After a long night in Örebro we woke up bright and early to make the journey to Skellefteå city which was the midpoint to Kiruna.
Fun/Enjoyable Moment: We overheard our professor talking to his family and we found out it was his birthday! So as a group, we decided to treat him to a surprise dinner! Birthday songs were sung, cake was consumed, and candles were blown!
As we continued our journey the next day, we made a quick stop to the famous arctic circle sign!
Once we made it to Kiruna, we had the opportunity to have a guided tour of the city where we were shown different landmarks and places of interest. It was fascinating to find out the current plans for the relocation of the city with a real life 3-D model of the city. We then visited the breath-taking church called the Kiruna Pastorat and ended off the tour with a visit to the futuristic new city hall with Kiruna inspired art.
We ended the eventful day with a relaxing visit to one of Swedish's most popular activities, visiting the sauna! On top of that, we even got to visit an Ice bar! Yes! You heard, it is a whole bar made of frozen bricks of ice. Fun fact: They harvest the ice blocks from the Torne river in March and use it to build the ice bar and the ice hotel! How "cool" is that!
We now look forward to visiting Boliden's open pit copper mine, Aitik tomorrow!