This time last year a dream of mine came true – well, several dreams actually: I made a musical pilgrimage beyond the Arctic Circle (to a small mining town in Swedish Lapland) to watch my favourite band perform in an airport hangar, after which I went to the other side of the country to watch another one of my favourite bands play a small club show. Along the way I slept aboard a decommissioned 747 and an old cruise ship, saw Scandinavia’s tallest church and Sweden’s second deepest lake, stood beneath the northern lights in Kiruna and ate wild blueberries in Abisko, met some great people and a wild moose family and spent a small fortune on food and souvenirs.

It’s taken me a year but over the next few posts I’ll be uploading some of the (8000!) photos I took during my trip, but first a little background on why I went…

A photo posted by Laura McCullagh (@laura.mcc_za) on Nov 23, 2016 at 3:16am PST

I’ve been asked a lot why I chose to visit Kiruna of all places…well, the short answer is ‘for a concert’ but the long answer is a bit more complicated…

I dunno why but I’ve always had an interest in and love for all things Scandinavian, particularly the music and the the nature/landscapes of the frozen north.

Initially my focus was on Denmark (and visiting Roskilde Festival is still super high on my dream list) but my allegiance switched to Sweden around a decade ago for a couple of reasons: firstly because I discovered loads of amazing Swedish musicians and bands. Topping that list is Kent, who quickly became and have remained my favourite band.

The second reason is that I tried learning Danish and failed…it was just impossible and resources were limited, then I discovered how much nicer and easier Swedish was (sorry Denmark…) and that there was loads of grammar info and resources online. That, along with Kent’s extensive discography (and a lot of free time at my old job…) helped me teach myself Swedish.

I generally prioritise melody over lyrics but in Kent’s case both really are excellent. And not only are their lyrics great but they’ve taught me loads of fun and unusual words… So while I struggle a bit with everyday speech, I know the Swedish words for bio-luminescence (mareld), regret (ångrar) and ‘bleed to death’ (blöder ihjäl), so I feel pretty poetic when it comes to sentence construction…Alas, when it came down to it I was too embarrassed to speak much Swedish to actual Swedes but maybe I’ll do better next time…

So the plan was always to visit Sweden someday…then early last year Kent announced they were doing one final album and tour before breaking up in December 2016.  I casually looked at their scheduled concerts and saw most had sold out super fast, but one in a place called Kiruna sill had tickets available…naturally I investigated, and discovered the town was the Northern-most in Sweden (and part of Lapland) and tiny (pop. 18000) and the venue was an airport hangar – apart from the fact that one of Kent’s biggest hits is called 747, the thought of a show in a hangar in the Arctic Circle was just crazy cool. So, high on imagination, at that point I went full on and decided to look at flights…It was purely for a laugh, till I saw a ridiculously affordable flight with Ethiopian Airways waiting for me. And just like that I felt I had no choice but to go…

A photo posted by Laura McCullagh (@laura.mcc_za) on Sep 20, 2016 at 3:09am PDT

So I bought all the weirdly coloured and ill-fitting thermal gear that was on sale at Cape Union Mart, way overpacked my giant bag and headed off to Sweden…Overall I spent 1 day in Uppsala, 2 nights in Kiruna, 2 nights in Abisko, 4 nights (in 2 different parts of) Stockholm and 1 night in Gothenburg. If I had to do it over again I’d’ve spent more time in Gothenburg as I enjoyed the vibe there way more than Stockholm but I was really lucky to have an amazing trip and honestly wouldn’t change a thing. It was the first time I’d ever traveled and the bug’s definitely bitten – really hope I’ll be able to return to the north someday.

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Kapstaden till Kiruna :  intro  |  pt 1  |  pt 2  |  pt 3  |  Kent at Arena Arctica  |  pt 4
pt 5  |  pt 6  |  pt 7  |  pt 8 |  pt 9  |  pt 10  | Tiger Lou at Pustervik  |  pt 11