Åre and Co.

(Ängelholm's Church)

Without warning, literally half an hour after my last post I received a call from the Waterpolo team asking me to join them the next day in travelling to Copenhagen to play goalie against Denmark. Naturally I accepted and at 11 the next morning was on a train to Helsingborg where we caught the ferry to Denmark before catching another train down the final stretch to Copenhagen. We lost both games. We didn't see much of Denmark besides the pool and the train so hopefully I will be able to go back there in a few weeks.

 (Copenhagen Centrum)

(Street corner on the way to the pool in Copenhagen)

A few days later Niclas took Cia, Victor and I too see Rögle play Ice Hockey against Malmö in the SEB Box. It was a disappointing game with Malmö winning 3-1 (all points score in the last third) but we had a good view from the box

Then on Saturday I caught the bus to Hässleholm to catch the overnight train up Sweden to the Ski village of Åre (pronounced Ore-e) arriving at 8 o'clock Sunday morning.

(view from the bus on the way to the Hässleholm)

(My train compartment)

I met the other Exchange Students on the platform and we walked the 800m to the hotel.

(a church we passed on the way to the hotel)

 (our Hotel. My room was the top right window)

 (the view from said window)

(Eligh the Canadian in my room at the foot of my bed)

After settling in to our rooms we had lunch and were assigned our Skis, poles and helmets before having Pool and ping-pong tournaments of which I came second in both. My hours spent on the ping-pong table finally payed off.

The next day we woke up early and caught the 8 o'clock bus up to the slopes where we spent the next 3 and a half days Skiing non-stop.

 (just after completing the 3 meter jumps)

 (Ann and Wesley from America. I'm fixing my gloves in the background)

(Åre had many T-bar Ski lifts, one of which was at least 1.2km long and took over 10 minutes to ride to the top- if you didn't fall off because of how steep it was)

 (The view from the top was worth the painful T-bar ride up though)

 (taking a break in the Café playing with my camera)

 ("enjoying" our packed lunches)

 (We would catch the T-bar ut to the top of the Slopes in this pick)

 (On top of the world)

(Left to right: Ian-Taxas, Anya-Tasmania, Daniel-Perth, Daniel-Perth also, Kate-southern NSW, Me, Eligh-Canada, Andrew- WA, Hayden-Leeman NSW, Liam-VIC, and Brodie- Port lincoln SA)

 (Brodie off the moggles)

 (Daniel Clarke waiting for the bus)

 (Daniel Clarke on the bus. RJ-New York on backseat)

Daniel made all the newbies (the recently arrived exchange students) look bad as he has spent the last 3 years teaching himself Swedish and is already practically fluent. He's now just working on pronunciation and expanding his vocabulary.

 (Me on le bus)

 (Palo- Brazil and Me outside the Café)

 (The drop off- a Black run that runs the 700m down to Åre on the riverside)

 (Peggy the overexcited Taiwanese girl)

 (Kyana- Port Macquarie NSW)

On the second day, emergency struck. Two boys, on adjoining slopes at the exact same time,  hit separate trees, both tearing the same tendons in their left legs and both being rushed to hospital neither to ski again.

While they were at the hospital, the rest of us were taken up the mountain by bus to see the Ice Castle.

This is a Ice fortress carved into the ice on the side of a river besides a raging waterfall. It took 3 men an entire month to dig out the cavenous cathedral.

 (Ian got a little stuck in the snow on the path to the Ice Castle... after a bit of help from us pushing him in...)

 (The waterfall. The photo was taken from a platform adjoining the castle)

 (The antechamber/bar for the chapel with ice chandelier)
 

 (Vodka on Ice??)

 (the Chapel. 7 weddings a year take place in this icy chapel)

 (the colouring is lost on the camera. The room was beautifully lit with blue and red lights, both balanced by the yellow flickering glow of candles)

 (the Alter)

 (Further skiing)

 (waiting for the train home to Ängelholm)

(Ann, Peggy and Autumn waiting with me)

I arrived home at about 8:30 this morning to get changed and was strait off to Rotary before the Club President Magnus Törnqvist was nice enough to take me to visit his work in Helsingborg. His company is an intermediary provider of American imperial sized products for industry as well as the lights used on runway in airports all over Europe.

(an old military baracks in the northern part of Helsingborg which is now shops)