The Apprentice Returns

It's back!  My favourite show is back - The Apprentice!  And no, I don't mean the Donald Trump-over-the-top-and-ever-so-slightly-pretentious version, no, this is the pommy version, with Sir Alan Sugar and his two cronies, Margaret and Nick.

I first started watching this about 2 years ago when Mum and Dad visited, and we got really hooked.  They say that Donald Trump is quite formidable when he's in the boardroom about to fire someone, but having seen both the Yankee version and the Pommy version I have to say that I think Sir Alan gives him a run for his money.

Anyway, you can check it out for yourself if you like, with the BBC's iplayer.  The only thing is, each episode is only available for a week after it first airs, which is a bit of a pain, but it still means if I have to miss it I can catch up before the next week...

Here's a youtube of the firing from this week's episode:

Easter in London

Like last year, this year I found myself again celebrating Easter in London - although this time without Mum unfortunately.

Because the Easter weekend this year fell very early (and apparently won't be this early again for another 150 years or so), it meant that the weekend was actually separate from the school holidays. That therefore meant that not so many people from church would be away for the weekend, so the decision was made to put all the music groups on. As I conduct the kid's band, and they were to perform on the Sunday, I therefore was unable to go away for the weekend.

So I decided, alongside with a few others from the church (Ira, Jean and Tom) to go attend the Good Friday service at St Paul's Cathedral. We got the train together from Sutton early on Friday morning because I was afraid there would be quite a queue for the service, but unlike last year at Westminster Abbey, there was not. The service itself though was very good, the music lovely (although I thought the boys lacked a bit of oomph, to be fair). They sang Allegri's Miserere, one of my favourites, and it was just beautiful. In that environment, the acoustic has an 11 second delay if you are underneath the Dome, as we were, so the sounds just meshed together like a woven tapestry and enveloped us. Just gorgeous.

Afterwards we went for a bit of lunch and a nice long chat, before we headed off on our separate ways. I would have to say, you wouldn't have known it was Good Friday though - all the shops open, the streets, shops, cafes and restaurants all packed to the brim full of people - Oxford St as busy as it ever is. I couldn't believe it...how times have changed... I had even managed to book myself a training session at the Apple Store as part of my personal "One to One" service that I took out when I bought my Mac.

But before this, on the way to my training, I had made arrangements to meet up with Agnieszka for a coffee at Piccadilly Circus - and while I was waiting there for her I encountered Regent Hall Salvation Army Band and Songsters, giving their annual open air service for Easter outside Lillywhites. That's when I realised that in some circles, times haven't changed at all... At North Brisbane SA, or even Sutton SA, the concept of an open air service at any time of the year is now completely absurd, let alone an open air where everyone is out in full uniform singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" or some such. I don't really know how I feel about this, as on the one hand I do think its time for the Salvation Army to move forward, but then part of me gets a bit nostalgic for those 'good old days' - especially when I think back to dawn services (as much as we moaned about them) on Easter Sunday, or Anzac Day marches and the like. In a way it's really quite sad to lose all of that, but as society changes, unless the Salvation Army reinvents itself and becomes relevant to today, there may not be a Salvation Army in the future...

It was really quite strange to watch the old open air 'formula' running - some of us remember how it was - you had the band over on one side, caps on (but off for the prayer), standing in proper band formation, the a couple of lady songsters off to the left in their own little group, the dodgy PA that cut out every other word whilst the CO and the Cadet gave a totally staged and totally predictable 'testimony interview' (with the band yawning or talking to each other behind them). I had such mixed emotions about it all, on the one hand delight to see an open air again, and on the other hand a real sense of complete and utter irrelevance to society. About the most amusing thing about the whole thing was when halfway through some band rendition of "O Sacred Head Once Wounded" (or something similar) the heavens absolutely opened up, hail came pinging down hard on all of us, and within 30 seconds the band had wrapped it all up on the 2nd verse, gotten into formation, double tapped on the bass drum and promptly about-faced out of there! And of course, the minute they did, the rain and hail stopped - this is England after all...

