This week might have been the most eventful week yet! I joined around 100 other exchange students on a trip to the Swedish Laplands! This week was packed with amazing activities and memories that I will never forget. Here’s how it went!

On Monday, we left Örebro at around 5:30PM to start our 24-hour bus ride up to Björkliden (yes, actually 24 hours). Björkliden is a ski resort town located at the very tippy top of Sweden, above the Arctic Circle, so it took a long time to get there. The bus ride wasn’t so bad, actually, but I don't sleep that well on planes, and this wasn't any different. We made two stops on the way there to break it up a bit and refuel the bus, which definitely helped.

On Tuesday, around 6 PM, we had finally made it! The rest of that night was spent just exploring the resort and getting everything settled in our cabins. I was in a cabin with four of my other friends: Nic, Anna, Esa, and Clara. I took a little walk around the forest with Oliver, and then we called it an early night to get ready for our activity-filled day on Wednesday!

The next day, on Wednesday, we woke up early to take a mini day trip to Narvik, a small city in northern Norway! It was an hour bus ride there, but around 20 minutes outside the city, we stopped at this big lake at the base of a fjord, so that any brave souls who wanted to swim in the lake (around 4°C) could do so! I was not one of those brave souls, but it was a lot of fun watching all my cabinmates partake. We then had around four hours to explore Narvik! Our guide for the week, Aki, showed us some good lookout spots, gave us recommendations in the city, and then sent us on our way! I ended up exploring the city with two of the fadders for my group during the OP, Mai and Oliver.  Mai, Oliver, and I ended up taking some scenic walks around the city, eating at the nearby University, and grabbing some souvenirs before we hopped back on the bus to Björkliden. Later that night, we had our snowshoe hike! This was a brand-new experience for most of us, as we had never even really seen enough snow to even think about using snowshoes. Even though we felt a little bit like penguins walking around with these contraptions strapped to our boots, it quickly became one of my favorite activities that I have ever done. We left around 8 PM and ended up extremely lucky with the weather, with skies 100% clear. So clear in fact, that we saw the northern lights! It was so surreal to see them in real life. We stopped a few times on our hike to sit and observe the beauty of the Laplands and the aurora borealis above us. After snapping some amazing pictures and being present in the moment with all my best friends, we went to bed that night extremely happy.

Thursday was my longest day activity-wise. Nic and I woke up around 6:30 AM to attend our Arctic survival skills class, where we learned how to build a fire without matches and a snow shelter using a tarp and a shovel. Aki was also our teacher for this class, and he is extremely knowledgeable about everything outdoors related! It was a lot of fun learning all the tips and tricks about camping, especially winter camping, from him. After our class, we took a trip to Abisko National Park! We spent the early afternoon exploring the snowy landscape and walking on their giant frozen lake at the base of the national park. The views from this lake were absolutely stunning! There is a U-shaped valley between two mountains called “The Gates of Lapland” or, in Sámi, “Čuonjávággi,” which translates to “Goose Valley.” This valley is considered a sacred spiritual place for the Sámi, and it was breathtaking to get such a clear view of it from Abisko! Speaking of the Sámi, that is who we visited next! This portion of the trip was especially special for me. Last year, I took an Honors Anthropology class, and for our final research paper, we had to research an indigenous community. I chose the Sámi because my family heritage is from Norway and Sweden. I had done extensive research on the Sámi in preparation for this final, so it was a full-circle moment for me to meet the community I had spent so much time researching last year. We got to meet their adorable reindeer and hear firsthand about the troubles the Sámi people face today. It was very eye-opening to hear how the Swedish government has failed to support them in so many ways and how they continue to fight for basic rights every single day. I entered the village knowing a lot about their people, but I left the Sámi village with so many new perspectives, and I cannot wait to tell my professor back at the Honors College about my experience meeting these amazing people. When we arrived back at our cabin around 8 PM, it was another clear night in the sky, and the northern lights were even more beautiful than the night before! My friends and I all went back out to look at the beauty and capture some amazing photos! After our great day, my cabinmates and I went up to the reception building and played a few games of darts and pool. I then received a call from Oliver asking if I wanted to go for a walk in the forest to get back out and look at the stars and northern lights, and, of course, I said yes! We took a long walk for about an hour, just taking it all in, and after we returned around 11 PM, we decided to call it a night. What an amazing day it was!

Friday was supposed to be my “chill” day, as I only had an activity in the evening. However, I did tell Oliver that I would do something fun with him in the morning since we didn't have anything official planned. However, our “chill” morning was definitely anything but that. Oliver called me, and he had gone up to the reception to ask what fun things we could do, and the lady suggested that we go cross-country skiing. Now, I have been downhill skiing for pretty much my whole life, but I have never even touched a pair of cross-country skis, so I was very hesitant at first. Oliver has cross-country skied for most of his life, so he was definitely already a pro. I warned him that I would be a beginner, but he pushed me to try it anyway. Even though it was an extremely steep learning curve for me, I am so glad that he convinced me to go because it was one of my favorite activities I have ever done. It was so frustrating to get the hang of, but it was so rewarding. When we finally got above the steep hills and made it out into the backcountry, the views were absolutely stunning. You could see all of Björkliden and all of the neighboring mountain ranges! I fell probably about 10 times, but I learned something new and challenged myself! And according to Oliver, I picked it up extremely well for a beginner! Later that evening, we left for our arctic survival skills camping night. We hiked about 45 minutes into the backcountry and put our skills we had learned the previous day to the test. We built our own shelter using tree branches, a tarp, a shovel, and a lot of snow. We found the perfect spot, and our shelter turned out pretty awesome! That night, we slept under our tarp tent in a sleeping bag on top of some reindeer fur. The weather that night was honestly pretty bad. It was whiteout conditions with very strong winds, but that only added to our experience! Even though most of us didn't sleep particularly well, it was a lot of fun and definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

On Saturday morning, around 6:15 AM, Aki woke us up, and we started taking down our shelter and packing up all our gear. Stupidly, Oliver and I forgot to bring our shoes inside the tent the night before, so we woke up to our shoes covered in ice and snow. Even though extremely annoying in the moment, it is definitely a moment we look back and laugh about now. Once we packed up all of our stuff, we started our hike back to our cabins and caught the most amazing sunrise I’ve ever seen! The sun was coming through the clouds and hitting the mountains perfectly; it was so beautiful! We got back to our cabins around 8:30 AM, cleaned our cabins, packed our suitcases, and said goodbye to the Laplands at around 10:30! We then had our 24-hour bus ride back to Örebro! We had more stops on the way home, and I slept way better on the way home, probably because I had only gotten about 4 hours of mediocre sleep in the backcountry of the Arctic the night before.

At around 10:30 AM on Sunday, we got back to Örebro University, and that marked the end of our trip! It was a week of unforgettable memories and a trip that was definitely one for the books!