night was our last staying with Jessica. We'll see them again at the end of our stay, yet I had such a wonderful time and was treated so kindly and warmly by her family that I was really sad to say goodbye today. I don't do goodbyes very well. If I'm really sad I just say, "I'll see you tomorrow," and that's what I said to her today. The bright bit is that we're now staying with Roland in his chic apartment in an area called Sundyberg. It's a cool neighborhood, and in a few short blocks we had our choice of international food for lunch today. We settled on Japanese and none of us was sorry. Because we love it there, we headed back to the Gamla Stan (old town) for more treats and views. It's an island labyrinth of cobblestone alleyways jam-packed with shops, art, cafes, souvenir shops, restaurants and bars. We arrived right at sunset and the light was stunning. Here is another green copper clock tower.
The alleyways just glow as the sky goes pink. We did finally stop and get a pastry today, though we chose a strange little cafe. The owner seemed surprised to have any business and gave us extra cocoa and a plate of chocolates. Maybe he liked Robert's smile. On the way to the British pub after, peeking into the shops I saw a ton of Santas and elves in the windows. These naughty little Santas are totes up to something. Tomorrow morning, Roland, Robert and I will head to the airport to meet my niece, Sydney, who has braved planes, trains and automobiles over the last 24 hours to make her way through the Midwest ice storm from St. Louis to Chicago to get to her flight. We will all take another plane up north to Luleå, grab our rental car and then drive another 80 miles to Haparanda to stay with Robert's mother. We have one night there before we head up to the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi. It's a big week coming up; I'm hoping very hard to get some northern lights photos, but mostly excited to share this holiday with Sydney in this special place. |
