Lapland Adventures: Surviving Storm Sven (a.k.a Better late than never!)

I really wanted to write a blog post about my experience in Lapland, but never got around to doing it with the holidays creeping up on me, finals around the corner, mom visiting me, and moving out of Lund, etc. So, here I am, writing it now--well past New Year's! Better late then never, as they say.

I wanted to start off by saying that the Lapland trip sounded so fun and exciting from the beginning--I could fulfill some of my childhood dreams and check off a few things from my bucket list, like seeing the Northern Lights, going to a real Santa Claus village, and touring the Arctic Ocean in Norway. I was really hoping I could catch the Northern Lights and even more eager to ride on a reindeer sleigh and visit the Arctic Circle.

The start of the trip was very rocky--Skåne was hit by class 3 storm warnings and then pelted by high, turbulent winds and stormy weather. The trains actually stopped running from Lund to Copenhagen and I managed to get a train before they cut off the transportation completely. By the time I arrived in Copenhagen, I could tell the weather was just bad. The winds were literally shaking the walls and the windows of the various terminals and some flights had already been cancelled. The temperatures were freezing and it looked like a huge struggle for passengers arriving from recent  flights to make it through the strong winds and inside the airport. l knew there was a chance my flight could be cancelled, too. It was weird though, because I was really confident it wouldn't. Somehow my plane would brave through the storm despite it all. I've also never experienced a cancelled flight before, so I guess I assumed that the weather had to be absolutely catastrophic, like colossal floods from the ice caps all melting or something, in order for my flight to be cancelled.

I ended up waiting hours, then went to go check in for my flight. The other passengers and I kept waiting and waiting, but we didn't hear anything from the airline staff or airport employees. I was getting worried because I noticed that only my flight and a few others were the only ones not cancelled at this point. Still hoping the weather would clear up a bit before our plane had to depart.

Finally, over a full hour after our plane was supposed to board, an announcement on the airport intercom stated that the airport was closed and that all flights were cancelled. I was shocked! What would happen to my Lapland trip plans? Where would I stay with the trains all cancelled? Where do I go?

Turns out that virtually everyone still at the airport was stuck there overnight, unless you were one of the lucky ones to snag a hotel room that night and a cab. Those sold out quickly and there weren't enough rooms to go around for everyone. Keep in mind I am talking over a thousand people (at least)---stuck at Copenhagen Airport overnight. It was like a scene out of a natural disaster movie: elderly people and babies were cuddled up on the floor in the halls of terminals and store fronts trying to sleep and keep warm. People were fighting over getting pillows and there were mad dashes for blankets that were being distributed by some of the airlines. Families hoarded the information desks, speaking various languages, demanding pillows and food vouchers. Really long lines of hundreds of people waiting, crowded the airline information areas to rebook flights and get food vouchers for the night. I ended up finding many other students from the ESN Lapland trip and we all just hung out on the benches nearby the airline information counters, waiting for our que number to be called. (For those of you who don't know, Scandinavia really likes waiting in lines, typically using numbered tickets to "que" in.) We were all in the same boat---flights cancelled, stranded at the airport, no food or blankets, and no hotel. At this point, I was actually more worried about my luggage than anything else. Where was it? Since my flight wasn't going anywhere, did luggage handlers remove it from the plane? If so, where was it? I needed my cell phone charger to make phone calls (to book another flight), my camera, and possibly food that I packed in my checked in bag. So, what to do?

Fortunately, I was able to to make the trip to Lapland, get a new flight booked (for free), and received some blankets and food vouchers for that night and the next day. I also managed to get my luggage after landing in Helsinki, Finland. I ended up bonding with a small group from the ESN Lapland trip during this whole ordeal, mainly students from Germany and Singapore. It was quite an experience, to say the least. We ended up taking over an empty terminal that had various seats in it and slept across rows of these seats. It was very uncomfortable, cold, and we found out later why the terminal was abandoned (most terminals were packed full of people)--there was a large draft coming from a cracked door at the end of the terminal. Freezing cold air was blowing through the opening into the terminal, making the temperature drop and the environment almost unbearable. After an arduous night, we abandoned our pillows and blankets, got a breakfast meal with what was left of our food vouchers, and departed on our new flights to Helsinki to begin our Lapland adventure!

