Pålnostugan (Pålnohut)

Last weekend, the girls (Camilla and Laura) and I skiied to a hut called Pålnostugan. We started from Tornehamn and skiied on Torneträsk, about 8km, to the hut which was situated in a bay of torneträsk. Camilla brought along her dog (Anok) and her sister's dog (Leigas) and they helped us pull some of our stuff to the hut. Camilla had them attached to a sled and then herself on skiis, stearing them. Well, I don't know about the stearing part of it all. The dogs have some difficulties in knowing what is left and right he he he. The hut was really nice and we had lots of food and some red wine and enojyed our evening there. Camilla slept in her tent as she wanted to test out her new sleeping bag and keep the dogs in there. In the morning I got woken up by two guys kissing me (fourlegged guys!), that was a nice surprise =)

Anyhow here are the photos from our little trip away from Abisko.

Check this out how cool is this! This is Camilla and Anok and Legas out on Torneträsk. I had a go as well, it was great fun. What amazing dogs huskies are! =)

Update from 24th of April

So this is actually the story of Anna-Karin's party in Lainio (Europe's last wilderness according to their website www.lainio.com). Anna-karin is one of Camilla's old school-friends and I first met her at Camilla's birthday party. Camilla and I travelled from Kiruna to Vittangi (the silence) and on the way there you come across this interesting pine tree which is called "suptallen" hence a most to investigate for me he he he. Suptallen means shotpine (as in snaps) and this tree is a nature reserve as here people used to stop on their way to vittangi and take a shot of vodka and let the horses rest before continuing. Apparently the horses got so used to this (having good memory and all that) that they automatically stopped as soon as they approached the pine. I doubt that people stop there for a shot of vodka nowadays but it is a rest stop.




So once in Lainio, just outside Vittangi, (a smaller village than Abisko can you believe it!!!) there is only one road going through the village and most people have some type of work associated with the "wilderness" such as raindeer herding. We arrive to this small cottage where the party is at, and it is a lovely cottage with an adjacent sauna house.








The cottage, lovely place but no water or plumbing in there.











The sauna viewed from the cottage, in the early morning hours.













Anna-Karin had a friend that played both the accordion and....










..... guitar. He had a huge set of songs that he could play and we were given a song-text compendium to sing along. Some of the songs were in finish though and the only thing I master in finish is kippis which means cheers. However, after a few beers my finish was improving (or at least I thought so he he he). It is worth mentioning that Lainio is in tornedalen where tornedalsfinish is common. This is a type of finish-swedish language more like finish than swedish though.








Anna-karin and Maria, singing along.











Camilla and party crew.











So as there was no water in the cottage we had to walk outside and into a nearby house to go to the toilet. Here is Camilla early in the morning, doing her morning (or goodnight exercise....). Reminds me of these characters (stick people) you used to draw when you were little on seperate pieces of paper and when you moved them dead quick together it looked like the character were moving arms or legs. Anyhow you get the idea.... and isn't Camilla's pyjamas cute =)









Inside the cottage this big thing was on the wall which the owner of the cottage had dragged back from Canada. He actually shot this moose over there and managed to transport it back to Sweden....











Early morning, Camilla on the accordion.... she was good on that. A potential new career maybe....












Well, if Camilla can.... then I can....

Easter festivities

OK now it has been awhile since I wrote something but finally I get around to it... At the moment I am at my mums place and as you may or may not know she bought a house not long ago. So now she is such a happy house owner and I enjoy being here in the big house he he he. We had a great easter with lots of food (of course) and also some snaps (which I get forced to drink as this is an old Swedish tradtion according to my mum's Swedish history). I also made my huge chocolate cake, mum asked me to make it and this cake is just silly as it has about 2kg of sugar in it!!!! It is very yummie though I must say. Otherwise the weather has been rather cold but with some sunshine so a few sunrays have hit my face. Mum did my highlights the other day and they turned out ok a few too many on top of my head so I look like a "ljushuvud" (light-head not a great translation but anyhow). Tomorrow I have my first driving lesson in Sweden, I am a bit nervous about it. I tried to get my drivers licence in the UK and failed 3 times!!! So understandably I am a bit so so about driving. However I really want my licence and have to try and get it this summer.
Yesterday I was chatting and seeing my aussie friends (Benny, Tb and Watto) over skype. Man you have to love the internet! I was showing them around my mums place (the beauty of wireless and an inbuilt camera) and chatted to them for awhile, cool fun.
Workwise, things are OK however my trip to Umeå was a bit of a downer as I had the wrong electron microscope grids and had to order some new ones and they were meant to arrive with express delivery. We ordered them on the monday (from the UK) and they turned up at lunch time on the friday!!! So if you ever want express delivery don't ever use fedex as they suck arse! So this means I have to go down to Umeå again to run the electron microscope. Time is going so quickly and I have not got much time left in Abisko so have to get all my work done before finishing there, so I will be busy busy.
Martin my ex flatmate in Lund, now has a blog (http://martindkarlsson.blogspot.com/). He is in Dublin at the moment so check it out.







Putting the icing on the chocolate cake...















Ahhhh I lurv chocolate!