We were very lucky with our hostel. Due to a school trip sharing the hostel our dorm room had been double booked. This meant we got upgraded to a private twin room. Very nice! Now I only have to deal with mum's snoring!
After an evening stroll and a good nights sleep we set off to see the snow festivals ice sculptures. There were four huge snow sculptures. We had a little browse round and ended up having a really nice chat with some of the competitors. A welsh couple from near Swansea. They were sculpting two giant puffins with fish hanging from their rounded beaks.
We then went up to the tourist information to enquire about the frisbee golf course in the north of the town. We struck gold. The young guy, Robin, working at the desk actually built the course with his dad. So he phoned up his dad who promptly popped around and picked us up and took us to the course.
We tried playing a hole in four foot of snow. Mum took one step in and got stuck, she couldn't get her leg high enough to take another step! As she retreated Morice and I pressed on. We both, very swiftly, lost our disks in the deep snow. I pressed on with mums and got in in six.
That evening we went on a last minuet aurora borialis trip. We got picked up at six by a very friendly young Swedish guy named Finn. Finn turned out to be quite the fountain of knowledge as the evening progressed. So much so that for days after mum and I caught ourselves saying to any one who would listen "Finn says..." "well Finn was saying..." "Finn said..." Maybe we'll start a fan club!
The tour was great. We drove out into the abyss of the frozen töurne river. Climbed into the sled, lined with reindeer fur, and rode through the frozen woodland pulled by the snow mobile.
We shortly arrived to the frozen expanses of the mighty river. A 'colosseum' or half an igluu had been built with big red candles lighting it with dramatic golden flames, contrasting beautifully with the snowy landscape.
Finn started a fire to keep us warm in the -35 degree countryside. Then we sat awaiting the green lights of the aurora sipping on delicious hot lindenberry juice.
I snuck off to make some yellow snow during the evening and some others on the tour thought I'd seen the lights so started coming after me. Mum had to run distraction.
After a while we hopped back on the snow mobiles up to a beautiful little hut nestled in the woods. Here we had a delicious steaming bowl of reindeer meat and potatoes followed by some hot Swedish pudding. Finn also taught us how to light fires with magnesium.
Although we hadn't seen the lights, we had had a lovely evening. On the way back in the bus we glimpsed a bit of green sky, so we did see the lights, although it was through thick clouds.
We went to bed happy.
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