Lofoten Islands

With our uni work (almost) finished, we decided to jump in Bert (what we named our car) and travel to the beautiful Lofoten Islands. An archipelago inside the arctic circle in Norway, it is like being on the edge of the world.

Bert!

Along for the journey were Matt and Sarah, our American buddies. 10 hours of driving later, and we were cruising along roads like this:

It was spectacular.

That night, it was a bit cloudy, but that didn't stop us having our first midnight sun. I think the strangest thing was that after living in Lulea, it didn't seem strange at all to have sun at midnight.

On the beach in the midnight sun.

The next day, we headed to the end of the islands, to a town simply called Å. We had a great time climbing the sides of the mountains at the end of the road.

In the afternoon, we were driving home when disaster struck. The spare tyre, which was already on our car, popped and we were left stranded with no tyre to replace it with. Whats more, we had a jack but no wrench. Luckily, we were only 500 meters from a town, and the first shop was a mechanic. He changed the flat we had in the boot, and we were in business.

There are worse places to have broken down.

With Bert running beautifully again, we headed for a town called Henningsvaer. It was typical of the towns in Lofoten and I think this photo sums in up perfectly:

Henningsvaer.

That night, we had proper midnight sun!

It was a great trip with amazing scenery, good company, and the best car ever!

For all those following at home. Bert is currently broken and we don't know if he will run again.

Russia

Dad was here for a holiday and we thought we should do something special. So after a huge fight with the Russian embassy, we went to Russia (2 weeks ago, but we've been busy).

More specifically, we went to St Petersburg, a city that only gets 40 sunny days a year. We were there for 4 of them! Maybe it was the sun, driving people crazy, but St Petersburg was buzzing. The streets were packed with young people out shopping, walking, and just generally enjoying life.

Everywhere we went or even looked, the place was full of history. Every corner seemed to be an amazing church, palace, or cafe in which someone famous had died. I've never been somewhere so dense with historic places and we spent lots of time just wandering the streets soaking it all in.

For the four days, we had guides called Oxana and Valentine who drove us around and showed us all the best sites. We had a fantastic time with them, but undoubtedly the best part of our guide experience was the concierge at our hotel who organised everything for us. Stanislav supposedly worked at the hotel, but we only saw him there once, and that was at midnight. Having organised the first guided day at midnight they day before over phone, we first met Stanislav the next day when he appeared out of a crowd to be paid. Upon hearing that we would be interested in a guide the next day, he pulled a sim card out of his pocket and gave it to us. From then on we had a direct Stanislav line. This came in handy the next day when he met us on a street corner, as he was on the way to a "meeting". The guy was awesome.

Anyway we saw so much in Russia, and had such a good time, I thought the best way to sum it us was a bunch of the best photos.

Taking it to the streets- they were packed.

What better way to see the city than on a boat tour (in Russian), with beer.

Dad was liking it too.

Amazing borscht at our favourite restaurant. They even had a guy with a keyboard singing synth classics in the corner.

A market we stumbled across in the middle of town.

In town with Valentine.

The palace of the spilled blood. If i remember correctly it was built on the site of where one of the royal family killed their brother or father or something like that. The Russian royal family was so into killing each other I kept on getting confused.

Some fairly impressive doors on one of the churches. Most of them are still standing as when the Germans blockaded the city for three years, they used them as aiming reference points.

At the Hermitage museum (the old winter palace), with our guide Oxana.

Peter got a book in Russian from a second hand book store we found down an alley.

The summer palace, with all its fountains that are run off water pressure from the mountains.

The summer palace had some impressive gardens.

Finland

Dad came up to Lulea last week and having had a day in Lulea, we decided Finland would be far more interesting. We jumped in the car, complete with indicators dad had brought all the way from Aus after our old ones were stolen, and headed north.

Reindeer just relaxing on the side of the road.

An hour later, we were in Finland.

After a visit to the tourist office (which was closed, but a passing travel agent helped us out), we decided to head north up the border to Rovaniemi. The road winds up the river that is the border between the two countries, and is fairly spectacular at this time of year while it is still partially frozen. It is definitely an area I am going to have a summer house when I am rich. A bit of land on the river, with an old wooden boat to work on in my free time would suit me just fine.

Aside from a fantastic museum on the northern region of Scandinavia, a chinese restaurant and a cool bar, we didn't find much in Rovaniemi. I think the fact that it was a public holiday the morning we left didn't help.

Rovaniemi- far from everywhere.

The next morning we set off to another of our travel agent's recommendations, the Ranua Zoo for arctic animals. We saw all sorts of arctic animals and birds that you have always heard of, but have never encountered. They even had eagles whose diet consists of reindeer, all sorts of owls and polar bears. That said, the highlight was the otters that wouldn't stop playing, and even had a pair of sunglasses that they were rolling around with.

A polar bear just relaxing in the sun

Dad with bluey.

Having exhausted ourselves at the zoo, we hit the road for home. By this stage it was 25 degrees, or the equivalent of about 100 degrees when you are inside the arctic circle! This is when the star of our trip, my car came into its own. With the sunroof open and the spoiler keeping us glued to the road, we chewed up the miles.

