Last session of family slides

Trying not to overwhelm everyone with my trip reports, I'm going to set up another blog for those who want to see the photos, etc. I feel a bit like I'm monopolizing this space.
But anyway...

This week, a Finnish coworker and I went to lunch at a hotel restaurant that I've never seen before. We went in and there were 3 items on the special board. The 2nd was a pork cutlett, 3rd was salmon, and the 1st was "blodplatter" ... I think that's what it said. I asked and the lady says in perfect english, it's reindeer blood pancakes...that's right, BLOOD pancakes. The Finn took the pancakes and I said that I'd pass and took the pork. We sat down, got our salads, and then she brought out the entree, my porkchop. Then she sat down a plate with one pancake and 4 pieces of bacon for me saying these were provided compliments of the kitchen and I should try them. Markus (the Finn) said that the blood pancakes were good for you and the bacon is there to balance it out. I tried it, wasn't bad but not my favorite either. I told Markus this and he said he thought they were a little dry; my response was that I didn't think I was ready for a wet/juicy blood pancake.

Later that day, my boss Chris and I drove to Svappavaara to see a pellet plant (they take the iron ore, concentrate it and make little iron briquettes) and then to Kiruna where one of the biggest underground iron mines in the world is located.

This is a photo of the pellet plant (the steam in the background) in Svappavaara.

Nothing really fancy to discuss here, just thought it looked good with the flags and signs.

We drove around town for a bit and then backtracked to the famous "Ice Hotel". It's a hotel made completely out of snow and ice; there are ice sculptures every where, the walls are snow with clear ice for windows. It was -20C by that time, so inside a room of ice seemed warm. There was even a couple from England getting married in the ice hotel. They were in the grand hall of ice sculptures taking pictures; the only said part was the bride was in a dress with bare shoulders...she looked like she was freezing.

This is the ceiling in the chapel at the Ice Hotel...it didn't look like much until you see the pattern.

The pews are all blocks of ice with reindeer hides for covers.

This is the couple getting married. It was a little dark and therefore fuzzy, but I didn't feel like bugging the professional photographer to let me take a shot at it. Between me and the couple are rows of ice sculptures.

This is one of the rows of ice sculptures between me and the happy couple. Is it ok to say she was frigid on her wedding night?

We walked around the hotel, none of the rooms had doors on them, just a shower rod and a velvet curtain. So Chris and I walked around poking our heads into the various rooms to see how they were set up. Only one room had anyone in it at the time we looked! Each room had a different theme, Maori warriors, Polar bears, Northern Lights, etc. One was a bed supported by ice swords. Each bed has a real mattress on top of reindeer skins and then a block "box spring".

This is the footboard for the horse chariot themed room....my camera batteries died about here. They really weren't that bad, but the -20°C temperature seemd to make them die quickly. When you check in, they issue you snowmobile suits

We ate dinner at the restuarant across the street...not made of ice. You could pay $500 per person to take a dog sled out in the forest to see the Northern LIghts and drink Absolute Vodka. We passed and drove on. Along the way, near the Swedish/Norwegian border, we saw an incredible display of the Northern Lights. I'd seen a little of them before and they always reminded me of low lying clouds over Reno with the casino lights reflected off of them. Some of these looked the same as the casino-clouds, but then others were dancing and changing, just like they always describe.

From there, we crossed into Norway and drove down to one of the fjords to the town of Narvik to spend the night. Turns out there's some sort of music festival here this week and all the rooms are booked. We were about to drive 30 min back up the road to a small town to stay at the "Viking Inn" when we checked the last hotel in town. Sure, they have two rooms, smoking on the 4th floor.

This is a photo of the room I got, yes, it's only about 8 feet across (from the door to the back wall) and 12feet from left to right. But, it was better than driving back to the previous town and hoping they had a room or staying at the youth hostel.

In the morning, we drove around and looked around Narvik, Norway. This is a church right near the ports that I thought was interesting.

This makes the town look like it's in the Rockies, but it's really a fjord with huge mountains behind it.

We pulled into a street to take some photos of the port and I saw these mailboxes. Besides the weird picture of a couple kissing beneath a moon and letting their "tails" twist together, I just thought the names on the mailboxes were stereotypically Norwegian.

We drove around town trying to get a good view of the competitor's operations and found the high school. Imagine how hardcore these kids must be to keep the soccer field clean all winter for practice. This is astroturf, but still....

This is Narvik as we were leaving town. Notice how little flat land there is to build anything on. The houses are all on steeps slopes, all the way down to the shore.

Road map on the road back to Lulea from Narvik....thought was an interesting story about King Olaf's road.

This is a mountain I saw as we passed back into Sweden from Norway, about in the same place we saw the Northern Lights the previous night.