Get Comfy... here comes Sweden, Norway and Finland

We started out June 11th with the little 2 door red Ford packed. We checked the weather and found that the whole week in Norway and Finland it was going to be raining, we said what the heck and decided to go anyways. About 2 hours before the border of Sweden/Norway we came to what is called Kungsleden, "King of Trails." It is 275 miles long and a famous hiker attraction in Europe. We stood at the end of the trail, it starts in Kiruna.



The mountains just jet up straight away from the water and so all over the mountain there are incredible waterfalls streaming down within feet of each other that run down into the river below, just gorgeous!



Then we came to the border crossing, I was so excited to go into another country. I was incredibly shocked to see how easy it is to cross from Sweden to Norway, as easy as passing over a state line. Nobody was even at the border booths if you had something to declare! I wanted to go in and ask for a stamp for my passport but... it was a ghost park!



Here the President of Norway signed this rock and the King of Sweden... marking their friendship.



I love Norway I want to move there, I am obsessed with it now however, they have built SUICIDE roads!!!!!!! If 2 American semi-trucks passed one another here they would scrape, that is why in Europe the semi's are taller and not so wide... when you pass another car, your car wobbles because the roads are so dang narrow! Holy poop!!



Thanks to Will's help in reading the Norwegian signs we turned off at an old World War II site. It is said that if you hike through the mountains you can find old war items, everything from helmets to gun casings to clothing left behind from soliders during the war. They go off of a "finders keepers, losers weepers" deal here... so you find a war item, it's yours! This was an old hide out, it was insane, even 10 feet outside of it you couldn't tell it was there, can you imagine the freaking surprise you'd get if you were walking along during the war and came into that trap. Again... holy poop!



Then we came to Narvik, Norway. It was so pretty there, too bad it was so rainy and cloudy, my pictures did not turn out well there. You cross over this bridge to get to Narvik, pretty dang amazing...



The views... yeah pretty much incredible...







The town was so colorful, you can't tell from the pictures!





Well we ate there, shopped a while and then back on our way... we stopped at a rest stop where this art do-hickey thing was chillin... there was no information on it, just thought it looked pretty interesting..



Well we arrived in Tromso... we drove to 13 different hotels, youth hostels and bed and breakfasts ... NO available rooms anywhere. It is now tourists season and this place was littered with old people on tourists buses driving around Europe... so we paid $30 to pitch a tent and share a bathroom with others... it was actually REALLY nice.



We had a delightful meal of plain hamburgers...mmmmm....



How beautiful is our rock awesome tent?! Don't worry our suitcases made a divider between the two of us at night when we slept Mom...



We totally rocked the whole camping scene in our Utah State University hockey sweatshirts... take that one home and chew it...



Minus the rain it was a pretty fun experience! It is safe to say I FROZE in my sleeping bag because regardless of the temperature I am ALWAYS cold... just like how you can expect Aunt Sharon to want you to stop and every rest stop when on a roadtrip... you can ALWAYS expect my fingers and nose and toes to be frostbitten...



We woke up the next morning and got out to explore Tromso... this place was AWESOME. The coolest thing ever is that to get from one of the city to the other you have 2 options, cross the bridge that takes you over the ocean to the other side of the city or... DRIVE IN THE UNDERWATER TUNNEL and... get this... PARK down there in the underwater tunnel parking garage! Yeeeah, holy wow!



Freaking awesome parking... the buildings were pretty amazing themselves too...



They are famous for the Crystal Church here... I really wanted to go in but there was about 4 double decker tour buses full of people outside and I just did NOT want to try and take a picture with all those people around... so I took a picture of it from across the water...



More churches... I love them, their beautimous









I think this building is past its time...



Before we left we ate breakfast and this cafe that was to die for(!!!) the guy made the breakfast all home made with fresh ingredients... totally blew IHOP out of the water...



We loaded back up and left Tromso and headed for Finland... awwww I did NOT want to leave this... the next several pictures need no caption they are just... WOW....























These 3 pictures were taken in order of the mountain to show you just how high up it is!