Pre-Departure Thoughts

Hello everyone!

My flight to Copenhagen, Denmark is only four days away and now the pressure is on. I am finally starting to feel the anticipation leading up to my departure. I still have so many things to do before I leave for Sweden! I have yet to pack my suitcase entirely and move out all of my belongings from Sherman Hall, the CoOp I am staying in for the first session of summer, to storage. Despite all of the pre-departure plans and to-do lists I need to complete, it seems like things are running pretty smoothly.

I've been working out my finances and healthcare-related pre-departure plans so that I don't run into any hiccups abroad. That has really been the crux of all the planning: so many things related to travel insurance, healthcare, and paying bills while abroad are very complicated and time consuming.

On a lighter note, I found out today that my application for the Reach the World Travel Correspondent was accepted! I received an offer to blog about my travel experiences in Sweden and share them with under-resourced schools and children in Harlem and New York. Reach the World (RTW)'s main purpose is to serve underprivileged communities and teach kids about geography, ultimately helping young public school children to broaden their global horizons, succeed in school, and learn more about the world in which they live. As part of the position as a Travel Correspondent, I will create a public profile on their website, blog, write travel journals, and communicate with young students and kids via Skype and their website. This organization is in partnership with the Gilman International Scholarship Program, which sent out the offer to me to work for them. It is a volunteer position (i.e. unpaid), but I do genuinely want to blog and share my experiences with a larger audience. I think the experience will improve my writing abilities and my blogging skills. It also sounds really fun! I will also get to Skype with the kids in the classrooms occasionally and complete various assignments related to my study abroad program. Maybe I can even teach them a little bit of Swedish? Either way, I think it will be a very enriching experience for everyone involved--myself and the kids!

Another thing I have been doing the past week and today is researching activities for Midsummer. What is "Midsummer", you might ask? Midsummer is a traditional Swedish celebration that happens right after I arrive in Lund, Sweden. The celebration welcomes the summer solstice by dancing around a decorated Maypole, making flower hair wreaths, drinking, and sometimes wearing traditional Swedish costumes. Below are some pictures so you can get a better idea of what it is like:

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons - June 2005 by Mikael Häggström

Midsummer celebration at Årsnäs, by the coast from Kode, Solberga församling.

After some deliberation, I have decided to go to this event in Skansen, Stockholm: http://www.skansen.se/en/tema/midsummer-programme-2013
Events will be taking place for three days: Friday, June 21st; Saturday, June 22nd; and Sunday, June 23rd. It looks like one of the more promising locations where I will actually have a chance to participate in the celebrations, take some photos for my blog, and shoot some video. Most Swedes apparently celebrate with their families outdoors, so this event is perfect for me because it is catered to the public. I plan on posting my photos here on the blog, so keep a lookout for that soon. Here is a short video about the event so you can get a better idea of what it would be like. It sort of reminds me of some of the May Day celebrations I did as a kid in daycare. We would dance around a pole we constructed outside on the grass with colorful streamers. It looks kind of similar and it sounds fun!

I am hoping I can get some good videos and photos to show to the kids in Reach the World of the event. I'll definitely be bringing my Canon EOS T3i DSLR camera.

If you want to find out more about the Swedish Midsummer, you can check out the official Sweden website for more information: http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Lifestyle/Traditions/Celebrating-the-Swedish-way/Midsummer/

Or you can check this recent article about Midsummer in Sweden that was just published by the New York Times:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/travel/a-midsummer-days-dream-in-sweden.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Keep following this blog if you want to learn more about my study abroad program, Sweden, and my travels! Thanks for reading! If you have any questions about my trip or any comments, feel free to post below.

Safe Travels,

Jenna