Scan-di-navia Part 1 - Sweden Posted on: 20th February 2018 :: Photo Credits: Pradip, Arpan, Alap, Manish ::
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Preface
‘Why would anyone want to visit Scandinavia in December, when the temperatures rarely go above zero and may drop as low as -25 deg. C?’ The short answer is: To Experience the Extreme! The long answer is: (based on our previous trip in Iceland ) the Nordic countries offer some of the most unworldly vistas and natural spectacles like the “Northern Lights” in winter, which surpass any man-made wonders. Plus, flights and hotels are cheaper in this off-season, which matters a lot especially when you’re traveling on a grad-student budget. So, we decided to spend this year’s Christmas vacation backpacking through Sweden and Norway. [here we: 5 friends studying in different parts of the world: Alap(Cornell, USA), Arpan(LIST, Luxembourg), Manish(MPI, Germany), Pabitra(RWTH, Germany), Pradip(UMD, USA)].
Read more about ‘Planning a backpacking trip in Scandinavia’
Day : 0
Location : New York City
It was 6 PM when I ended the call with Pabitra and turned the last block towards Uncle Sam’s Surplus Store in Manhattan. Suddenly, I noticed that my back felt unusually lighter. Something was missing. It took me a few seconds to realize that I didn’t have my backpack. I frantically replayed the last 30 minutes in my mind. I had received Manish’s call when I was about to get down at Union Square Subway station. He had given me the shocking news of Pabitra losing his Passport and Eurail pass at Copenhagen station. As the loud subway station noise had made it difficult to speak with him over the phone, I had run towards the exit. Pradip, Manish and I had been discussing this unexpected turn of events over a group call. Pabitra, Manish, and Arpan were stuck at Copenhagen station and were deciding the next plan of action. I and Pradip had to catch our flight from JFK at 10.30PM. I had planned to buy the ‘Mickey mouse boots’ (to survive in arctic weather!) from a military surplus store before boarding the flight. So, I had continued to walk towards Uncle Sam’s store while talking over the phone.
“It must have been left somewhere at the subway station. Don’t worry you will get it back”, I consoled myself. I immediately ran towards the Union Square station, which was about half a mile from my location. Since it’s a huge station, it was difficult to exactly remember the path that I had followed. Even after searching for half an hour, I could not find my backpack. Luckily, I stumbled across a Police station, which was open (a rare phenomenon on Christmas Eve). I explained the situation to the Police officer as she looked at me suspiciously. She said that there were several complaints about an unattended backpack on one of the platforms and they had sent officers to check if there is anything dangerous. Fortunately, she understood my situation and called back the dispatched officers. They returned with my backpack in a few minutes. As expected, they didn’t find anything dangerous in the backpack and returned it to me with a verbal warning.
What a way to begin this Scandinavian adventure!
Day : 1 Location : Stockholm
“Weren’t we supposed to take that receipt?” I shouted. We immediately turned to look at the machine as it swallowed our receipt. Pradip, Manish and I had assembled at Stockholm railway station around 3PM and were trying to use the automated luggage lockers for storing our backpacks. Lost in discussions about previous day’s drama, we forgot to collect the receipt from the payment terminal after stowing our luggage in the locker. Unexpectedly, that machine swallowed back the receipt after waiting for a few seconds. The receipt had the password required to unlock our luggage locker. We anxiously dialled the customer care number printed on the lockers. After several tries, the call went through and the agent asked us to contact the security agency. Since it was the Christmas day, it took us over two hours to get hold of the concerned security person. The security person demanded 770SEK (about 100$) for the out-of-hours service. Fortunately, the locker company accepted our appeal to waive off the fees. After getting our receipt back, we headed out towards ‘Nybropan’ ferry terminal for the free boat ride.
This ferry ride through Djurgården, Slussen and Skeppsholmen was refreshing and the awesome night-time views of the city from upper deck made us forget the locker mishap.
The ferry returned to Nybroplan after one and half hour. We walked towards the Old Town ‘Gamla Stan’ to see the ‘Kinnevik Tree’, biggest Christmas tree in the world.
‘This Christmas tree is a sculpture with branches mounted to a more-than-century-old source trunk that was selected to be straight and tall. The branches are carefully chosen, grown in especiallyfavourable conditions. The tree is lit by over a hundred pieces of powerful spotlights, shiny moons and red balls. It is decorated with huge gingerbread cookies from the fairy land, glittering mirror balls that reflect the sun, and the spotlights to give the tree its magical glow.
For many years the Kinnevik Tree competed in a national contest where the Swedish people voted for the most beautiful Christmas tree in the country. Being the unbeatable winner year after year, it was concluded that The Kinnevik Tree could no longer participate, since other trees never stood a chance against it’. (Source: Information board near Kinnevik Tree)
The entire old town was beautifully decorated with Christmas Lights. We spent about an hour roaming around in Gamla Stan and then walked back to the Stockholm central station to board SJ night train towards Kiruna.