Back in Lulea in one piece, indicators taped on and all.

In the end, i think it is summed up by:

1987 Merc

780km

1 tank of petrol

7.8l/100km

No spare tyre

2 countries

6 border crossings

Food Update

For the last week, Cassie has been away. We have had to fend for ourselves food wise but that has led to a number of triumphs.

First was the international food dinner for all the exchange students. Everyone had to bring a plate from their country and at the last minute, Peter and I decided to bring Vegemite scrolls and lamingtons. Needless to say, the kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off by the end but we had delish bread and lamingtons that were quickly snapped up.

The kitchen (although it wasn't our kitchen so we weren't so worried)

The dinner!

The next night, we had a corridor dinner at Peter's flat. Charged with bringing a starter, Peter and I decided to make olive bread and dips from scratch. The roast capsicum dip was especially good!

Dips.

Finally, on Wednesday night we made Parmas! Starting with chicken breast we crumbed them ourselves. We even cut our own chips and made herb mayo a la grilld. Best meal ever.

Parmas for 5.

What a meal.

The only other thing to report is that with all the sun at the moment (its light from about 4am to about 11pm), people are going a bit crazy. This was demonstrated last weekend when Brenton made a piece of artwork by piling up all the broken bikes. The day also involved lots of dancing in the sun, a sign proclaiming Lewis is super gay, and knife throwing. It was all just a bit crazy.

Our back yard last saturday.

The Car (As yet unnamed)

So we bought a car. Some would say that with only 6 weeks to go that was a bit stupid, but we wanted one.

Here it is:




Its a 87 Merc 280E with a sunroof, spoiler and 3 alloy wheels!

With Peter's sweet negotiating skills with picked it up registered for a year for $1000. Split 5 ways we think its a bit of a bargain.

Decorating ideas welcome.

The Trip Home

I was meant to get a flight home from Copenhagen on Sunday night, arriving in Lulea three hours later. A small volcano saw to it that this was not to be. Stranded in Copenhagen with no idea how long the planes would not be running, Craig and I decided to take the scenic route home.

At 1pm on Monday we set off from Copenhagen railway station for Oslo.

Ready to set off.

We arrived in Olso that night, cooked a kilo of pasta and got some good rest.

With a day to kill in Oslo, we hit up the natural history museum (full of 6 year-old kids), the viking ship museum (They had three viking ships from the 800's) and the Fram museum (A arctic explorer ship from 1900 that went the furthest north a ship had ever gone, and then took the Norwegian explorers to the south pole to be the first people ever to reach it). I have decided that Norwegian explorers are both awesome and crazy, I have to learn more about them.

The Natural History Museum.

Viking Ships.

Onboard the Fram.

At 11pm, we were ready to get on our bus to Stockholm:

A night of no sleep meant that by Stockholm we were a bit tired, but we only had a couple of hours before we were getting on a train to Sunsvall.

Coffee!

Unusually for Scandinavia, the train was half an hour late which meant we missed our connecting bus to Lulea. Luckily, we were assured that there was a replacement bus waiting just outside the bus station. There wasn't, but after an hour we did get on a bus to Lulea. Unfortunately for us, the bus driver decided he couldn't go any further than Umea (about half way to Lulea) so we were stuck waiting for yet another bus there. By this point, Craig just wanted to be home:

He's from New York.

After 2 hours wait, we were on a bus again. 24 hours after leaving Oslo, we were home.

Lulea!

I'm never leaving again.

Copenhagen

Fresh in Stockholm from the love boat, I decided I didn't want to go home and shot down to Copenhagen for the weekend. For kicks, I took the train so that I could go over the bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark. There were even wind turbines in the sea!

When I arrived, it just so happened that it was the Queen's birthday. I met Dave, Chris and Craig, friends from Lulea who happened to be in town, and we grabbed our Danish flags and headed to her parade.

The closest I have ever been to royalty.

There were also gold balls in a fountain getting shot up on jets of water. We were told it was specially for the Queen's birthday, and that the balls were only there once a year.

You can see one of the balls starting to get shot up on the left- so cool.

The next day we went to Tivoli, the world's oldest amusement park which is located right in the centre of Copenhagen. Dave just wanted to ride the rollercoaster, which we did a heap of times as there was hardly anyone there. We also went on a ride which had all of HC Anderson's (they love him so much) fairytales, dodgem cars and a hundred-year-old rollercoaster. It was awesome.

Chris and Dave.

That night everyone wanted to sleep, so I went by myself to see a Danish band called Efterklang. They were awesome and I was really glad I made myself go.

Efterclang!

For the rest of my time in Copenhagen, I did a lot of walking and exploring the city. It is a really nice place and I am convinced that there are more bikes than people. The area of Christianshavn was especially nice and I climbed a church tower there which gave me a great view of the city.

Christianshavn

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The tower I climbed- you got to go outside and walk up the circular stairs all the way to the top.

I also found a glass art gallery hidden in an old supply store under a park with Craig and his friend Elen. It was really cool but a bit creepy, especially the section that was full of life size sculptures.

The art gallery.