starting at 0348 and running through close to 0708. Now, the moon had set by then and the sun was up but still…..
Monthly Archives: January 2018
Flying forever
or so it seems.
early morning in Stockholm
First one has to get from the hotel to the airport. In Stockholm it is not difficult. The cabs are a fixed price to the airport. All the taxis take credit cards. One can walk 2 blocks and catch the “T” which drops you off at the Central Train Station where you have three choices depending on how fast you want to get to the airport (Arlandia Express < Regional Train < FlyBus) and how much you want to spend (about the same order). Once at the airport you check in, deal with security (less than five minutes in line and absolutely no hassles) and hang out in the lounge. Board the flight for Copenhagen. Fly to Copenhagen. Disembark and make a run for the lounge - after all, one never knows when you will see coffee and food again.... Get through Passport Control, followed by hiking to the far end of the most distant terminal just in time to board the flight to SFO. Eat, drink and attempt to sleep for over 10 hours prior to landing in San Francisco. Since I happened to like the Mobil Passport App, it was 8 minutes from the jetway to bag claim where it seemed like I hung out forever. George decided that I was in need of getting picked up. We debated for a couple of minutes about attending the second half of the Cal Women's Basketball Game before deciding that dealing with parking just wasn't going to be worth it. Instead, it was home followed by dinner with Shana. And a desperate need for sleep.... Since I was up at 0500 in Stockholm and it was now 2000 in Berkeley (15 hours + 9 hours time zone is a long time to my poor addled brain)
There are times
I am sure for all of us when you can only shake your head and wonder.. “ What was I thinking?” I wish I could say that it is a seldomly occuring experience but that would not be true. Most of the times the situation is one of stupidity and mild humor. The kind of thing easily laughed off or repeated to friends with a depreciating smile and shake of the head.
And other times, frankly it is just bone headed stupidity or failure to pay close attention to details. In this case it is not the slightly more than 100gm of weight that I have been hauling around in my backpack since leaving h9me earlier this month. It is the fact, that after all my careful planning I have a very nice 60mm lens nestled safely in its compartment. A lens I had been planning on using while out meandering around Stockholm. A lens that works just fine when attached to the correct camera body. The 7D non-full frame camera on the shelf back in Berkeley, and not the higher end 5D or 1DX bodies which both weigh a ton but are “too upscale” to fit to this lens.
Argh
Snow to not Snow
There is a bus that runs daily (perhaps more than once?) from Abisko to the airport in Kiruna. The trip takes about two hours with pick up stops if the weather is clear. There is the possibility of taking a car service if you need to travel outside of the scheduled time, but it is significantly more expensive. Not being foolish, I elected to travel with 20+ some of my new bad very best friends. Leaving at 0900, or so due to a couple of passengers unable to be prompt,we still managed to arrive shortly after 1100.
Kiruna Airport
As you see, there was just a bit of snow on the ground. The roads and runways are firmly packed which bothered me obviously more than the drivers or pilots. I had almost 90 minutes before my flight hampered only by those who couldn’t find their (pick one) – passport, reservation, wallet, gloves, brain…. I sort of thought that if you had traveled TO this area of Sweden from another continent it might just mean that you had checked in at an airport at least once and, just possibly had been through a security checkpoint.
I will completely ignore the inability of certain of the passengers to figure out that two sets of stairs going to the plane might just mean going up the front set if your seat assignment was forward and NOT using the back stairs with your backpack, purse, long fur coat (yes, really) wheeled oversized lug on and your nasty habit of cursing everyone in your native Italian. Not my problem that you didn’t bother to note your seat choice was in row 5.
The young couple next to me was from Eugene Oregon. They have six days planned in Stockholm before having to return to real life and rain.
&nbtsp;
Stockholm
There is a bus that runs daily (perhaps more than once?) from Abisko to the airport in Kiruna. The trip takes about two hours with pick up stops if the weather is clear. There is the possibility of taking a car service if you need to travel outside of the scheduled time, but it is significantly more expensive. Not being foolish, I elected to travel with 20+ some of my new bad very best friends. Leaving at 0900, or so due to a couple of passengers unable to be prompt,we still managed to arrive shortly after 1100.
