Stage 12 - Northern Lights near Kiruna, close to Abisko

The journey to Kiruna is not made easy for us, construction sites everywhere. When we finally find it, we end up directly at a beautiful red ship church. At least it looks like a ship, made entirely of wood and tapering to a point. The best part is that it is elevated, above a park that glows red-golden in the setting sun, where one can easily get lost. Kiruna is beautiful! The houses are no longer new and quite simple. You can see that it is an old worker/mining town. But somehow it is inviting.

After Chris dropped me off at the church, we now meet in a restaurant in the tiny center of the city. It is a slightly more upscale restaurant and to celebrate the evening, I order a plate of sausages with reindeer meat, against my own resolutions. I also order cheese and a salad. After I have chosen a wine (finally red wine again) and Chris has ordered a burger, we enjoy the atmosphere. It doesn't take long and our food is served. It tastes delicious, yes excellent. Really, really good!

I still cannot finish the fries that were ordered afterwards, instead we have to leave. We still have some distance to cover. It may be dark, but with an hour's drive we reach one of the supposedly safest Northern Lights viewpoints on the Arctic Circle. Just before Abisko, the really, really last place on the edge of civilization (about 20 inhabitants), there is a center for Northern Lights, where you can take a cable car up to a mountain and also look through a telescope. Unfortunately, no one answers the phone there, so we decide not to risk being locked out and simply stay in a lay-by at the foot of the mountain. Every now and then a car passes us and a train passes by higher up. Nevertheless, the place is somehow beautiful and we can see wonderfully into the vast sky. Stars upon stars, to the left of us a mountain massif in the night and to the right the vastness into the valley and also in the distance: mountains. It is bright at the end of the sky and I immediately take a chair outside. I also need a blanket. And rum.

Then it's time. It starts to flicker green, very faintly at first. But then it becomes very clearly visible. Much stronger than two nights ago. Chris takes out his mobile phone. The shots are great. However, they cannot capture even remotely what we experience: the whole sky shimmers green. The shimmer covers the firmament in waves, moving in shapes. Sometimes long and narrow like a green-toned rainbow, then it snakes into the distance, becomes a smudge and then stretches out again. It is a spectacle that nature gives us and we are amazed and in awe. It is a gift that we are allowed to see this, so easily and obviously, almost unplanned (until 3 days ago we never thought of Northern Lights). It seems to continue all night and therefore we decide, at some point long after midnight, to say goodbye to the Northern Lights. We carry it in our hearts and hear the whistle, which is ours, but which also seems to hear the green, as well as the dancing, which unites us.

The next morning we wake up early and are amazed. The mountain next to us is incredibly beautiful and stands, covered in snow, mighty beside us. Everything around us is still red and red and red and orange, yellow... glowing... We are once again immersed in a sea of autumn colors, but this time interrupted by white shimmering majestic mountains close by and in the distance. And blue sky. I could scream with joy. But time is pressing. We are driving towards Abisko, which is probably even smaller than we thought - just to turn around again. Except for taking photos, where I get out of the car again and take them continuously even while driving, there is nothing more to do here. Because we have decided that we want to go on. To Finland. That means - this is the end. Not further north in Sweden, even though the Norwegian border and Tromsø are relatively close by now. That is so tempting. But apparently there is already snow there and time is indeed pressing. And we also need a reason to come back.

So we continue. Now wide, steel-blue lakes also appear in the landscape. We are honestly speechless at the unique beauty of nature. At this point, we cannot even imagine that we will continue to discover beautiful things. We simply follow our intuition, our sense of adventure, and the trust that there is more to see out there. This is beautiful! But there is still more, always more.

But first we have to go back to Abisko, because I want to show Chris the inside of the church, as it is very unusual and really built like a ship. And there is also a nice café. Oh yes, we also sit down there. Wonderful. Pastries, cappuccino, coziness. We enjoy the morning, which is already quite advanced. Eventually, we get up. We still want to go to Inari today. It is 500 km to the east, in the northern part of Finnish Lapland. "Oh Chris, do we still want to go to this store here?" Fortunately, Chris also likes cute shops and likes to browse for travel souvenirs, so we go to the store. There are such beautiful things here. Nordic design, just the way we like it. Lamps, pillows, trays, dishes, and various other things... The saleswoman is incredibly nice. She speaks some English and tells me that all this here, where we are standing and eating now, will no longer exist next year. That the city plans to demolish everything and then build a new city with more modern shopping opportunities. Tourism is the main source of income here now and the money from souvenir seekers should end up much more generously in the local cash registers. Surely not with the dear lady, who seems very sad that her store has to close. She has been here all her life. Meanwhile, Chris has gone to get the car and she explains to me how to get to the fabric store, where I might be able to buy a tablecloth. We have been looking for one for so long. A tablecloth that will make our mobile home really cozy when we sit down to eat.

Following the woman's sketched plan, I wander through Kiruna and of course get lost on the less than 500 meters between the houses. I approach a nice-looking young man and ask him for directions. In broken English, he explains that he doesn't know his way around here either, he just arrived himself. "Ah! Where are you from?" "From Ethiopia!" he laughs at me. Now we both laugh. Oh man, he must have had a long way to get here. From Ethiopia to Lapland. Surely not comfortably in a camper just for fun. And how cold it must be for him here? And then the upcoming winter as well. "What's the temperature in your hometown now?" I ask him. He explains that it never gets hotter than 25° degrees in his hometown and it is very pleasant. At the same time, he looks up on his cell phone how to get to the address I am looking for. He walks with me. We chat a little, as he also asks me where I'm from and how warm it is there. Unfortunately, we arrive at the fabric store very quickly. I thank him warmly and tell him my name again. His name is Said and I thank him again. Not only did he bring me to the store (he goes in the other direction afterwards), but he also gave me his kindness and his warm laughter. My mood is so good now and I have enjoyed the human and cheerful encounter so much.

Chris and I meet in the fabric store and find very beautiful, Nordic patterned textiles. "But now really, let's go, it's already late!" A woman with a very beautiful dog comes towards us. I dare not address her, but Chris does. He asks what kind of dog it is? Maybe we also want to get a Canaan. Well, we won't buy anything today. Today we still have to drive far, far away.

For safety's sake, we call Josephin and Markus at the "Nomadic Naali" Husky Farm in Inari. And once again, we are lucky. There is still room for tonight - we can come, even though it will probably be 10 p.m. when we arrive. Chris has found this promising place and since we love dogs so much and also want to experience something special, something Nordic, it is worth the long journey for us.

Our route takes us through northern Sweden and somehow it is impressive when we cross the border to Finland. We drive over a bridge, under which there is a huge lake on both sides. We only read just now that Finland has over 300,000 lakes. And as we immediately immerse ourselves in truly red forests, we also realize that about 86% of the country is forested. Amazing. Only 5 million inhabitants on an area as large as Germany. We only now fully realize that this will be a completely new experience and that it will probably differ greatly from the rather industrial and comparatively populated Sweden.