And inside
Even some silliness
We made it to our platform just in time to see our train arrive.
It has long been a fantasy of mine to take an overnight journey by train, in a private couchette, with my lover. I was very excited.
I memorized the car number, and seat numbers. Car 12, seats 16-18. Yes, there was a third seat, but it was ours, we had the room to ourselves.
We walked down the platform, reading the numbers, 7-8-9-10-15-16-Bistro-WTF? We walked back again, dang it! Where is car 12? We double checked the ticket, Train 94, Platform 4, Car 12, Seats 16-18. Right place, right time, right train, no car 12!
Finally, we decided to board car 10, plant ourselves, and let the porter sort it out.
Good plan, but not without drama. The porter was dealing with a family that was in the wrong couchette. Because, a lady and all her luggage had taken over theirs. To make things more complicated, her ticket was for the day before. So, while he was dealing with that, we showed him that they were missing an entire car.
The solution; he pulled the lady out of the family's room, moved the family back to where they belonged, and put us in 16-18 where the family had been camping out, waiting for the porter to remove the crazy woman from their room. Then, we waited for several tense minutes to see if we had to share our room with the broad that was 24 hours late for the proper train.
To our great joy and delight, he found a place for her. Not with us.
The over night ride was every bit as fun and romantic as I dreamed it would be.
When we woke up, the train had stopped, backed up, pulled forward, and backed up again. We were in Luleå (the site of Facebook's new Arctic data center), and they announced we would be there for a little while. I got dressed, and set out to find a place to have a smoke. Julie said she was going to sleep till the bistro opened at 7:30 so she could get coffee.
I walked toward the back of the train, but there was only two cars behind us where there had been four. I stepped out and realized the Bistro car was gone, and we were still 4 hours away from our stop. Julie was not going to take this news well.
I jumped back onto the train just as it started moving, and made my way back to give julie the sad news. As predicted, she wasn't pleased. I told her that the bistro car was gone, she told me that wasn't funny, I agreed. She said she didn't believe me, I didn't blame her. She got up, dressed, and determined to just see about these wild, reckless claims of missing bistro cars.
Julie marched toward the back of the train, with so much determination, I was a little afraid she might step out of train completely. Fortunately, the last car had dogs in it, and she can't pass by a dog.
Returning to the room, looking dejected, I cheered her up by suggesting that we hadn't looked toward the front of the train.
We were very surprised to find 5 cars missing from the front of the train, and very happy to find the first car to be a new bistro.
Once they opened, and we got our coffee, all was right with our world again.
Juice box style water provided for drinking on the train
It didn't even bother us that the train started to break down, in the middle of the arctic wilderness.
We arrived in Kiruna 40 minutes late, to a big surprise. The train station had moved about a mile from where we expected it to be.
The whole town of Kiruna is sitting on a iron mine, and in danger of falling into the man made abyss.
There are plans in the works to move the entire town.
As a result of this move, our 1 kilometer walk to the hotel became a 4k slog through the snow and ice, carrying all our luggage. Worse, we had no clear directions how to get there.
Hard to tell, but my beard is frozen.
Did the old dude say right or left at the snow covered tree?
This is hilly country, the air is very thin and hard to breath. But, it's beautiful, and the people are friendly. We flagged down a passing motorist, to ask for more directions. It was a girl, about the same age as my daughter, she offered to drive us the rest of the way, we gladly accepted.
Finally, at the Samegården cultural center and hotel.
