1000 Miles – a poem about the trip to the North

for my beloved Hannah

Sun is shining sky is blue
I can´t believe it, but its true
Leaving spring for quite a while
Heading North with a bright smile

Looking forward for the next few days
Hope to encounter Auroras someone says
Northern Lights – bridges to the stars
And no one here – no men no cars

Endless landscapes covered full with snow
And the rain does like a river flow
As do my thoughts they´re flying too
Apart from here a 1000 miles to you.

A trip to awesomeness

When writing this blog entry I´m sitting in the train back from my real journey to the North. Together with some friends we spent 5 days all together on a trip to Abisko, 1 hour by train from Narvik in Norway and in the “capital” of Lappland, Kiruna. The trip was planned by my friends which was really nice since I had nothing to prepare for or to be responsible for. Although I was not involved in the preparation at all I had a few problems to deal with before leaving. I had to finish off a bit of work for my project which I did exactly 3 minutes ahead of my scheduled departure. Then we meet altogether at Uppsala Central and get on to our train... Luleå, Narvik – a trip to awesomeness. We= that are Kaisa from Norway, Maja from Berlin (as I am from), Ramon and Miguel from Venezuela, Jennifer from Glasgow and finally Gorka from Mozambique.
We left Uppsala on Wednesday, 25th of March and took the night-train to Abisko. There we spent 3 days with different winter-activities. Although we had only seats in the nighttrain it was not too occupied so the night in the train was overall not too bad. We arrived in Abisko at noon and went to our hostel – the nice and well recommended “Absisko Fjällturen”, where we were introduced to Thomas, a nice guy to whom I spoke a bit (in Swedish, since the trip was mostly in English and I´m here to practice my Swedish of course ;) and who told us about routes with the skies and stuff we should keep in mind. When trying to check in, we “encountered” Oljander (if I remember his name correctly) – a guy who pretended to live on the 2nd floor and who was not in charge for the hostel- although it turned out that he was running it for some breaktime of the landlord. I don´t remember his name really therefore I refer to him as “grandpa” 
After getting our stuff in one of the rooms (no room in this hostel is locked at all and there is only one toilet for each floor) we had lunch and afterwards we went skiing – awesomeness no. 1 ;) Nobody of us was really used to ski except Kaisa who did this a long long time ago (so as I did when I was little). Of course we fell down but it was funny for everybody I would say. We walked a while and find luckily our way onto Kungsleden – the far-distance walking-passage through the mountains from the far north down to the south of Sweden. It started to darken around 5 pm so we get back to the hostel. Since we booked the dogsledge tour we had the unique opportunity to get all the equipment for skiing, ice-walking, and so forth for free. After a nice dinner, Maja and myself (since the others were either sick or too shy to get into the sauna naked and Kaisa as well as Jennifer were still too sick to take the sauna) – Honestly, I never have seen/ visited a sauna where you are allowed to have more than a towel with you – simply due to hygienic reasons. However this was awesomeness no. 2  The Nordic mountain sauna – sitting in one single room – two small tubes as “shower”, an oven heated by wood a tap of boiling hot water, people with beer in the sauna (uh oh)  and a lot of fun. During the “break”, we ran out into the snow and throw ourselves into the frozen snow – you notice too late that you have hurt yourself :p Afterwards we had a nice footwalk onto the frozen lake in Abisko to have a look at the Northern Lights – we haven´t seen them since it was too cloudy, although the weather was beautiful during the whole time. Getting back around 1am we fell asleep suddenly and had to get up early the next day for awesomeness no. 3 – dogsledging. People who know me, know as well that I don´t really like dogs so much. But I loved “my dogs” after meeting at the cages we were told how to harness them and get them ready in front of the sledge. And then it began. Kaisa was unfortunately not able to attend at this on a sledge but she was on a snowmobile which gave her the unique opportunity to take pictures from that. Thank you very very much Kaisa.
After 2 hours this was over and we were middly exhausted. We had then some lunch to go skiing and having a look to the Abisko-nationalpark direct afterwards. We started around 4 to get to the park and see some unique sites such as a frozen waterfall (awesomeness no. 4) and deep valleys covered with snow – including downhill skiing with cross-road skies. Getting home Maja decided not to join the sauna and I had to go alone – it was a kind of lame since there were only some “warmduscher”-sauna-people – but it was okay in general. Afterwards since the sky was clear and the chances were pretty good we prepared ourselves (Ramon, Gorka, Jennifer, Miguel and myself) to get to the lake again – and then suddenly – out of nowhere – we saw them – the NORTHERN LIGHTS!!! - Awesomeness no. 5. Beautiful – majestic, untouchable and hard to take pictures of without a decent tripod but not impossible .
On the third day in the North we left Abisko by bus to go to Kiruna, the “capital” of Lappland – to see the worlds biggest mine and the famous Icehotel. Arriving at 1pm we discovered that we can only check in from 4-8pm. Since we desperately wanted to see the Icehotel (located 15km out of Kiruna) we decided to rent a car – which I was responsible for. Maybe I was a bit stressed and maybe a bit rude but it was my name and my signature – so what ;) From the nice people at the tourist information desk we got all necessary informations and the tickets for the LKAB-tour – the Luossovaara – Kirunavaara – Aktiebolaget. The biggest mine in the world, where they dig for magnetite ore which is of a uniquely high quality – and the trip for just 180 sek – awesomeness no. 6. Getting back around 6pm we checked finally in and had Wifi for the first time during the trip – an opportunity you have to take. After having dinner we travelled by car just out of Kiruna – to see the worlds most expensive and probably most incredible hotel – Jukkasjärvi – Ishotellet – the Icehotel. In the icebar we had “Vodka IN the rocks” and it was simply awesome  - awesomeness no. 7.The church was closed but it was definitely worth to go to and to take the car. Since Maja was desperately tired the day before when we saw the Aurora we decided to go further in the darkness and she had the possibility to drive long time after she got her license. Hope this favour was nice for you Maja ;). Unfortunately we saw not really clear Northern Lights although I believe that some of the remnants on the pictures I took were an evidence- but the sky was clear – the stars beautiful and around it was totally dark – ah and I saw a reindeer during the way (feeding on the ground next to the road – little awesomeness no. 8). Getting back we fell asleep immediately highly impressed a bit cold but happy 
Today (Sunday) the only remaining was Kiruna itself which was basically visiting the church and taking some pictures after getting something for the trip to eat. They had a service in the church and some guys looked at us really badly when I took some pictures from the inner – stupid tourists – haha. After this we (Ramon and myself) had to get our luggage to the station and the others as well. The plan was simple and easy. Leaving them at the central station heading to the gasstation and then taking the cars back to the hotel where we got them. But… Ramon was confused. While I was already at the gasstation (only one in sight) he was missing me and driving further. He took off the car without filling it – hopefully we have not to pay too much for it… As I passed by the hotel and getting back the keys to the reception the time was tight which yields to a short-run down to the station – crossing the landscape, freestyle –riding downhill – little (nonscheduled) awesomeness no 9. Finally we made it and now I´m finished writing this entry. We are at some station in the North waiting to go further. In Boden, next to Luleå we will get onto our night-train to Uppsala where we will be around 6am on Monday – and I have class from 10am to 5pm 
I´ll get back to you later ;)

