Winterwonderland of Epic Proportions

So, I'm procrastinating from doing my final theology paper. Here're photographs from our 5 day adventure in the Laplands! The weather was pretty harsh on our first day so we didn't get to do much. I also slipped on ice and fucked up my camera a little bit so there're significantly less shots/more blurry shots (infuriates the hell out of me). A good news however, is that the zoom (which was the main source of the problem) unstuck on our last day there! A great pity that it didn't happen earlier, but I'm just grateful that it's okay now!

In any case, the weather was a freezing -18 degrees - biting cold. But most of the activities provided "snow dresses" which are really snow suits so we were warm-ish when we went about doing our stuff! Spent a fair amount of money on this trip, but it was well worth it (:

Overnight train to Kiruna, journey was 15 hours!

Tiny cubicle for 6 beds, still comfy though! 

These chairs split into 2 levels (4 bunk beds), and there's an upper level as well that's not in the picture (2 bunk beds).

Lol, paid quite a lot for this train ride and only.. free water?

Finally arrived at Kiruna!

Our new Korean friends, Do-yuen and Suki!

For the first night we had pasta with meatballs and also.. chicken leg. Ate till I nearly died. 

Woke up to the most amazing view ever. This was also the day I forgot to bring out my camera batteries and so.. I have no pictures at all. We went snow mobile-ing which would've been crazy fun if I wasn't sick. Felt terrible the entire day, but thankfully it cleared up by the next morning!

On the second day we got ready for dog sledding!

They were super adorable and friendly

Playing with some puppies who have yet to officially start "work". 

And we got creative with our snowman! 

In the night we went on a trail to look for Northern Lights. Sadly it was too bright and they didn't appear, the night sky was still so beautiful though. 

The moon was so big and bright. Felt so dejected that my camera was acting up from the fall, so most of my pictures were blurry ): 

We had reindeer stew for dinner which tasted very much like lamb to me!

And then sponge cake with berries for dessert! The berries are apparently a rare species that only grow in the swamps/marshes in Northern Sweden, one berry per plant. So it's very very expensive to buy in the shops! 

Our youth hostel at Abisko

Bell tower of Kiruna Kyrka 

Kiruna Kyrka, voted the most beautiful building in Sweden of all time. 

On the 4th day, the Koreans flew back to Uppsala for an exam so it was just Glen, Sean and myself. We moved down to Kiruna and checked into this student hostel. 

Went for a mine tour which was interesting but... I was terribly bored, lol. Can't upload any pictures from the tour because my camera was still acting up and couldn't focus at all in the low light, le sigh. 

Caught the sunset before returning to the hostel to collapse.

Glen & Sean went out again to take more pictures but I was too exhausted and bummed out. So I stayed in to read (: 

Our last morning at Kiruna.

I loved how it was bright and sunny (: 

View from the plane

Okay, dinner time and then maybe I'll drag myself back to work!