(the video was taken on my mobile phone so the quality is pretty rubbish, sorry).

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful, few errands to run on Saturday and then on Sunday my little kids played in the morning meeting. Because they only know a few notes, we did a simple little arrangement of 'Were you there', with the Senior Band taking over the last verse and helping us out. But that had it's comedy moments too - not at the actual performance, but 3 days before...

You see, I had actually done the arrangement of the piece on my lovely Mac using Sibelius, and had spent some time at school on Thursday afternoon doing a few refinements in preparation for the rehearsal that evening. I don't have a printer at home so all the printing was done at school before I raced down to the hall for the rehearsal. Rehearsal came, went, and was good - and then I got chatting afterwards and promptly forgot to pack up all the music. It wasn't until 11pm that night when I went to play through the arrangement on Sibelius again (just before I went to bed) that I realised I had accidentally deleted it (how?! I don't know!), and then realised that all the printed music was still sitting on the chairs in the hall - and the chances of it being there still on Sunday were extremely slim. What to do? So, I raced down to the Hall in my pajamas (the hall is only a few minutes away from where I'm living), got into the main building with my key - but the main hall was locked and I couldn't get in! I tried every door, but to no avail. As I was pondering my plight (now 11.30 or so pm), standing in the main foyer, a car pulled up, headlights flash in - and I am caught like a kangaroo in the beam! Fortunately it was the minister's daughter, taking advantage of the free parking at the church. Alas, she had no key to the main hall, but was able to make arrangements with her dad for me to get the music the next day... what a relief! Just what she made of me standing there in my blundies and PJ's though, I'll never know... nor do I want to...

No Longer Homeless

Quick update for you all.  I am no longer homeless.

I'm currently lodging with a lovely little ol' lady from church, Jean.  She's fabulous, a real go-getter, and we're having a great laugh!

About flippin' time, too!

My landlady Jean

The living room

My room

Much Ado About Nothing

The other day the English department at school ran a trip to the Globe theatre for Yr 9 students to see 'Much Ado About Nothing'.  Nathan, the Head of English, had put a sign up in the staffroom asking for staff to come and help out, and as I was free in the lessons they were going in, I said I would help.  I mean, free trip to the Globe, see some good Shakespeare.... ok, I'd have to do a bit of work, looking after the munchkins, but it shouldn't be so bad.

You'd think.  First of all, and I did know this, but forgot - it was a school's matinee.  For a Shakespearean play that many London schools are doing as their set work for the end of Yr 9 SATs exams.  This meant that the whole place was absolutely packed with schoolchildren.  But not just any schoolchildren, no - these are children who don't have any clue, not a single one, on how to behave at the theatre.  And to cap it all off, their teachers were complete and utter dipsticks, clearly incapable of shutting a few kids up and so on, and clearly with no level of common sense, as I will explain later.

We got there and queued outside - all 150 of us - when suddenly up rocks this all girls Muslim school, in red uniforms and red headscarves, and they all proceed (even the dopey teachers) to push in ahead of us for no apparent reason.  Just barging on through, no common courtesy at all.  They were followed by another school, this time young boys, who did exactly the same.  Now it could've been that there was a specific entry time for each school, but I doubt it.  I have a feeling that they just thought they could barge past, as we were still faffing around with trying to hand out tickets.

Which brings me to the next point.  We were lucky, we did have seats, but they were so high up and right around to the side that you could hardly see anything.  Couple that with the fact that they don't use microphones at the Globe, and this is compounded by the hundreds of schoolchildren who don't understand the play, won't shut up for the performance and sit there eating packets of chips loudly and heckling at every available opportunity, and you can begin to have a glimpse of my afternoon.

