Hej då Porjus

Well the Swedish adventure comes to an end :((( Tomorrow I will get the train from Gällivare (Sweden) to Narvik (Norway) plus one bus to Harstad...

So tomorrow is a day into the transports!

But the 29 th on 8:00 AM I will be boarding of the Hurtigruten, going from Fjord to Fjord, I am really thrilled about that, discovering new landscapes constantly, let's hope the weather won't be so gray than the last 2 days in Porjus.

I did not made much of these 2 days, a little walking around, reading, resting... But I also did get some photography of the older man I mention in my early post. His name is Björn, I did buy some extra smoked salmon for my last Swedish meal.

cracker and salmon, umm sooo good!


Despite gray weather, one can always make some pictures, here are some clouds and the last sun flares of the day:




Puss

Jokkmokk - Sápmi culture and art

Hi there, try to make some posts in between the northern light activity of this evening, which is not so strong unfortunately (Kp indice is 2).

The past 2 days were occupied by renting a car in Jokkmok (I have it until Friday morning) I could experience driving on an ice road, all the cars are using spikes wheals, so it still has a god adherence to the road.

In Jokkmok, I was in the Sápmi Museum, for 5 hours, I do know much more about the culture of the native people living in the north of Scandinavia (not only in Sweden, Sami are also part of Russia, Finland and Norway)

Here is their colorful flag...


The Sami had many rituals and specific clothing depending on the region they come from. But nowadays, there are more looking like you and me :)

here is a picture of the different clothing trends depending on the Sweden region where these people live:




The Sami ritual was oriented around drums, each family own it's own Drum. But the Shaman was the holy man of Sámi society.

He (occasionally she), functioned as doctor, adjudicator, religious specialist or advisor through the gift of being able to contact the gods or the dead in the spiritual world.

For the Christian, the Sámi drum was the manifest evidence of heathenism. Mass confiscation of drum was a method the authorities hoped would wipe out the ancient religion.

--
Ájtte's exibition guide

Here is one of the 70 drums existing today:


Some of the sápmi people still live from their reindeer horde which provide meat (money from the slaughter house), fur, and eventually the horn is used for making knife or jewelry.

Nowadays, the community has become sedentary, since the transportation (car, snowmobile, ...) are more convenient so that people do not have to follow the reindeer. Many of the wealth from Sweden comes from the Sápmi region, which were long exploited ignoring the Sápmi and there opinions.

I could also notice some wonderful painting at the museum gift shop, the work of Lars Pirak and it's amazing painting (actually one special technique is used: Lirografier)




more to read about him at: http://www.pirak.se/index_eng.html
Lars Pirak died 2 years ago, but I had the chance to meet his son, Mikael Pirak, who is following his father steps


Hejdo

Ice Hotel

Well today's attraction was the Jukkasjärvi ICE hotel ;) imagine a whole new world where almost (some doors are from glass or reindeer fur) everything is made from ice...

Quite amazing what some people can do with frozen water, so during daytime, the hotel is like a museum, quite expensive ~ 25€ entrance fee, but you can experience the new concept by visiting all rooms and different suites.

The suites are personalized by several artists, leaving their touch in the room, which makes it interesting. Enough with talking, here are some pictures.











The last picture is one of the Absolut (Vodka) ice bar, where even the glass are made of ice!

Here is the price list per "normal" (no Valentin's day or other special occasion) night:
1250 SEK ~ 125 €, for a snow room, without ice decoration, like an igloo ;).
1350 SEK ~ 135 €, for an ice room, containing some basic ice decoration.
1700 - 5700 SEK ~ 170 - 570 €, for an art suite room, fully decorated with ice.

cool you down? quite exotic, but probably original !

http://www.icehotel.com

Sweden winter landscapes

Hej Hej, march 21st, it's spring time!!! Well not everywhere I guess! We had 20 cm of fresh snow the past to days, and the temperature is about 13 bellow zero at night.

Anyway, today Patricia organized an amazing trip toward the Norwegian Border in the direction of the "Sarek" National park.


Visa större karta

The sun was shining, offering us wonderful winter landscapes, between forest, ice and mountains...

Here is a selection, chill out before starting a new week :)








Two more things which I want to tell you, it is really common in Sweden to get coffee is often made in bigger quantities and keep warm in cafetiere like on the following picture! The prices varies from 15 to 20 Swedish krone and usually they offer to refill your cup ;)

Well for the french people out there following this blog, here you can get a very large assortment of crackers "Biscottes", but unfortunately no wasa brand (http://www.ina.fr/pub/alimentation-boisson/video/PUB412490083/wasa-le-sauna.fr.html) :(

post comments with/without a google account

Well, as I get some more visitors who wish to post comments on this blog but do not know how to proceed, here is a short tutorial for using an google account or an OpenID.