A few words about the events from the past few months.

I hate it but I have to admit that I was not able to keep my blog here as updated as I tried to. The latest post was about a short interruption of my studies in order to attend at some assessment meeting in Bonn hosted by DAAD. After coming back I had to catch up with courses on the one, my project (which is still not done yet) on the second and with the choir on the third side. This was one cause of my inability to publish new posts on my blog.
Right after I was done with the courses I was back at work within the Icecube employment I was on since January and after 3 days of hard work the supervisor eventually showed up and told me that they replaced us students by a full-time worker in order to hold the deadline. This was really bad to hear but honestly I tried to take care for too many things besides my study – and now there is a new things…
February marked the ending point for the ERASMUS & exchange students staying only for autumn and has indicated also the starting point for the new people arriving from all over the world. Therefore this time was dominated by welcome and good-bye parties – I attended at a few but not really regularly. And I have not been to Värmlands at Friday YET… but this is going to change.
The choir kept me also kind of busy during the last weeks since although I haven’t been accepted for the third Swedish course I had to face negotiating in Swedish – a real hard situation. Summing up everything regarding those issues we had to get money back from the nation since It does not belong to them but the relation between us (the choir) and them (the nation) was never officially stated and so things went terribly wrong during that time. I don’t want to reveal any classified informations here but finally we managed to get our money back and the relation is much better those days. Anyways – this thing took 3 additional meetings (one at Annas place, where I had the unique opportunity to try the Wii  something really exciting.
After singing the famous german “Ode an die Freude” to the strange Kroppkaka in a completely weird Swedish text (about the way the cake tastes) I learned also a few really traditional songs and they are really fancy….
Things have finally settled now to the state that I am trying to stay in Sweden for the next year in order to finish my master-degree. After having a closer look it could be done after the next term already… but I have to figure things out.
My project in which I am involved in latest research in order to find the the magic and not yet seen Higgs-particle came very recently now to a point, where I just need to produce a few more plots and can then start to put everything together into a final report. I should be done right before the meeting in beginning of May. My master-thesis has also been proposed very recently which will be definitely very interesting and worth to invest a lot of time in it – without bothering you with the details.
Ah ya… my bike was working, then it broke, I repair and its broken again. When you ever consider to come to Sweden, don’t be afraid about paying much more for a decent bike than for a crappy one. Which reminds me that I should have send my report about my ERASMUS stay as soon as possible- I prepared everything yesterday and now I wait for a bit more money from HU.
And finally… since Friday 13th (which also was the day of my exam – which took me the full 5 hours – crazy Swedes) I had my really first date… After a hard time of nights and days without sleep, getting hungry and completely screwing other issues I will not talk much longer about “me” but more about “us”. Her name is Hannah and she comes from Uninversity of Purdue in Indianapolis where she studies chemistry with drama as minor. Since she dominates my life from this time, I will dedicate the next post to her.
Hejda allihoppas