Kiruna Airport
As you see, there was just a bit of snow on the ground. The roads and runways are firmly packed which bothered me obviously more than the drivers or pilots. I had almost 90 minutes before my flight hampered only by those who couldn’t find their (pick one) – passport, reservation, wallet, gloves, brain…. I sort of thought that if you had traveled TO this area of Sweden from another continent it might just mean that you had checked in at an airport at least once and, just possibly had been through a security checkpoint.
I will completely ignore the inability of certain of the passengers to figure out that two sets of stairs going to the plane might just mean going up the front set if your seat assignment was forward and NOT using the back stairs with your backpack, purse, long fur coat (yes, really) wheeled oversized lug on and your nasty habit of cursing everyone in your native Italian. Not my problem that you didn’t bother to note your seat choice was in row 5.
The young couple next to me was from Eugene Oregon. They have six days planned in Stockholm before having to return to real life and rain.
Stockholm
Please note the lack of snow… by the time I had dragged myself, backpack, suitcase and outwear from the airport to the bus to the “T” to the hotel I was ready to fall in a heap. Elected sleep instead.
And a bit overcast
For my last night here I was treated to milder weather and a fine layer of clouds. Which meant I checked regularly but didn’t bother to haul out the camera and tripod.
So instead I cleaned up, packed and spent time reading while drinking an endless cup of tea. Having a kettle is just nice. Not quite as nice as adding cocoa to my coffee in the morning but still decent.
Cloudy
As it turns out, I am both glad for the extra couple of nights here in Absiko and a bit irritated. But really, it is not like the weather is specifically targeting me now is it? According to all the Aurora forecasts, it should be decent tonight.
Decent that is if there wasn’t a cloud cover extending toward the north. And guess what direction one normally finds “northern lights?” As if you couldn’t guess from the name….
I spend most of the day just taking it easy and trying to organize my stuff. It is amazing how fast one can turn a small single room into a disaster with just a 19″ carry-on and a backpack of electronics. All if it is probably helped by the fact that there are only a couple of shelves, four hangers and no drawers or storage space in sight. On the positive side, it should be impossible to lose anything in the room as there isn’t even an under bed where items trying to escape could crawl.
so the best I can offer you today is various shots of the lodge insides ….
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- library
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- side room
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- seating area
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- front lounge
all of which are quiet in the middle of the night.
As pretty much are the surrounding buildings – we are about 2km from town in case anyone was wondering …
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- classical buildings almost anywhere in Europe
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- the grounds, with just a bit of snow
Driving to Narvik
It is only about 40km from Abisko to the Norwegian border and some kilometers from there to Narvik which is the closest reasonable size Norwegian city. Primarily an industrial town where iron ore is moved from rail cars to ships, fishing, and equipment sales/repair are key. Tourism isn’t all that big a deal here. Like the majority of western Norwegian towns, especially those north of the arctic circle, Narvik is on a Fjord….
So anyway – we left around sunrise (i.e. before 1000) and returned after sunset (1500) which means that there are not all that many hours of daylight.
sunlight translates to rose colors and less blues
Our first stop along the way? More reindeer inside a corral covered in frost. This herd was mostly yearlings.
and otherwise just watching out the window
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- manmade structures and frosted plants
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- with the contrast between
once past the border we also happened to be over the ridge and headed toward the Fjords. One has to remember that this means the Atlantic Ocean, salt water and open water. It also was significantly warmer than Abisko (like 25*C warmer although it was still below freezing….)