Day : 2
Location: Stockholm-Östersund-Gällivare-Kiruna
The journey from Stockholm to Östersund in SJ Nattåget (night train) was a bit tiring since we didn’t have sleeper waggon reservations. Plus, a crying baby made sure that most of the coach stayed awake throughout the night :) We reached Östersund early in the morning and boarded the bus operated by ‘Bussgods’ towards Gällivare.
Our bus crossed the arctic circle at Jokkomokk and the first look of Swedish Lappland was simply mesmerizing! Snowy landscapes with tall snow-clad pine trees made it look like a perfect winter wonderland.
Lappland (Sápmi) is a cultural region that stretches over four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. During the middle ages, it was considered as ‘no man’s land’. The area was populated by nomadic Sami people. Later, settlers from Sweden, Norway and Finland started colonizing this region. (Source: Wikipedia)
During this time of the year, the daylight in Lappland lasts from 11AM to 3PM. So, it felt like midnight when we arrived in Gällivare around 6.30PM. From there, another 1.30hr bus ride took us to Kiruna. After checking-in the hotel, we were about to go to the complimentary sauna when the ‘My aurora forecast’ app gave a notification of high aurora sighting probability. We immediately put on all the winter clothes (it takes at-least 15mins to put on all 5 layers :P) and ran outside. Alas, the sky was covered in dense clouds. In the hope of finding a clear spot, we climbed up a small hillock and waited patiently for about an hour. It was freezing cold, -17 degree C. But the clouds were more adamant than us and didn’t move at all. Finally, we gave up and returned to relax in the hot sauna of our hotel.
Day : 3
Location: Kiruna
“The railway station has been temporarily shifted to a new location about 3kms north from here”, the lady explained! Our train to Abisko was scheduled to leave in another 10 minutes. We had walked as per the directions on google maps from our hotel to ‘Kiruna C’ railway station, only to find a deserted and snow-covered piece of land.
A jogging lady informed us about the ongoing relocation of Kiruna town. Well, shit happens! (On a side note, it’s amazing how deeply these Europeans care about personal fitness. Running outside at -15 deg Celsius is no joke!)
Today, things had been going very smoothly so far. We had managed to catch the 6AM bus towards ‘Ice Hotel’ from Kiruna Bus station and had spent the next hour walking around this man-made marvel.
The Icehotel is situated in the village of Jukkasjärvi, about 17 Kilometers from Kiruna. It’s the world’s first ice hotel and is rebuilt each year with snow and ice. It has around 150 cold beds for the guests along with ice church, bar and pillar hall.
After returning back to Kiruna, we had gulped down a sumptuous breakfast (complementary :P) and had walked to the Kiruna railway station. The next planned destination was Abisko National Park, followed by Narvik. But the relocation of Kiruna Railway station jeopardized our plans.
We returned to the city centre and started searching for the next available train. The next and last train from Kiruna was at 3PM. That meant we had to skip Abisko and go directly to Narvik. Reluctantly, we reserved the seats and decided to spend the next few hours in Kiruna. Fortunately, the hotel staff allowed us to store the luggage without any extra cost.
How should we utilize these 4 hours in Kiruna? Our unanimous answer was “Let’s fly the drone!”. Pradip had brought his quadrotor on the trip and all of us were itching to fly it. We walked back to the ‘deserted’ location of old Kiruna railway station. The temperature had dropped to -20 deg C but (luckily) there was no wind. Pradip managed to assemble the machine and soon it was up in the air, followed by our loud applause!
But, within a few minutes, it started behaving abnormally. The sensors gave up due to the extreme cold and the quadrotor disappeared into the woods, after making some random loops. We immediately ran towards the trees. But the snow surrounding the trees was too deep. Fearing frostbite, we retreated. We were almost about to give up on the quadrotor, when two snowmobiles appeared out of nowhere. A middle-aged man (let’s call him ‘Saviour’) and his daughter were riding these vehicles. Saviour offered to help us get back the drone. I got the chance to ride with him towards the woods (Thanks to ‘Mickey mouse boots’). My first snowmobile ride, that too in Swedish Lappland at -20 deg C! We circled around that bunch-of-trees to look for the quadrotor. And there it was..lying peacefully at the foot of a snow-clad pine tree. Saviour got off the snowmobile, walked (rather dragged himself through waist-deep snow) towards the tree and retrieved the quadrotor along with it’s broken blades.
Thanking him for the help, we returned to our hotel and then went to the relocated railway station to board the SJ-train towards Narvik. This was the beginning of Norwegian part of our ‘rollercoaster’ trip.