Final few days

Day 3 of skiing (Friday)

It was even colder on day 3 than day 2, but we still had a great time on the slopes!  We decided to explore the "Fun Park", which is a series of ramps and things to do tricks on.  I just skied through it, Laura was a little more brave and went off of a couple ramps.  They also had a "big air" jump set up with a huge air bag to catch you after jumping.  I didn't want to have anything to do with it, but again Laura thought it would be fun.  She tried it a couple times and enjoyed it.  :)

After skiing we went to the restaurant at the bottom of the mountain to have a nice dinner together.  We put in our name and they told us to go downstairs and have a drink and they would come get us when our table was ready.  On our way down the stairs an older (very intoxicated) gentleman was walking down and saying something in Swedish about his feet being cold (at least that's what I got from it since he was just in socks and kept looking at his feet).  We told him we didn't understand what he was saying and he kept responding in Swedish.  Then he just said "Come with me".  We followed him into the bar in the basement and he introduced us to his co-workers (they were a bunch of guys, I guess about 10 of them in total, that worked for some kind of window installation company and they had a conference there or something).  We ended up hanging out and drinking with these guys for awhile, they bought us a few drinks and then they invited us to join them for dinner.  Most of them knew English very well, but we found that the further north we went, the less English everyone knew.  They paid for our dinner and said they enjoyed our company and were happy to have the opportunity to practice their English.  We talked a little bit about sports and they were surprised to find out that bowling is not ranked as one of the most popular sports to watch in America.  They have watched shows like The Simpsons and The Flinstones and got the idea that bowling is HUGE in the U.S.  I thought that was quite funny.
After dinner a bunch of us went back to the bar in the basement where there was an Asian guy who called himself "Yellow Mike" playing guitar and singing.  He sang LOTS of American songs: "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, "Hey Jude" by The Beatles, even some Tenacious D and EVERYONE in the bar sang along.  They all knew all of the words.  It was unbelievable!  I took some video with Laura's phone, but you really can't hear it.  When he was done playing we went to a place a few feet away that was like a night club.  The same guy got up on stage with a full band this time and played some Blur, White Stripes, Blink 182, etc.  Everyone knew those songs as well.  A very fun night!  But we had to get up early to get to the dog sled tour in the morning.

Dog Sled Tour (Saturday)

snowy road

We drove about 2 hours away to go on the dog sled tour.  The roads were completely covered in snow, but the drive wasn't too bad (I say that because I made LJ drive).  At least it was light out.  The dogs were so happy!  They were playing in the snow, rolling around in it, and eating it.  Their tails were wagging like crazy, they were ready to run.  The company is run by this adorable little French lady named Anne.  She was very friendly and very talkative.  After showing us how to control the sled, we took off.  We went through an area with a lake, but there was at least a couple FEET of snow on the ground, so you couldn't see where the lake was.  It was beautiful!!!  Mountains in the background, snow covered trees, it was amazing!    

  

We stopped a few times to let the dogs rest.  It was freezing, by the way.  By the end of the 2 hour tour I was completely frozen and I couldn't feel my feet or hands at all.  We went into a little tipi and ate lunch.  We had LOTS of food.  We started off with some glogg and some reindeer sausage.  Then we had ham and cheese sandwhiches on polar bread (some kind of flat bread).  Then we had some soup and some reindeer burgers.  They were actually pretty good.  I guess they eat a lot of reindeer meat in the north.  Then we had some cinnamon roll things for dessert. 

Tipi where we had lunch

inside the tipi



It was all very good, we LOVED the dog sled tour.  Then we had to drive back and get a little sleep before we had to head to the airport.

Heading Home (Saturday night/Sunday)

After the dog sled tour we went back to our hotel and slept for a few hours before we had to get up and pack and get to the airport.  We left around 11pm (4pm St. Louis time).  Around 12:30 or so we decided we should probably stop for gas.  Except that ALL of the gas stations were closed (and there really aren't many around to begin with).  We found some that would take credit cards except that in Europe they have "smart cards" or something where they have a pin number with their credit card.  So since our cards don't have a pin, we weren't able to buy gas with them.  We finally found a gas station that would take cash, so we put in 500 kronor (about 75 U.S. dollars) and tried to pump the gas.  Obviously, everything was in Swedish and we didn't know what it was saying.  We ended up somehow canceling the transaction, but this machine does not give change.  So we have to call them to get our money back... annoying.  But someone else stopped to get gas and she was nice enough to help us through the process so we could get back on the road.  When we were about an hour outside of the airport, we needed gas again.  But this time we couldn't find a pump that would take cash.  So finally I called my credit card company's emergency line (because it was outside of their normal business hours) and they were able to put a pin on my card so we could use it at the pump.  This was added to our list of things we will know for next time.  Haha!  It was a really good thing we left super early to get to the airport because the drive with all of the different stops at gas stations took us about 7 1/2 hours.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that there was a full on blizzard going on outside.  Laura drove the entire way because I was terrified to drive in it and I would drive really slow.  Since we were cutting it a little close getting to the airport on time, she just drove the whole way.  She is my hero.

The flight from Stockholm to Newark was uneventful, which was nice.  We watched a couple movies and slept a bit.  We had about 4 hours in Newark before we had to board for our flight to St. Louis.  We got something to eat and then started to head to our gate, but it was blocked off.  The entire airport was shut down and all of the planes were grounded.  We had no idea what was going on, we were all just standing there waiting for them to let us go.  After about 20 or 30 mins I guess, they let us go.  They never said what was going on, but I guess it was some sort of security breach.  Anyway, no problems with the flight back to St. Louis  And we are home!  What an amazing and wonderful adventure!!!