KIRUNA AND LULEÅ (SWEDEN)

Having had enough of the cold, rainy and generally depressing weather of northern Norway, I jumped on a train from Narvik to Lulea and was soon back into Sweden, where the weather wasn't that much better and the scenery possibly worse (flat, forest and woodland with a few nice lakes. At least Norway had mountains !). Whilst initially I planned to spend a few days around Kiruna, the the horrid weather and monotonous landscapes quickly convinced me this would best be put on hold for 'another time'. I eventually arrived in Luleå in the late afternoon and after a chilled out evening in front of the TV I was pleasantly surprised the next day to be greeted by cloudless blue skies and some warm weather. It was certainly nice to see the sun again. I quickly discovered there wasn't a whole heap to do in Luleå, although I did enjoy exploring around the cathedral and a number of forest walking trails situated on the waters edge. It certainly was nice to walk around and take in some of the sights, without having a rain-jacket and 15 jumpers on....

Having seen all there was to see in Luelå I headed further south to the small town of Piteå in which another friend of mine Pontus was studying. Whilst the town was also quite pleasant, it once again provided very little to keep a traveller such as myself occupied for long. Thankfully given that the new University year had just begun upon my arrival, there were a sufficient number of student parties and activities to keep me interested for a few days. In addition I found it nice just relaxing and attending to domestic duties such as washing clothes and emails. On my first night in Piteå I attended the university 'table hockey' competition, which I assumed was going to be 'air-hockey' (at which I am an absolute champion)... Unfortunately however, it turned out the Swedes had invented an ice hokey equivalent of 'Fusball' and as such the game of table hockey involved moving 6 or so players on a small plastic table and trying to get a little puck in the opposition goal. Given my lacking ability at the less technically demanding fusball I was pretty convinced this wasn't something I would succeed at quickly and needless to say, I sucked big time, losing my 2 games 4-0 and 8-0... Thankfully I was able to entertain myself after the 2 losses by drinking beer and was reconciled by the fact that if it had have been a beer-drinking competition I would have blitzed them all.

Photo 1: Landscape around Kiruna (Flat, covered in trees and not much else).
Photos 2-4: Various places around Luleå.
Photo 5: Table hockey game in progress - yes it is as complicated as it looks
Photo 6: Pontus and myself.