We left the beautiful country of mountains and came over to a place that was still pretty awesome but doesn't even compare to Norway!



We stopped by a souvenir shop right after the border, when I ran into this moose... kinda random but I tamed him and we became pretty good friends...



We kept driving and came to a cute little town called Muonio, it is known for having the longest snow season in all of Finland (William says I need to give credit where I got my sources from ... hi i'm so glad I'm back in school again, it's just a freaking blog... but just so you know I got that from wikipedia!)

We stayed in these cute little cabins which was owned by a cute little family and man they were so nicely maintained... I loved it...







All of in Scandinavia they have cottages you rent for the evening rather than hotel rooms... you just share a bathroom and shower which ends up being not bad at all, sounds worse than it really is.

We went to the grocery store when we found just about the COOLEST drink in the WORLD...



How awesome are the gas pumps in Finland!?



I was SO not ready to go back to Sweden... but the town we were in has a bridge that crosses the border between the two...



We kept driving down the coast of Finland to a place called Rovaniemi, which was a big city and I finally got the best food ever... SUBWAY. Yes I never knew I'd appreciate a subway sandwich!!!



Rovaniemi is also... the home of Santa! It also lays perfectly on the Arctic Circle...



I bought some postcards with my awesome monies that I stole from William...



We visited the home of Santa which was pretty amazing.. .







This was painted and was pretty amazing...





There was a load of British tourist and were laughing at this pretty hard, we said it looked as if Santa might be a porn star... santa claus LIVE, whooo....



We went into the gift shops... these trees were made from shavings of birch trees...



We looked at the world map that Santa uses in trying to decide where he's gonna fly to first... I laughed because I think Santa needs help in figuring out how to spell Seattle...



We went into more gift shops and I thought these were pretty hilarious although I have a feeling my Mom is gonna be PRETTY ticked off I am showing this... but I laughed!





We saw the board where Santa posts his favorite letters he gets...



This is Santa's village...



Look at me I'm Lapplandish!



Pretty cool sign showing how far to all the different places from this part of the Arctic Circle





There was a pretty pink church I had to stop and get a picture of on the way out of town...







Back in the car again we headed to Oulu, Finland. This place was a big tourist destination. It sits on the Sea of Bothnia. Now how many people can say they have been on the shore of the Sea of Bothnea. Boooyeah.



We stayed in a chic little cabin right next to the shore. It rained all night long so I was pretty glad we were not in the tent...





Don't worry there were bunk beds... no double beds Mom ;o)

We are very serious tourists!



We spent some time there looking around and went into the downtown which was SO amazing, I fell in love with that place. Just incredible.



I found a McDonald's and was laughing so hard when I walked in... we really got jacked in America....



The last time I checked our McDonalds didn't have pillars and plants around the cash register!!!



There was so much history in the buildings and everything...





This place was so cool, there was a giant church that was just SO, ahhh... I loved the colors. A light yellow with a mint green color roof. Oh I love those colors, this church was so prilly!







William bought a gift in this store... the door was only 6ft tall, I loved it!
The store building was ancient, pretty incredible they can still run a business out of it...



Well we had to do a little back tracking and go back up to Kemi where I took a picture of the pink church... there in that city was the border bridge... as soon as we crossed it there was a MASSIVE Ikea.



I bought some new bedding there which I LOVE...



After Ikea we went to find a church that was built on an island and sits on the border of Finland and Sweden, really gorgeous...





Our last stop of the road trip was at William's uncle's cabin...



It is in a village of 4 homes... so we were in total seclusion and the views were breath taking...



This is their freaking back yard at this cabin!



I couldn't believe that there was nobody else sharing this spot... just this cabin...







We took 1 last stop off in Lulea to visit Emma, Malin and Viktor... it was a lot of fun seeing them. Viktor helped empty the dishwasher, he was so adorable!

Well that was our road trip, can you believe I leave Friday?!!??
I will land in Salt Lake City at 9:30pm coming from Denver, CO on US Airways ... if your at the airport you can get your 1st dibs on Swedish chocolate!