I have absolutely no idea what the play is about.  Obviously 'nothing', that's a given from the title.  I spent the whole time going around various groups of our kids and getting them to shut up.  This was no mean feat, I tell you - because of where our seats were, the girls had a pretty good vantage point to check out everyone else below, including all the boys from the other schools!  You put a bunch of hyperactive, oversexed teenage girls on a balcony looking down at pimply teenage boys and they all go weak at the knees and start hyperventiliating.  Literally, one girl did that.  You'd've thought they'd never seen a boy before in their lives!  And talk about Much Ado About Nothing...  we had to practically form a human baricade when the play finally finished, as 150 girls en masse try to practically mug this boy they'd (get this) ALL BEEN LOOKING AT during the play.

I tell you, I was just relieved when it was all over and we got back to school...

Mission: Impossible

So when I left off we were catching the overnight train to Stockholm.  This was the journey we'd tried to change a few times and eventually had managed to do so at the Ice Hotel, courtesy of the lovely Johanna on reception.  The only problem was that by the time we managed to change our tickets, the compartments were filling up pretty quick and we couldn't get one together, but just next door to each other. That was ok, the conductor told us when the other people in the compartments would be arriving so we knew we could hang out in the same compartment til at least midnight.

So we settled in for the journey.  But to be honest, there isn't a real lot to do on the train, once you've read your one book that you brought.  We watched a bit of South Park on Jun's ipod, ate some food, and then the boredom set in - which was when Jun had a brainwave... cue the Mission Impossible music... to commandeer the train destination signs of his favourite places in Sweden... so we spent some time dodging the train conductor and 'borrowing' the signs from the ends of the carriages where they were kept.  It was really funny, because at one point we got back to our compartment, and Jun opened the door - only to find it wasn't our compartment!  There were people inside watching a DVD!  Hahaha...

Anyway, eventually we settled in for the night - well, I tried to, but I kept being woken up by phone calls from home on account of even though it was the 22nd in Sweden, it was now the 23rd in Australia, and thus my birthday.  Tried to sleep after this, but the train was noisy and I really didn't get much sleep at all.  All too soon the train was pulling into Stockholm and it was time for Mission: Impossible II - breakfast.

Do you think we could find a nice little cafe for a nice breakfast?  Do you think anything was open?  No, it's a Saturday, why would anything be open in the capital at 7 in the morning?  We eventually found a small cafe that did sandwiches, which is what we ended up with for breakfast, then we made our way into the centre of town for Mission: Impossible III:  to find the Design Torget store so Jun could get his bag.  We eventually found it - but it didn't open til 10!  This was a bit of a problem as Jun needed to be on the bus to the airport at 11ish latest... and we had to find a photo store to copy his photos for me...would we have enough time?

Eventually the store opened, Jun got his bag, and I got a set of very funky mugs, and then we sprinted off in search of a photo store - not as easy as we had hoped, but after asking around we eventually found it.  Got the photos burned to CD, raced back to the bus stop - and Jun made his bus.  Phew!  Time for a quick goodbye, and he was off.

After that, I made my way into Gamla Stan, which is one of my favourite parts of Stockholm, and treated myself to a nice lunch in one of the pubs there, before heading off to see the Vasa Museum.  I thought I'd been there last time I was in Stockholm, but I hadn't, and as it's one of the most important museums to see there, I thought it best to go have a look.  The Vasa was a Medieval ship that sunk, like the Mary Rose, on its maiden voyage in 1628, because it was top heavy and had insufficient ballast.  It remained hidden for centuries until it was found in the late 1950s, in extremely good condition, and was raised in 1961.  The wood was specially treated and so on, like they're doing to the Mary Rose today, and eventually it went on display in the museum.  It was really quite spectacular to see - Dad, you would really love this.

By this time it was now late afternoon, so I did a bit of shopping, went to the train station and used the internet for a bit, killing time, until about 8.30pm when a bunch of drunk hooligans came over and started hassling me a bit.  So I left and got the earlier bus out to the airport.

It took about an hour to get there and basically I killed time until the restaurant where Jun and I had slept on the first night closed, and then I made my way up there and settled in for the night.

Next morning was an early start - had to be in the queue at 6am, went through security and onto the flight back to London.

