Feb/March 2005 The ICE EXPERIENCE....Kiruna and Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

The winter 2006 experience in Jukkasjärvi

February 24th, 2006. Destination: Kiruna, Sweden. Kiruna is where I always wanted to travel since I came to Sweden. I had heard too many things about this place that I was really curious about it. Extremely cold weather during the winter and the mosquitos during the summer were amongst others the comments about some people... But Kiruna is much more than that. At least this was my experience and I guess most of the people that have been there would say the same.

Kiruna latitud is: 67.83, longitud :20.43. They have the Midnightsun from 28 May, to 16 July and Polarnight from 12 Dec, to 31 Dec. during 20 days. Kiruna is located in the northermost of Sweden and, 145 kilometres north of the arctic circle. 15 km north of Kiruna is located Jukkaskärvi, a small town there the Ice Hotel is located and where I stayed more than 2 weeks.

In this ocassion I travelled up there to work for the same car company I worked in Detroit and Washington in the U.S. My job was to be a hostess of the Ice Drive Event of the brand. So that meant to do everything, from taking care of the customers till keeping them company along all the activities they did.

I stayed in Kiruna for almost 3 weeks. I was able to stand extreme weather conditions. For instance, being the coldest one -42 celcius. Enjoying this opportunity was just amazing. I always wanted to travel up north in Sweden and this was the perfect ocassion. I worked with a cool team, met nice people, participated in all the activities, learned more about Sweden and its culture and developed my experience of being a good hostess, giving a good service to the people and working in a quite differente athmosphere.

Kenny, Robban, Emelie and me celebrating after one of the
bigest groups of customers had left Kiruna.

Kenny with me and a couple of nice dutch people that became my
friends after one of the activities. They were extremely friendly!!...

Emelie and me with one of the customers. She was very grateful
with the way we treated her and her husband during the event.

Me and Bas and his friend. Two very nice customers

Brenda, Emelie (center) and Kenny (right) with two young girls
that were also part of a group of customers

One of the highlights of this experience is that we had the chance to sleep in the Ice Hotel! Having -5 degrees inside the Hotel can make you think that it is sort of warm in comparisson with the weather outside. It is quite standing, but it is still a challenge. One has to be mentally and phisically prepared to do such a thing. But I made it!

Furthermore, I could take several rides in the dog sledges

I was also riding the snowmobiles


and I rode deer slegeds as well!!

Plus, I also drove the cars in the ice tracks!! Check this out!

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These, and more new things were the ones I had to experience. Every thing was new, every opportunity was good to learn, every opportunity was worth to live and every moment was worth to enjoy. Would I do it again?... Yes, of course!