Above the Arctic Circle!

So just last night I got back from a week long trip to a small Village called Kiruna, in Sweden. It is about 100 Km above the Arctic Circle, and is known for the famous Ice Hotel. Which is from the picture above. From where I live in Sweden, (Helsingborg) it took us 24 hours by train to get to Kiruna! What a trip!! So the first day we arrived we went straight to the Ice Hotel, and that night I was so tired from the long trip that I went straight to bed....but not before I got a beautiful view of the Aurora Borealis (The Northern Lights) This entire trip, was one that I will defiantly never forget, Kiruna was one of my favorite places I have been to in Sweden. It was such a great trip, with many long lasting memories and some awesome friends I made during that week, from all over the world! I am so thankful that Rotary let us go on this trip, and let us have the opportunity to meet all the other exchange students around Sweden!

This is another awesome picture from the Ice Hotel, it was amazing to see how much detail was put into every different room!
This was on of the days that all of us exchange students (may I mention this is only half of the group, there was about 60 of us exchange students this week) went to a small town called Narvik, in NORWAY! I have to say, that Norway has some amazing nature, and beautiful mountains. It is defiantly a place I will want to come back to in the future!
The Lappland gates in Norway. Just another great view!!!
So Kiruna is known for the mining for iron, and we actually got to go 700 meters down into one of these mins, it was quite scary actually, but lots of cool information! This is a picture in front of one of the machines.

The other things we got to do on the trip besides what I mentioned above is... we actually went out on a frozen lake (that was so frozen deep, you could drive a train across it!) we split into groups, and learned to start a fire on snow, we got to drive snowmobiles, and we did some team races! We also went sledding, and a tour of the town of Kiruna, before we had to say our goodbyes!

Göteborg

Now, I have been in Sweden for almost 3 months, and love it hear, it is getting quite cold, and very grey out all the time, the days are also getting shorter, with the sun going down earlier and earlier everyday, but the best part about this season is... the trees, they are all yellow, red, orange, and some green. I am used to seeing them those beautiful colors on the ground, but here they stay on the trees for quite some time, and it is great! I think even though it is grey and rainy a lot, and getting darker, it is still a beautiful season! Everything here has been going great, I am not just getting living day to day life, and can't complain with anything, I have a great host family, go to a great school, in which I have just changed to fashion design program. I am now in third year, which is the last year of high school here! So that means I will get a prom, and get to graduate! I have great friends in this class, so I am thankful for that! I have also joined a volleyball club, which is so much fun, of course it is quite different from what volleyball I am used to, I like it! & have made many friends from that as well!!

The next few pictures are from this weekend, I went to the 2nd biggest city in Sweden (Göteborg), the first is Stockholm the capital of Sweden, which I will being going there in 3 weeks time! Can't wait! Hope you enjoy!

In Göteborg, they have some great architecture throughout the city, in this picture it is a statue of Poseidon. It was in front of a very nice art museum.

Some very friendly people on the street, it is nice that you can fine this throughout Sweden!
A very "tasteful" Swedish tradition, it is a roll called Kanelbulle, most commonly eaten for 'Fika' this kanelbulle though was probably the biggest ever made (daily) it was bigger than an average human head! How cool! It tasted very great might I add!
& This was a very creative soap store we went in. It had many soaps that looked like foods, like a cheese soap, a chocolate soap, and strawberry, and also many pastry soaps!