Nah, it’s too early for beer, even a quick one.. later maybe 🙂

Right on time, still no sun 😂

No?

Coleslaw?

No?

How about pickled beetroot?

Still no? Hmm. Fussy, aren’t you?

😂

---

I’m so dull.. can’t even face tame foreign food 🙈

But anyway. Chocolate milkshake and crunchy musli and waffles and bread&cheese and grapes was still a good way to start a day 🙂

Now to figure out what to do with the rest of my time before the bus leaves

Breakfast time 🙂

(No photo, still grey.)

It’s like living in a tracing paper box. The sky never changes… (so far anyway)

Going back to bed for a bit 😴

🤭

Oooh fancy 😅😇

“If anyone wants to get off the train before Narvik, please contact the train staff”

Looks like we’re not going to be stopping much for the last 45 km 🙂

There’s a lot of snow on the hills in the background..

It’s also very grey and very cloudy.

I think the place would be waaay more impressive and pretty and awesome with weather like yesterday’s instead of today’s drizzle and clouds and mist and rain…

Maybe I need to come back this way after all..? 🤔

Or at least the grey’s getting lighter.. 😂

The grey group got off in Kiruna. They were replaced by a lot of backpackers in shorts. Much better ;p

The two of them that my grandmother would have most referred to as ‘a bit of alright’ are very chatty, sharing their table with a lady who kicked their friend out of her seat. I’m not very far away, and they’re talking English so I can eavesdrop 🙂

I am quite fascinated by the ease in which they’re making conversation with a complete stranger; asking questions, laughing, talking about themselves for a couple of anecdotes before asking more questions. Keeping things light.

They had interesting things to say, and were (or acted) interested in what e lady was saying. In the gaps, and occasionally as part of the conversation, they were doing crossword puzzles. The hard kind my aunt does at Christmas. If I was running with a backpack, I don’t think a book of crossword puzzles would be very high on my packing list.. but that’s possibly one of the reasons I’ll never be a fit doctor who runs up hills for fun… 😜

They haven’t just packed a lot into their backpacks, they’re packing a lot into their holidays too. Where they’ve been, what they did there, what they still have planned. Very impressive. All of them. Guys and lady.

The guys have just finished med school in Edinburgh and don’t start work until August, so they’re on holiday, running between mountain cabins. With backpacks. They are crazy, but well fit 🤣

The lady is a school nurse, using her overtime and school holidays to travel around Europe.

If they’re anything like as good as doctoring as they are at talking, England’s gaining a couple of excellent new doctors (and the Netherlands is keeping a dedicated nurse).

“In ten minutes we’ll be reaching the arctic circle. There are several places because of the moving of the earth.

On the right. In ten minutes.

They’ll be on the left too, but without the dates.”

Love that the train conductor tells you these things 🙂

---

The grey group broke out champagne and plastic glasses. I found a better place to sit/stand.

---

“We have to go slow now.. so, about 3 to 5 minutes to go”

---

Just stopped to let a train go past.

Almost a full minute of waggons full of blackness..

It looked like coal, but this train line is the iron ore line, so maybe it’s that. I have no idea what that looks like..

😂😂😜

---

And a big group of grumpy grey people stole my seat. Demanded it with menaces and then stood in the gangway in both directions so I couldn’t get out. Argh.

Time for a sticky bun and a yogurt-in-a-box

Got here, way before it’s due to leave but with plenty of time to choose a seat..

Choice is great… but hard.

Some have tables.

Some are close to doors.

Some have good windows.

Some are ickier than others,

Some are inevitably going to be facing backwards.

I solved the last problem by asking someone which direction we’re going to leave in… She wasn’t 100% sure, but the chances are pretty good that I can face forwards for a change..

…but…

..do I choose the side with almost all the lakes for the first two-thirds of the journey or the side with the huge lake near the end..???

There are currently loads of empty seats, including 2 blocks of 4 seats with tables, so maybe I can switch in time for the lake.. but maybe it’ll be full by then?

Life’s big questions.. 😅

Luckily, other people write blogs too…

‘After the train reverses in Kiruna’ – yay! If I choose right, I get the best of both worlds! 🙂 (actually left, in the direction of travel ;p )

I would have gone backwards for the first bit to go forwards along the lake, but the window’s off centre and I figure I’m much better off going backwards along the lake and actually seeing it 😅

I’ve chosen.

I now have a non-icky table seat with a window, that’s going to face forward for all the best bits of the journey 😊

Ticked ALL the boxes there 🙂

Also: ‘Port outward’, hmm 😇

So. Unless someone tells me they booked this exact seat, I’m going to be here for tHe next 8 hours or so 🙂

Wheee!!

And we’re off!

(Only took 25 minutes to decide where to sit 😂)

Wheee!!

And my ticket worked 🙂

Maybe so…

Not sure that’s great advertising, even if it might be true sometimes… 🤔

Can’t remember ever having to pay for a 2.90€ bus ticket with a card via an app before…

Anyway.

I have a ticket. I just need to drag myself and my luggage to the bus stop.

Arg.

I need to get a new mattress when I get home. This one is so good. Slept so well 🙂

Not that I was expecting to sleep badly after yesterday’s excursion..

So good tho? That was unexpected. It didn’t look all that special.

There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere.

My guess is something like:

“Never judge a person’s bed-review before walking 5 miles with their luggage”

– me. 18.6.2022 😋

🙂

---

Need to find out how to buy a bus ticket now..  and then drag myself out of this fluffy cloud I’ve been lying in.. and pack… and leave.

☝…and brush my teeth. Missed that last night 🧐

---

..and remember to post a ‘good morning world’ picture.. doh! 🤦‍♀️

I’m going to sleep through my first ever real night in the a land of the midnight sun.*/**

🤦‍♀️

I’m not going to make it to midnight, I’m that tired.

