23:00 Sun.
19 Jan, 2014

Last day in Luleå

Day 164 , -18 remain
Lulea , Sweden
-30 °C
Fair
9:06 am
2:18 pm

Tuesday 31.12.2013, my last day in Luleå.
Toward evening we prepared some food and headed to other building where majority of students who were staying here over holidays gathered. Again there was lots of food from all over the world, tons of people who I never saw before, or at least talked with them.

Toward 11PM we left apartment and took bus downtown. It was around -7 outside and snowing quite strongly. Yet to my surprise there were really a lot of (young) people (girls) dressed in miniskirts, wearing high heels. I don’t know how they weren’t cold or how their feet didn’t froze, since there was at least 5cm of fresh snow on the ground.

There was no stage or band in city centre as usually in Slovenia. Instead of this there were 3 stalls selling some drinks and sweets and that was it. After following crowd few meters we found a place where they were going to shoot fireworks from. Guess where? From the middle of harbour on almost half a meter of frozen sea.

A lot of people gathered to watch fireworks. Although you could tell you’re not in Slovenia since everyone made sure to have enough personal space around them.

We soon found a nice place to view fireworks from. Just at the edge of pier looking directly onto the sea. After counting backwards from 10 to 0 fireworks started at midnight sharp.

Fireworks were amazing. They were big, colourful and close, I even got hit by shrapnel which somehow made it underneath my shirt. All in all it was amazing.

After it Veronika and I decided to go home alone, since we had a busy day in front of us. We went by foot, my last hike here in Luleå. We had a plan to go over the frozen lake, snow was falling really hard by now, a great last memory to have!

After waking up following morning we ate something and began to clean apartment. When we were done it was already time to go. We said goodbye to our friends and were off on bus. It was sad, driving by the lakes and paths I’ve grown so used to in the last half a year. By the time we came to the rail station I already started to miss this place…

18:26 Mon.
13 Jan, 2014

Woop woop!

Day 158 , -12 remain
Lulea , Sweden
-14 °C
Cloudy
9:24 am
1:57 pm

Being so warm lately I was a bit worried about skating over the lakes, although I think the ice must have been more than 30cm deep. But still it’s not easy to go on a lake when you see water all around (upper layers of ice melt, while below there is thick layer of solid ice still). So we decided to go to a hockey arena which is open for public (free) multiple times per week.

Veronika did surprisingly good job on skates, she didn’t even fall despite me being prepared to capture the moment on my camera. 🙁 Too bad we didn’t have time to try out hockey.

Veronika ice skating.
Veronika ice skating.

On Monday there was hockey match in the arena next door. We decided to go and see it. We bought the cheapest “sits”. We were actually standing and not sitting, later on it proved to be a good decision. During the game while all the swedes on the sits were just sitting and maybe clapping from time to time, here on stands people were actually yelling and cheering for Luleå team.

Luleå
Luleå

This was the first time I (we) saw hockey game in real life (not on TV). It was really good, fast and exciting. Lulea team is one of the best teams in Sweden, and Sweden if I’m not mistaken won World (or something) cup last year, so we really were watching a good game.

Coop arena Luleå
Coop arena Luleå

Our team (Luleå) won, naturally! =)

Winning team
Winning team
13:35 Fri.
10 Jan, 2014

House of technology

Day 155 , -9 remain
Lulea , Sweden
-12 °C
Light Snow
9:32 am
1:46 pm

At campus we also have a house of technology; museum like house about technology, mainly used in mining. It is meant for kids, as you can try and drive almost everything, but it is free for students of LTU so we used a chance and saw it.

Powering light bulbs with a bike.
Powering light bulbs with a bike.

There you get a chance to learn everything about satellites, planes, mining, trains… The best part is that you can play with it. For example you make waves in a water to start “wave electrical plant” and lit up light bulb. Another example is when you put rocks in water to change current of water to help you lift a weight connected to water mill.

Mikel building a dam
Mikel building a dam
Mikel building a dam
Mikel building a dam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We even got a chance to lift logs with a real bulldozer (ok I don’t know real name of it, but it was the real one). And we got a chance to make our own paper.

All in all it was a fun and educational day, the only thing that was weird was that we were surrounded by kids and probably looked like idiots :D.

20:33 Wed.
1 Jan, 2014

Sad to say hejdå!

Day 146 , 1 remain
Lulea , Sweden
-1 °C
Mostly Cloudy
9:49 am
1:20 pm

I’m sitting on the train, slowly moving through last meters of Lulea. The time has come to leave my new home and return to the old one.

Luckily Veronika is accompanying me on the long journey south, which makes it easier. It was not easy to say goodbye. I have grown accustomed to the new way of life up here, and I must say I liked it very much. Nature, people, food I loved it all, but most of all I liked the polar climate with tons of snow, low temperatures and massive auroras dancing over the sky.

Speaking of auroras there is probably the biggest one until now dancing over our heads, it is so bright you’re supposed to see it from Stockholm. Sadly it’s cloudy here so … bad luck.

To be continued…

10:32 Wed.
1 Jan, 2014

2014

Day 146 , 1 remain
Lulea , Sweden
-2 °C
Cloudy
9:36 am
1:42 pm

Happy New Year!

Fireworks in Luleå being shot from the sea level.
Fireworks in Luleå being shot from the sea level.