It had been an absolutely amazing trip, one that I enjoyed immensely and certainly will not forget for some time... 

Partying in Pajala; Hip Hop n Happening in Haparada; Let Loose in Lulea

We woke up fairly leisurely on Wednesday and made our way back into the village because we had seen a tourist information bureau there the night before, and seeing as we had nearly had no accommodation last night because all hotels were closed, we thought we should ask if the tourist information could phone on ahead and see if there was anything available in Pajala, our intended destination.  Fortunately the clerk at the tourist information was very obliging, and managed to book us a room in the Pajala youth hostel - all we would have to do would be to phone when we arrived in town.

The church in Karesuando

So we set off.  Not far out of Karesuando we saw a sign for a lookout spot, so we decided to drive up there.  We had barely gone a few metres and lo and behold, you wouldn't read about it.  We got bogged again.  Now at this point, I do have to point out one small little fact - I was not  the one driving the car!

Problem - this time we are well and truly out in the middle of nowhere - no good Samaritan snowmobilers in sight... what are we to do?  

Nothing for it I guess, but to dig our way out, with our bare (well, gloved) hands.  Oh boy was it cold!  But fortunately we were successful, and we made it on our way.

Until we saw a cute little field a little farther up the road.  Hey, we're in Sweden, right, surrounded by snow, the only objective of the day is to get to Pajala by nightfall... we can take a little time out for a snow fight, right?  So we did!

The rest of the day was spent driving to Pajala - at only a few hundred kilometres you'd think this would be achieved in 1, maybe 2 hours - but with the extremely icy conditions, the going is real slow.  Plus we like to stop and take photos... so pretty much it took the whole day to get there.

To be honest, there isn't much to do in Pajala.  Apparently it has the world's largest sundial, so large though, that we couldn't find it.   There's also a big owl statue there, this has something to do with the fact that a specific species of owl is native there, or something like this.

Anyway, we phoned up the guy for the hostel and then made our way to meet him.  He let us into our room - a cute little cabin in the woods, overlooking the frozen river.  The cabin had a cute verandah, and one room consisting of 4 bunk beds, a kitchen table, kitchen, and bathroom.  It was really quite sweet.  No TV mind, but then that's ok, maybe tonight I'll catch up on my reading, or my travel diary.

No chance.  After we cooked up some dinner we chatted the whole evening away.  I didn't think it was possible to talk that much, but it sure was pleasant, and I enjoyed myself.

The next day we spent a very enjoyable morning taking portrait photos in the snow near the cabin, before heading into town to see if the tourist information could book us accommodation in Haparanda, our destination.  Amazingly, they could!

We then leisurely set about driving to Haparanda.  Again, extremely icy roads made the going a little slow, but we made relatively good time to Overtornea, where we stopped for a hamburger for lunch.  On the way we encountered some reindeer crossing the road, lots of reindeer and moose signs and so on.  Don't know how effective this sign was though, nearly covered in snow!  That really was the height of the snow at the side of the road!

We made it to Haparanda by nightfall.  Haparanda is also on the border with Finland, which has a border town too - Tornio.  Effectively they are both the same town, but the Finnish side, Tornio, is much more developed - Haparanda is more like the sticks.  We popped in to Tornio, as the party atmosphere in Haparanda was just too much for us to handle (not!) - no, all the shops were closed, so we thought we'd stand a better chance in the much more lively Tornio, however being an hour ahead, their shops were closed too.  So we drove around for a bit, and then headed back to Haparanda.

We stayed in the youth hostel in Haparanda and were effectively the only guests, other than 2 old men.We met one of the guys when we went into the kitchen to cook.  This bloke made Grizzly Adams look sexy, I tell you.  Balding, but with a seriously overgrown beard, and an unkempt appearance.  He was sitting there, going through the paper - the next morning when we saw him (at the same table) he was making phone calls so I expect he was probably looking for work or something... The irritating thing about him, and his mate, is that they didn't clean up after themselves - leaving crumbs and bits of bread and cheese on the benches (after having cut them without a bread board) after I had just wiped them down... oh well, you get that sometimes in hostels...

I decided to have a shower after dinner and headed off to the ladies.  The ladies showers were like a big changing room in the gym - there was a huge room for changing and hanging up your towels, but only 2 showers - and neither of them were in separate, lockable cubicles or had shower curtains - they faced each other.  What is it with the Scandinavians (or even the Germans, I remember from my German hostel experiences) and au naturale showers in hostels?  Huh?  Anyway, there was a door leading off the main changing area (adjacent to the shower head), and me, being naturally inquisitive, went and had a look.  It lead to the sauna - but get this, it must've been a unisex sauna, because the door on the other side lead to the men's showers!  And it wasn't locked, or lockable... which means that even though I had locked the main door to the 'ladies showers', any Tom, Dick or Grizzly Adams would be able to walk in on me in the nick in the ladies through the sauna door!  Suffice to say I was real quick in the shower, I tell you!

The next morning we decided to have a quick look around the church at Haparanda, as it has the dubious honour of being voted as Sweden's Ugliest Church!  Have a look for yourself, the thing looks like an airline hangar!  It was nice enough inside though...

We then left Haparanda and made the relatively short (by our standards) drive back to Lulea.  We made very good time and that meant that I would have enough time to return my sheets which I had 'borrowed' from the youth hostel at the beginning of the week.  The only problem was, we didn't know if the hostel dude would be in the place or not, so how could I sneak the sheets back in if he was?  But luck was with us, for as we were filling the car up in the petrol station, who should cycle past but the hostel dude!  The coast was clear, Jun stayed with the car, and I ran across the road to return the sheets.  This was fraught with danger though, as the snow had begun to melt and the ice was very slippery as a result.  I managed to get in the front door of the hostel building with the code from our previous stay, but he must've changed the inner door code, as it wouldn't work!  Crap!  What to do, what to do?  So I just chucked the sheets on the ground and took off...!  

We spent the afternoon in Lulea looking for a bag that Jun wanted to buy from a place called Design Torget, but to no avail.  We then headed off to the train station, parked the car and returned the keys before catching the overnight train to Stockholm...

In Search of Northern Lights

After our experience with ice lake driving and the car, we thought it best to make our way out of Jukkasjarvi and head on for the most northern village in Sweden, Karesuando.  This town is on the border with Finland - in fact it's Finnish counterpart is called Karesuvanto - and the towns are separated by a bridge crossing a river. 

Anyway, I don't really know what we were thinking, heading off into the wilderness of northern Sweden without a whisper of a room reservation, but we did it, because we were aiming to find northern lights again tonight, and of course you need a cold, cloudless sky.  All afternoon we'd been surrounded by clouds and so we kept heading to the Northeast, which looked relatively clear. We arrived in Karesuando well after dark, and set off in search of the hostel we'd seen mentioned in the guidebook. The only problem was, when we eventually found the hostel, we discovered that it is only open in the Summer. Now what you have to understand is that Karesuando is literally a "don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it"-sized town, and as such there was only one other hotel - and it too was closed. The nearest town (other than Finnish Karesuvanto) was literally a few hundred clicks away... what were we to do? We drove into Finland to look for something - but couldn't find a hotel (and anyway, we didn't have any euros), so it was starting to get a bit panicky. We pulled into a grocery store to ask about any other forms of accommodation in town, and were told about a motel over the road. This being our only option, off we went, and managed to get a large room with a TV and kitchen.

Jun cooked up a fabulous meal and then we decided to go out and look for northern lights. There were lots of clouds over Sweden, but in the distance Finland looked clear, so we crossed the bridge and headed off into Finland.  We headed as far out of the town as we could, trying to find the darkest part (and clearest sky).  I'm glad we did too, we were treated to the best display of Northern lights that we'd seen yet on this trip. I've heard before that the northern lights can appear as if they were dancing across the sky - and I have to say it certainly did look like that. They were literally changing shape as we were looking at them.  We had a lot of fun trying to capture them on camera, but boy was it cold! At one point I saw that it had hit -16 or so outside... my fingers were so cold it was painful!

We stayed out for an hour or two and then headed back to the motel. I went to bed, but the bed was an old camp bed, and the mattress was a foam one like the old one at Mum and Dad's - it had certainly seen better days.  You lay down on it and sunk into the middle, the sides folding up and enclosing you in like a strange cocoon. I tried to sleep, but I woke up at 3am in absolute agony, so I packed up my sheets and went into the living room, lying down on the sofa. We'd been told that there was only one other guest at the motel, a long term resident, who would be no bother. So what was he doing yelling out at the top of his lungs at 3am in the morning? Then he started walking up and down the corridor outside, stomp, stomp, stomp - for no apparent reason.  It was actually pretty scary.  Suffice to say I didn't get much sleep that night...

The Tale of Jun, a Volvo and The Torne River...

As I said in my earlier posts, we spent Monday night in the Ice Hotel, which was a truly amazing experience. We then spent much of the next day, Tuesday, wandering around the Ice Hotel, taking more photos of the rooms, wandering around on the frozen, and exploring the gift shop. It had been a lovely experience and I didn't want to leave.

But we had to press on towards our next destination. There was just one more thing to do before we went - Jun really wanted to have a go driving the car on the frozen river - the Torne. He asked about it at reception and found out there was a 'road' across the river to the little town the other side, so we decided to go for it. It was great too, Jun really let the car rip and it literally felt like we were flying. When we got to the other side, I suggested that I walk back out onto the lake and video Jun driving past, and then we should swop and I could have a go driving on the ice. This suggestion was met with great enthusiasm and off I went to get into position. Jun revved up the car and came flying past, carrying on for some distance on the ice.

Another car came onto the ice I saw Jun in the distance pull off to the side and allow the car to pass. I thought he was going to do a u-turn then, and come back for me, but he didn't. I called out, but he didn't make a move. Crap, I thought. Does he really expect me to walk all the way down there back to the car?

So I called out again - still no movement. Then just as I thought I would have to go down there, a snowmobile came past, approached Jun and the car - and then I saw the guy get off the mobile. Hang on, what's going on here?

Turns out the car was bogged! The problem with snow and ice is that it looks very deceptive - you can't actually see how thick or deep it is until you're in it. So whilst it looked like the snow was level with the path we'd been following, it clearly wasn't. The snowmobile guy and Jun both tried to dig the car out, but to no avail. There was nothing for it, we had to go back to the Ice Hotel, where we would have to call for help. The snowmobile guy gave us a lift - it was really cool flying over the ice going back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel they were magnificent, they called one of the 4wd guys and he came back out to have a look at our situation. He came prepared with a tow rope - but the only problem was we didn't have a tow bar! Nonetheless he managed to loop the rope over something, dig a bit, and then pull us out with the 4wd. And it didn't cost us a thing!

Just as well...

It might not look like it, but this car is well and truly bogged!

The rescue mission

Ice Hotel Slideshow

I will be over the next few weeks editing a movie about Jun's and my trip to Sweden, but in the meantime here's a little slideshow I prepared of our visit to the Ice Hotel...

Enjoy!

It's just a shame that for me to upload it, it has to be such rubbish quality! Oh well...

Kylie On The Rocks

Ok, well I know it's not the most inventive title, probably sounds a bit strange - but you know how they use the phrase 'on the rocks' when you are having ice in your drink? So this post, being about the Ice Hotel, needed to have some sort of mention of 'ice' in it, but "Kylie on Ice" conjures up visions of crystal meths... not exactly the image I want to have out there... hence "On the Rocks" it is... although next you'll be telling me that's a reference to something else dodgy... alas...

Monday morning and we got up relatively early, because we had a few errands to run (try to change the train tickets and so on) and because I was anxious to get to the Ice Hotel as soon as possible - for me, this was the whole purpose of the trip.

We went to the train station, alas the ticket office there has been closed for 2 years, so we tried the Tourist Information - but they were unable to change the ticket and instead gave us a phone number that didn’t work. So we gave up, and left Kiruna for the short journey to Jukkasjarvi, home of the Ice Hotel. Fortunately when we got to the Ice Hotel the staff there went above and beyond the call of duty and managed to sort out our train tickets for us - phew! Now we don't have to worry...

I had been to the Ice Hotel in February 2004, and I was keen to see it again. The Ice Hotel is built every year in the same location, on the banks of the Torne River (with ice from that river). The ice in the Torne river is exceptionally clean, free from impurities - in fact they make the ice glasses in the ice bar out of that same ice, which means theoretically you are drinking the river when you use those glasses. Every year the hotel is built in November, open for guests from December, and melts away around April (although now they free large portions of it in a giant warehouse built onsite for the purpose).

Anyway, we arrived mid-morning and headed off to reception to check in. The Ice Hotel actually consists of both warm and cold accommodation - the reception area, toilets / showers, sauna, changing facilities, restaurants are in the warm accommodation (plus warm bedrooms if you choose to book one of those). At reception we checked in, then were told to go down to the ‘dressing room’ next to the Ice Hotel, where we would be issued with a jumpsuit, mittens, snow shoes, snow hat, and a locker for our luggage. Obviously, you don’t keep anything in your room at night - this is because first of all there are no doors to the room, just a curtain that you pull closed, no wardrobes or closets for your stuff, as everything in the room (with the exception of the mattress and, in some rooms, the bedframe) is made of snow and ice. The Dressing Room area houses the toilets, showers, sauna, a tea/coffee/hot chocolate machine, and a 24 hour reception. Here we would later on pick up our thermal sleeping bags when we were ready to go to sleep. The Dressing Room has a back door which opens out into a small courtyard leading directly into the Ice Hotel, so you don’t have to go through the main door as it is locked after 6pm (although we were given a swipe card which would gain you entry to the hotel anyway).

The Warm Reception

The Ice Hotel

The Dressing Room

After we changed into the special clothes, and made reservations for dinner - there are only 2 restaurants in Jukkasjarvi and both of them are not just for Ice Hotel guests but members of the public as well - we headed off into the Ice Hotel itself to have a look around the rooms.



The main reception area had a desk where you show your passes to enter the hotel, plus a sculpture of a seat (see pic) and off to the left was the entrance to the Ice Bar. There were electronic, automatic sliding doors at the back of the entrance hall, all made of ice, and these led to a large reception corridor with lots of ice sculptures of faces. The back wall to this is naturally bright because it is facing the sun, and has been designed so the ice there allows the light in. On either side of this hall 3 corridors led to the various rooms; on the left hand side, the more posh, ‘Design’ and ‘Art’ suites - the main difference between the two being the extra activities (i.e. snowmobiling, Northern lights tours, dogsledding) that were included in your price. On the right hand side were the pleb rooms (they still cost an arm and a leg too), which didn’t have any major ice sculptures in them. We were staying in one of these rooms, room 511, so we headed off for a quick look at it.


Our room consisted of an icy cave with a bed, the mattress of which was made of foam and covered with reindeer skins. I must admit I was a bit disappointed, I had thought the bed frame would’ve been made of ice, and to be fair in the Suites in some cases they were, but not so for our room. The room was a constant -5 degrees however, so it did feel quite cool, like being in a refrigerator.

We then went and checked out the Suites - they were amazing. There was the Tango room, with sculptures of 2 tango dancers and an accordionist, the Forest room, with pictures of a forest carved in the ice with piped in snow, the Chess room and it’s giant chess pieces, the Ireland room with a bed in the shape of a dragon - each new room was completely different and exceptionally well designed and sculpted by artists from all over the world. I was however somewhat disappointed to see no Australian artists this time, but a New Zealand one - to give the little kiwi his due the room was pretty good. Here are some of the photos:


We then went and had a quick look in the chapel. They actually hold weddings here (and we actually saw one later on that day). The pews were made of ice covered with reindeer skins. The roof was intricately carved in a floral design.