Here are some pictures from ~10pm:

* (added on the 18th: I’ve just read that Norway is ‘the land of the midnight sun’. Feel very slightly better about missing it now..)

** (added late on the 18th: I just looked at the weather and was surprised to see the sunset time shown on the screen, so I checked some more places. Turns out, I didn’t miss anything after all 🙂 I’d checked the weather while the train went through a midnight-sun town yesterday, but then it headed back south to Lulea (??) and I didn’t think to check again 😛🤦‍♀️ kind of stupid, but also cool that I still have the chance to see my first Midnight Sun 🙂 )

This might be one of the main reasons for doing all this travelling malarkey.

Sitting in the sunshine on a bench by the sea, with a galoptious potful of ‘salad-esque’ food someone else produced..with no huge list of need-to-dos hanging over my head * is a splendid thing.

* this isn’t technically true.. the things haven’t disappeared, I’ve just run away from them for a while. There’s no point thinking about things that need doing 2000+ miles away.

Next stop Lulea, ok, but ‘Slut station’* ?! That’s rude 😲🤭🙃

*end station.. 😅

If they’re only offering bad camping, it’s a good thing I don’t want to stay here 🙂

Sorry Wheatus 🤷‍♀️

I’m just joining the masses in heading up the platform because the train stopped in the farthest possible place..

So nice out, the best weather for train delays 🙂 (and people-watching 😅)

For tonight.

In Lulea.

Not on the platform. That’d be weird 🙂

Altho also totally plausible 😅

Please note, your platform may be a million miles away and/or hidden at the end of the main platform 😅😂

7:20

Now to wait an hour for the next train 🙂

Should be there already, but we’re waiting for a train to pass. I don’t care – more time on this train means less time on the plattform waiting for the next train (to Lulea) 🙂

Or parts of.

Just woken up.

It’s perfect weather out there: sunny, blue sky, no clouds 🌄

Might have made more sense to sleep in the twilight-y bit, and look out in the real light..

Anyways.

Look!

It’s always hard to show how good things look on photos.. Hard to mess these up, tho, even with dirty windows and a less-than-stellar phone camera..

Now I can go to bed 🙂

Sorry there’s no picture.. just got a very short glimpse

But I can’t see it…

Still not dark.. instead it’s almost light 🙂

The guy across the isle left, so I stole his seat.

I’m still going backwards, but now I have a table 🙂

“Erm. No. I have a booking number, but I don’t think I have a ticket… I assumed they’d send one, but if they did it hasn’t arrived yet..”

“What’s your name?”

“Jesse”

She typed my name into her ticket machine and told me I was going to Lulea, but I was in the wrong seat. That’s technology for you. Impressive but fussy. She said I could stay where I am tho 🙂

Yay 🙂

And it doesn’t matter that I don’t have a ticket as long as I have the booking number (and my name 🙂 )

😅

Or running away from the dark? 🤔

The sun sets in Stockholm at ~ 22:10 and at midnight in Lulea.

It then rises at ~3:30 in Stockholm and ~1:05 in Lulea.

I left Stockholm in twilight, and it’s still light now, at 22:20 in the suburbs.. but I guess it would be anyway. It wasn’t really dark last night until almost 23:00.

What time is it going to get dark while I’m on the train northwards? 🤔

Wheeeee!!!

Lulea here I come 🙂

Nice here tho 🙂

Just about 🙂

Yay!

Spent a couple of hours on the beach, now off to the Warmshowers house to drop off my bike 🙂

Not sharing tho 😂

Indeed.

But where’s the fun in that?

Even if that fun falls squarely in the Type 2 category.

* the tealady, when she came to pick up my cup.

We had a good yak about cycling paths and tracks and tics and (bike)-holidays past-and-present.. and then she went back to her caravan and reported back all the news to the others 🙂 Guess that saves them all having to talk to the crazy lady with the overloaded bike and a liking for mint tea 😂😉

“Do you want some hot water? – for tea?”

I turned around and saw a woman standing in what looked like pyjamas, on my side of the road dividing my tent and her caravan.

“Um. Er. I.. I don’t have any tea…”

“That’s ok. I will give you some tea. Do you have a cup?”

She smiled. “I will give you a cup”

“No.. I packed an awful lot of things, but no cup..” l gestured in the general direction of my ridiculously huge heap of luggage.

And off she went.

I wondered if I looked especially English, and what I was going to do if she produced black tea for me.

A few minutes later, I’d finished emptying my tent and was attaching the bike alarm to the bike with sticky pads and cable ties and trying not to lose the peeled off paper in the wind while also not dropping the alarm, the stickers or the cable ties, or sticking anything on wonky.

“Is minty ok?”

“Uh?” (Minty? Heh? What?Whirrrrwhirrwhirrclick.. ohhhh: ‘mint tea’)

My tealady was back, waving a teabag at me.

“Oh! Yeah, that’s perfect! Thank you so much!”

She handed me the teabag, which I promptly dropped in the grass 🙈

“It’s very hot. Be careful. I will put it on the ground. Enjoy.”

And then she was gone. Presumably to drink her own tea.

I put up my chair in her honour (and only nearly fell over once) and am now sitting and drinking posh* mint tea out of a proper china mug with cats on it, watching this quiet corner of the world get up and potter around.

It’s really rather civilised 🙂

I have an offer for somewhere to stay tonight, too, and/or store my bike while I head north.

What a great First Morning 🙂

* (= Lipton, triangle bags)

I’m showered, dressed, almost dried off.

Tent’s dry (and it hasn’t rained yet..)

..must be time to pack up and face the day 🙂