1. click on the x comments link down a post

2. choose your profile method between google account or OpenID



3. having an google account?

Write you comment and click Post Comment button, enter your google login and password if asked (meaning you are not already logged in gmail or other google service)

3 (bis). You do not have an Google account, use an openID account?

Well it is never too late to create one at: http://gmail.com

for the people wondering want an OpenID is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID

and here are the different ways to get one:
http://openid.net/get-an-openid/

I now explain how to register on one of these provider...

3.1 click to the following link:
https://pip.verisignlabs.com/

3.2 click on "get Started now" and fill up the form with your information, here is an example:

click on "Create Account", an confirmation email will be send to your inbox.

3.3 Now you can select the OpenID profile, and type your URL like in the following example:

IMPORTANT:
the http:// is required otherwise you may get some error message:
Your OpenID credentials could not be verified.

If you do not already have complete your basic information for the blogspot.com website the following windows will show up: fill it up and click on "allow" (this will remember your OpenID profile on the blogspot.com website).


Finally you will get a preview with a "Word verification" process, click on the "Post comment" button to validate your comment.


Here we are...
Have fun posting ;)

Norrsken (Northern lights)

Hi everyone,

well I did upload some pictures of the northern light to my picasa web album, but did not actually post something about these on the blog...
So here we are, I was lucky to get high altitude activity on my first night here in Porjus, so against the harsh temperature far bellow zero I tried to capture the phenomena...

Unfortunately I was not so well trained, so the pictures are certainly not good enough, I hope I get some more tries in the following days...

Now before giving you the pictures, some important thing about the Aurora Borealis, I did not know until I saw it from myself... Our human eye does not permit to see much color into the sky, so we only see some white (OK, sometimes greenish) clouds up in the sky, but as soon as you take pictures with your camera, the sensibility is really high so you will notice all kind of different colors...

here we go:







I am hoping to share more trying new techniques out the next time the sky begins to dance ;)

take care

Stockholm City Hall

Hi everybody,

as the weather in Porjus got worse today, I profit to make some additional posts on this blog...
While staying in Stockholm we do visit the famous place where the Nobel price reception take place every year: the city hall.

We did take a 40 minutes tour with Simone, the guide was really good and here are some trivia:

the blue hall (where the Nobel price dinner take place) is not blue but red :) The architect initial plane was to pain it all blue, but the beautiful brick color made him change his mind not to paint them blue.



The word "Windows" (wind ow) comes from the vikings architecture roofs:

This is also the place where the political decisions are made:



The golden hall (10 kg of gold used in mosaic) was realized by a 23 old Swedish architect who alone would have taken 7 years, but with 100 People helping him day and night, it was finished in 4 months...



Nevertheless the guide pinpointed us some "big" mistake:
1. only 2 crowns instead of 3 where represented
2. the head of the king is missing

The architect had the following excuses:
1. it is a perspective view, the 3rd crown cannot be visible
2. after all the king was decapitated by the danish :)

finally here the saint Eric extracted from the wall of the city hall:

St. Patrick's day at Porjus i Jokkmok kummune

Bye Bye Stockholm, Simone, Hans, Madeleine, Louise, Philip, Léon, Zelda...
...Hej Hej Porjus, Patricia, Aurora Borealis


It is not without a pinch to my heart that I left Stockholm, taking the night train to Gällivare... I did have the chance to travel with 2 Spanish people one ERASMUS guy and his girlfriend, in a 6 bed compartment we had enough place 8)

I did arrive in Porjus his morning at 10, with great weather conditions: snow, sun and clear sky!
The day started with grabbing some food and scouting the surroundings, I was able to discover that Porjus (almost as many inhabitants than Oberhergheim) has a Golf, well not practicable now, an hotel, an huge watter power plant, an "ICA" supermarket, doctor, dentist ...

I also meet an older guy selling smoked fish, reindeer meat, frozen fish, all sort of furs, souvenirs, ... It was interesting to talk with him knowing a lot from Porjus, and the Sami (natives) community...

Here some interesting prognoses about the next nights...

"This green corona lit up the night sky over the weekend," reports photographer Fredrik Broms of Kvaløya, Norway. "It was absolutely breathtaking--and the best may be yet to come!"

He's right. A coronal mass ejection (CME) is heading toward Earth and it could spark strong geomagnetic activity when it arrives on March 17th or 18th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

Let's hope for the best these upcoming nights!


here some pictures of Porjus:

snow motor bike are commonly used:

The place where I am staying the 2 next weeks: