Blog of Nikki Veldhuis

I’m almost a week back from Kiruna, but I didn’t update my blog yet out of pure laziness. Kiruna was awesome, I had a great time there. Of course, it was a bit strange hanging around with 4 Italians, but it was great going with them. Truly good cooks (hmmm, 2 hours cooking for a dinner), and have a good sense of humor. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but the rest did.

We went to do the most touristic things available over there. I saw the ice hotel, it is an amazing thing to see. The rooms are artistic, by using lights and the transparency of ice. Every room was made by a different art team, that made every room unique. It has also a very special atmosphere, very cold of course and a deafening silence.

icehotel moon room

At night we went to a typical cabin near a lake, where the dutch girls were staying. We ate something and had a couple of beers. It was a great opportunity to see the Northern Lights in the evening. We went outside (freakin’ cold), and saw this unique phenomena. It as not as impressive as the pictures (by using long shutter time of the camera), but is a beautiful thing to see. The lights are dynamic, they change once a while. I found a good video on Vimeo to give an impression.

For the last two days we went on a dog sled tour, and spending the night in the wilderness. It was more adventurous than I thought is would be, but I really liked it (ah, the good ol’ days). Riding a dog sled is awesome, they run like hell. Probably the only thing they know. We spend the night in a typical lappish hut; a primitive hut made of forest wood, grass and a large cover of snow as an isolation. We had a small fireplace to keep it warm (took half a day to get it warm). As a dinner we had reindeer meat, tastes not like chicken but more like beef. The local guy ate the brains of the animal, the head was in the stove. Looked quite disgusting once on the plate. I thought the girl next to me wanted to throw up.

At night we saw the northern lights again, I think we were very lucky to see it two times. This time there were more colors, but not as bright as we saw before. Afterwards we went in the sauna, it was way to crowded, but funny as hell (a lot of girls, aiajay). We ran outside to cool of. You can stay around a minute outside before your feet freeze to the ground and it becomes unbearable. I tried to have a conversation outside with an American, not quite a success.

The next day we went back, and we spend the night in a local bar (looked quite modern) to end this great trip.

At the moment I have nothing specific to do this week, no lessons, no lectures. A great time to work on a couple of papers I had to finish. So I finished everything today and send some emails to arrange some stuff. Next week I start a new course. I talked to the teacher, and the course sounds promising. I also want to start another course, but I’m not sure if I’m going to do this.

But damn, time is really going fast. I’m done with the exchange study in 10 weeks. I become kind of sad when I think of this, but I’m planning to stay a month extra. I want to travel around, visit some people and see some stuff. I don’t want to miss the beginning of the summer here.