After our tour of the hotel, we attended a tour about the production of ice at the Ice Hotel, including how they make the ice glasses in the Ice Bar, and then we had an induction meeting to explain how to sleep in -5 degree conditions.
The lady talked to us about the sleeping bag, which zips up over your head, leaving a small space for your face to poke out. You have to wear only thermals in the sleeping bag - long johns - and no jumpers or anything because the sleeping bag is designed to trap your natural body warmth inside. If you are wearing jumpers and so on you will actually be cold as your body can not heat the sleeping bag. You also have to be careful to breathe out outside the sleeping bag, and not in - if you let your breath go into the sleeping bag condensation will form and you will be cold. Oh, it was all so terribly exciting!
We then wandered out on the lake for a bit using the ski Zimmer frames that are there at the hostel for guests use. The ski has a bit of a seat, but basically you scoot yourself along as if you are on a skateboard, and then when you get a bit of steam up, you place your feet on the thin metal ski things at the back and slide along. Very cool.
The sun was starting to set at this point, so we made our way back up to the Ice Hotel and that’s where we saw a wedding party having photos. The Bride sure looked cold! After this it was time to walk down the main road to the restaurant for our 6.30pm dinner reservation.

The food at the Homestead Restaurant was absolutely delicious, but oh so expensive! For my main course I had reindeer meat, which was lovely, but to be fair just tasted like beef. I don’t remember now what my starter was but they also brought, free, quails eggs as an appetizer. I didn’t find them very appetizing though!

After dinner we headed off to the lake to have a look for Northern Lights. Although it was cloudy, as we had nothing else to do we thought we’d give it a go anyway, and boy am I glad we did. Have a look at what we saw:

We made our way leisurely along the frozen lake back towards the Ice Hotel, where we took lots more photos and then had a bit of a look at the Ice Bar. The drinks there are served in ice glasses (if it’s a cold drink) or if you order a warm drink, they serve it in a paper cup. We met a few interesting people there and had a bit of a chat before it was time to head off to bed.

First of all was the showers. What is it with the Swedes and communal showers? Even in the ladies there were no curtains so you could keep your dignity. I was somewhat alarmed by this til I met an American girl who told me that the toilet next to reception also had a shower, and it was all fully lockable and private - so I went there and turned the water on as hot as I could - I wanted to warm right up before getting into my sleeping bag.

I got into my thermals and my jumpsuit and then ran off to the room as I wanted to keep my body heat up if I could before I got into the sleeping bag. I jumped up and down a bit too to warm up and then got into the sleeping bag. I did it up as tight as I could and snuggled down.

I’d like to say that I had the best sleep ever, but that would be a lie. This is mostly due to the fact that I think I tensed up my muscles in order to keep the sleeping bag tight around me. Also I found if I rolled over, cold air would come into the sleeping bag so I tried not to move much. It was a little difficult because I would’ve liked to put my arm under my pillow - but that would’ve meant my arm was outside the bag and therefore cold.

When I awoke in the morning my face was a little chilled, but it wasn’t frozen like I thought it would be. We were woken up with a ‘Good Morgon’ (pronounced ‘Good Moron’!) by the Ice Hotel staff, who brought a cup of hot lingonberry juice around for all the guests. This was very welcome!

Unfortunately though, as we were both still quite tired, we went back to sleep - and woke up again at 9.30 - breakfast was finishing at 10.00 - so we literally flew out of the room and back into the Dressing room to get changed.

The breakfast buffet, included in the price, was very good, and we had an excellent selection. After this, we headed back down to the main reception to get our diplomas:
We then spent much of the day going around the rooms again in the Ice Hotel and taking lots more photos. I have to say the experience of sleeping in an igloo, in an icy cave, was absolutely amazing, and quite a spiritual experience in some ways. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend it you all.