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- looking at the Fjord
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- or flats with the tide going out
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- or houses along the edges of the bay
then there are some of my favorite things – bridges –
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- current bridge
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- new bridge because it is important to save 20km drive
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- and already sunset
of course, although you might not agree – we decided that this particular mountain looked
like Falkor*
(your reference is Micheal Ende’s Die unendliche Geschichte)
Gates of Lappland
just a bit of snow was to be found from the road going waist deep
and going toward the only bit of “open” water that we saw
=
in Absiko National Park where we stopped early afternoon –
before moving on as the sun was setting (still before 1400)
to view the Gates of Lappland as seen from one of the hotels.
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- the gates
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- and towards the lake
Abisko National Park
We left the hotel about 2100 and returned almost three hours later. My fingers were cold…
The photos are in chronological order – and no editing has been done to this point other than shrinking so that it was possible to upload the photos. The exposure times varied between 5-15 secs with f1.8 and an ISO of 1600. Suggest you up the brightness of your monitor or darken the area around you. I will repost a few when cleaned up
Sami
These photos are in sections – the first being relating to stopping in one of the Sami villages partway to Abisko. If I understood Maria correctly
there are about ten families involved and around 5000 reindeer which they move seasonally from the high mountains to the forests with the seasons and available food (grasses to mushrooms to lichen). Where as the old methods aren’t always practical (hello, roads, rails, traffic and other modern inchonvieneces causing significant injury and animal death) they have been replaced with snowmobiles and large trucks.
The reindeer hanging out here I assume are primarily for tourists
and sledge pulling –
the trees are all stark white against the snow and limed with ice-
our break was in the small house
with reindeer skins for flooring
and lunch cooked over the open fire
while sunset comes early (not even 1400….)
Over the river and through
the woods to find Reindeer, Moose and anything worth a photo stop.
reindeer
moose hiding in the trees
early morning – as defined as sunrise +/1 an hour
the trees just coated with snow –
the river that I mentioned
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- complete with small idiot bird swimming
and ending with domesticated “wild life”
in spite of potential auroras tonight – it is overcast. Our drive out ~50-60 km in the direction of Norway didn’t help. Looking at a couple of the monitoring sites – Aurora Forecast and Spaceweather.com it seems we are the only ones not happy with the weather.
(FYI – published time is as of PST, not UTC+1)
Oh roar a roar for Nora –
Nora Alice in the Night. For she has seen the Aurora Borealis Burning Bright – Pogo….
Icehotel
Now, this obviously appeals to a large number of people. Bus loads of tourists, a significant number of weddings and plenty who stay overnight. There are two sections to the Icehotel – the temporary one which lasts only until everything melts and the permanent area which also has both rooms and suits.
I repeat – lovely to look at, but I can’t imagine sleeping here. But people do – in fact one of our group spent a night here before the start off the tour.
From the outside it doesn’t seem to be much –
the seasonal Icehotel
while inside you have carvings both on the wall and free standing –
some regular rooms –
and then there are the named rooms complete with artist plaque outside –
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- the King Kong
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- sea creatures
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- Victorian Suite
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- Victorian Suite
along with objects
and
Dog Sledding
Before I forget – yes, Kiruna is north of the Arctic Circle. Sunrise this morning was 0955 and sunset 1344 giving us a grand total of 3 hours and 49 minutes of true daylight. That would make it also obviously why as I start writing this about 1515 that it is quite dark outside.
getting organized before sunrise
And it was along the river and through the old growth forest that we went.
old growth and charging sled dogs
As you might note – the species of pine/fir here are tall, slender and have short branches which gather the maximum sun possible and decrease the chances of breakage from snow build up.
after a couple of hours and several photo stops it was lunch break. The dogs
are two teams of 12. The couple who provided the teams today have about 60 dogs in total. Lars mentioned that the dogs much prefer racing (which involves a lot of running and not pulling all that much weight) to today’s task which is pulling a sledge with 3-4 passengers. The alternate mode of transport today was a snowmobile –
which is Peter’s personal vehicle complete with trailer for gear.
and for the birders:
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- a jay
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- and an arctic tit
Kiruna
Leaving the hotel early wasn’t a problem. The snow wasn’t a problem either and it just wasn’t all that cold to a “born in Minnesota gal.” My first challenge was finding the T stop tucked back in a construction zone followed by trying to figure out the ticket machines and the gates. As it turns out, paper ticket holders have to be let in by a physical operator….
