Europe month

Hej Hej,

Back in Melbourne 2 weeks now ... been working and celebrating Easter with the Buckley's visiting me and Mick.

After Easter flowers from Mick's mum as thank you, very beautiful roses

March month has been vey busy with lots of travelings in Europe, so I'll just put down the most important trips and things.

On the first week of March, 2nd March, flew to Geneva for a week of skiing in Chamonix (France) with the UCPA. Took the bus from Geneva to Chamonix, 2 hours on the most incredible bus ride with lots of grand views along the highway to the little city of Chamonix. The whole city is surrounded with proper mountains and Mt Blanc (the highest peak in Europe with 4210m). Saturday was a non ski day, tried the skies on Sunday with Mick on the snowboard and Dude on his skis, I was called miss Plowy since I couldn't parallell ski (not yet). The ski school started on Monday morning, for me was the Perfectionnement level the best option, something between the beginners and the intermediate level. We started with 10 in the group and by the end of the week on Friday we were down on 6 ... no we didn't loose them along the steep sections in the Chamonix valley ... they simply changed groups as they learned more or steped down a level if they couldn't keep up with the group. Our instructor Mitsuo was really good, not perfect in English, but a good skier and good instructor. I remember that he tolled us on Monday afternoon that by Friday we would be going down on red slopes ... but after lunch on Tuesday he took us all down on red. Some of us were more scared than others, I was proud to go down on the red one and did high fives with the others at the end :), really cool feeling!

A UCPA day looked this this:

Up by 7am, breakfast at 7:30, off to the ski storage to pick up the skiis and boots and meet up with the group outside the house at 8:30, off with the UCPA bus to a new ski place each day (been to Les Grandes Montets, Brevent/Flegere, Le Tour/Vallorcine and Les Houches), up with the little or big gondola to the top and ski to midday, lunch stop with the group, more skiing in the arvo and back with the UCPA bus to Chamonix around 3:30pm, back to ski storage to return gear and up to room to rest up/shower before dinner, dinner at 7pm, bedtime at 8/9pm ... usually a very good sleep with no deams just solid sleep :). This schedule was on for 6 days.

Me on the skis ... I think it was the 2nd day on Tuesday on the windy top where I put the balaclava on

Brother Dude in his Peak outfit, on his way down in the Alps, in the Chamonix Valley

On top of Auguille du Midi, 3842m high, with view of Mont Blanc and the rest of the Alps, amazing high place, after the Alps everything else will look like little hills ... see the people walking down? they are all off down along the glacier on the back of the mountain, Vallé Blanche run - brother Dude did this on Wednesday :)

Okey, skiing was a big thing in March ... finished Chamonix by paragliding down from 2000m with my brother into the city on Saturday morning, then we left for a drive along Italy, France and Switzerland and flew back to Copenhagen on Sunday arvo.

All ready for the paragliding down, camera ready too :)

Second week of March, the 12th was a big day ... for my grandma, she turned 80 years and the family celebrated her with a dinner at home and funny presents.

Me and my little granny, here she´s 80 years and 2 weeks old ... missing her already

Next day we flew to the northern Sweden, Kiruna for 3 days. Stayed one night at the Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi ... inside the cold room of 5 minus degrees, and 2 nights in Kiruna. The Icehotel was very cool, though very touristy with almost no Swedish people there ... a bunch of English people. On Wednesday we went on a husky sled tour from the Icehotel, 12 dogs were pulling us 5 (incl the husky caretaker) on a 3 hour long tour. It was a beautiful day with sun, snow and wind. The hot tea was great when we stopped for fika :). After lunch we took the bus into Kiruna, the big city (population around 23000 in the whole county). Stayed 2 nights at a cheaper accomodation in Kiruna. Went on a snow mobile tour on Wed evening with a dinner and northern lights on the agenda. We did see the northern lights ... but unfortunately no photos could be taken as an evidence :(. Next time .... the lights were amazing, on Thursday evening, the green colour was strong and was flowing on the whole sky, it was like someone was painting the sky with green all over ... I was standing outside in the wind and was saying many ahhhhhhhhh and ohhhhhh´s as the sky was changing all the time. It was an amazing feeling to finally see the magical northern lights!

Inside the Icehotel - by the Icebar

View from the Aurora Balcony at the Icehotel in Jukasjärvi, 20km from Kiruna ... got up the check the weather, but the first night in the Arctic Cirle was cloudy and no northern lights were seen

All geared up with the Icehotel clothes, in a bluish overal, boots and gloves ... our own gear was as good as the hotels though

Husky sledge tour on the snow and ice river, 12 happy huskies were pulling us, I had the privilege to sit in front all the time on the sledge

Dinner by the fire on the snowmobile and northern lights tour - I remember it was a chilly and windy night, both me and Mick drove the snowmobile and on the lake section we both drove 90-100km/km and left the rest of the group behind us :)

The wodden church in Kiruna, pretty amazing church, very neat with all the wodden details

After the northern Sweden short trip we (me, Mick and Anna) drove up to Göteborg to visit Marie and the little family with Linnea, Lukas and Linus over the weekend of March 16 to 18. It was geat to see them all, the kids have grown so much since I´ve seen them. Linnea is now 4 years and Lukas is 2 ... I´ve been away way too long. The weekend challenge for Anna, Marie and Linus was to speak English since Mick doesn´t speak much Swedish ... I think we all did our best to speak in English, the kids were a bit confused from time to time since they couldn´t understand what we all were talking about. The best was all the delicious food Marie had prepared and the Sunday bunsch breakfast with the pancakes ... ah, so good! It was so sad to say goodbye to them all, not knowing when we´re going to see each other next time....

Me with the girls, Anna and Marie in Göteborg (Gothenburg)

All of us in Ingared, from left: Linus, Lukas, Marie, Anna, Linnea, me and Mick - this photo took a few shots since the kids were all around and couldn´t settle and we had our legs in the majority of the pictures :)

On Sunday the 18th after driving back to Lund, returning the car and dropping Anna off at the train station, we took the train to Copenhagen Airport to continue our Europe travelings ... flew to Milano on the most shaky flight ever in my life... flew over the Alps and it was very windy outside the plane and I was very happy when we landed at Milano Linate airport.

We did a 5 day drive around in the northern part of Italy with stops at Modena (Ferrari Museum and Gallery), Bologna (Ducati motorbike museum and factory tour), Venice for 2 days, Brescia and the Garda lake on the way back to Milano.

Italy was intense, with lots to do and see, the driving was done by Mike entirely ... mad people drive in Italy - no rules and no sense for others in the trafic ... my what a traffic there was on the highways.

Venice was beautiful, no cars inside the city, we parked the car for 2 days and walked and walked everywhere.