Sami Lands

Hello again! It's been a little while since I took the time to share all my adventures with you since I've been very busy these past few days creating all new memories with the best of friends! I wish I could write down every single moment, however, that might turn into a novel, so I will focus on the major events from the past couple of days!

Recently I have been exploring the northern lands of Sweden (yes, even further north than my hometown) with the loveliest, craziest and best exchange students! This is a trip organised through rotary, and we had 40 exchange students. For some of the exchange students, coming so far up north meant almost 20 hours on the train, so a few had a stop off in the wonderful town of Piteå for the weekend. This meant I had the chance to become a tour guide for my host town here, showing Taylor, Graeme, Sarah and Jaymie around! These exchangies are absolutely awesome, and we spent the time enjoying what was left of this winter. Being so warm recently, the snow is quickly melting into ice, which turns out to be rather painful when sledding, as we learnt rather quickly. Literally bouncing down the ice like kangaroos, we had some dramatic crashes and lots of laughs. My host father then picked us up, taking us to his summer house. We had one too many people with us, so I ended up lying across the 3 in the back, trying not to hit my head...I can't say I succeeded. My host parents prepared for us a delicious lunch, and then we were off again, hiking across a lake of ice, running and slipping and sliding! I couldn't believe how smooth the ice was beneath my feet, and how you could simply slide over the top of it. Definitely amazing.

During the evening, my host parents were absolute sweeties, organising another amazing meal, finished with a celebratory dessert to wish us luck during our stay in Kiruna. We then headed off to Sarah's host sister's unit as she had invited us to watch the 'melodifestivalen' finale. This is a very popular singing competition here in Sweden which decides the competitor for Eurvosion. (And for those of you who don't know what that is, it is a big singing competition amongst the Europeans, however, this year we have an Australia represented in the competition by none other than Guy Sebastien! Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!

Our trip up north began with a rushed morning, just catching the bus with less than a minute to lose! Once we arrived on the train, it was so amazing to finally meet some more of the exchangies, particularly, Juli, a girl from Canada who I have been speaking to via facebook for the last couple of months. All of us exchange students forced ourselves to fit in one of the private rooms on the bus, filling every inch until it was impossible to move. Passers by looked on in shock while we waved to them, giving them the famous rotary smile. Finally meeting all these people was so exciting, and I couldn't wait to experience the next few days with them all.

Ben taking an oppurtunity to cover us in snow while
Jaymie and I were distracted with the camera!

We had our first night in Abisko, experiencing the gorgeous landmark known as Lapporten. In this town we were taught to lasso a deer (some of us dropping the lasso in excitement when we succeeded, and thus freeing the fake deer). We were also taken ice climbing, and it is so astounding to really feel how the equipment can hold you securely on a vertical ice wall, and I absolutely loved the thrill of such an amazing experience! Ben, Taylor and I also took a trip down to the frozen lake, practically rolling down the hill! We were also taken to play 'drunk soccer' where we had to run a certain distance with a soccer ball while wearing these goggles which distorted our vision. Did I mention this was in knee deep snow? If you couldn't guess, this was amazing entertainment for the person with the ball and the onlookers. Ben and Jaymie also took part in a spontaneous snowball fight with me which was super fun, and left us completely covered in snow. When I took my shoes off later, I felt like there was more snow in there than feet.

We also spent two nights in Kiruna. Here we visited the gorgeous ice hotel which is recreated every year with all new designs completely made from ice. Each room has its own
style, all of which follow an intricate theme. Just viewing it for a couple of minutes was exciting enough, so I can imagine spending the night there - while very cold - would be worth every penny. We also spent the rest of the day in snowmobiles, more sledding, ice fishing and drunk soccer. It was also Juli's birthday today, so Jaymie, Sarah and I decided to celebrate with an Aussie treat - ANZAC biscuits! We visited the grcoery store, pciking up the ingredients, and had some fun creating enough for all the exchange students. Somehow, Juli managed to miss out. This meant Sarah and I made an attempt to recreate them. however, with the lack of butter, I would have to decsribe the cookie tasting more like baked porridge in the end. Better than nothing, right? I guess my cooking skills stilll have room for improvement.

Well, there was just so much to say about these past few days, and this is only a portion of the activities I've been keeping myself busy with! I have also recently performed  in front of my rotary club, and if anyone is interested in watching, here is the link to a youtube video of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMF6T6YgC6w I have also recently met two other exchange students at my school and will be having fika with them this afternoon! Looking forward to it.