Central Station to the Arlanda Express wasn’t all that hard either nor was checking into Norwegian Air. Security ran faster and smoother than anything I have seen from TSA. And then I waited and waited. We left about 30 minutes late and arrived in Kiruna after 1300.
Did I mention this trip is a photo tour?
Didn’t think so.
Anyway, the pair of photographers/guides are from Sweden (Peter) and Australia (David) met us at the airport. One of my fellow travelers did what anyone with sense knows not to: he packed his meds in his checked luggage. Which of course never made it from LA to Stockholm. Cue a couple of hours of waiting while Peter helped him get new scripts and meds picked up from the apoteka. End result was that it was 1600 by the time we arrived in camp and could get settled.
We had dinner around 1730. BTW – hours of light are only about Five.
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- two beds in the cabin
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- my very own sauna
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- table, food prep area and lots of power points
and the cabin I have to myself….I really think I need some sleep…
Arriving Stockholm
This is one of those trips where the hours add up to days en route. It was early afternoon on arrival in Copenhagen followed by a rest (SAS has a wonderful lounge at the Copenhagen Airport) before my connecting flight to Stockholm. From there it was the Airport connector bus to the Central Station followed by a taxi to the hotel. My driver was from Turkey. He has family in Germany. We had a lovely chat on the short drive to the hotel.
Taxis are expensive, won’t be doing that again. Excuse is that I was really, really tired and I just didn’t want to deal with finding the “T” and then walking a ways to the hotel.
It is time to sleep.
Before I forget – It feels like progress on the house –
bench in the entry way upstairs
will be shelves next to the utility room down
Rutaximab
Is not exactly my favorite medication in the whole world, but if it puts off a recurrence of my NHL, I am more than willing to deal with an infusion every couple of months. Obviously that means that this was my Wednesday to land at the SFVA bright and churly.
Unlike my last couple of trips, there weren’t any issues with my port this time and I sailed through everything in more than enough time to catch the 1440 shuttle back to BART.
Unlike the last few times I wound up with serious nausea and am still wondering what is up with that. Meanwhile, Dani managed to get herself home from work, Alex is still in NY and George is at JP Morgan most of the week.
My best bet for me is more sleep…
Heading out
Not me this time, but Alex and Gwen to the East Coast.
Underseat dog
The rest of us – George, Dani, other dog and I spent the afternoon at Pacifica
oooo – ocean!
Open Window
Through the open window I can hear the rain, leaves rustling and the distant sound of an train traveling down the coast. The air is cool. It is January and I am more than comfortable with my duvet and sheepskin. But then I am not on the East Coast dealing with sub-zero weather, high wind chill and general beastliness.
We have fog and rain. The workers put up plastic sheeting to protect the downstairs entryway so that they can continue to work. The tile has been laid in the first room and the sunroom flooring has been started. Meanwhile, I am reading….
Minor Tremors
or maybe a bit more. But a 4.6 earthquake rolled through here at 0239 in the morning.
As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one awake as Noah told me this morning. Since he is on the top floor, he didn’t hear it coming where as I heard a rumble approaching before the rolling and rattling hit. The Epi Center has been identified as deep under the Claremont Hotel (less than 5 km from our house).
Borrowed from the News
The responsible entity is the Hayward fault with all the usual discussions about us being 10 years overdue for another big one.
A big one that I think will not drop my house into the Pacific (yes, I am immediately west of the fault and I do mean very very close) but rather there will once more be a lovely inland sea from the Rockies to the Appalachian Range. Just think – new ports for cruise ships…..
and speaking of local insanity – here is a post about a dozen garage doors of Berkeley of which I really appreciate the one with the deer since I see somewhere between 2-7 of the stupid creatures every morning just looking to be hood ornaments.