New Shoes!

Today my new macbeth shoes arrived.. 2 pairs of glorious shoes that will hopefully not kill my feet like my dreaded boots.. and today we are ordering even more shoes too.. spoilt much?
Now I shall go back to munching from my 1kg tin of Roses chocolates that I got from the Gothenburg English Store yesterday.. nom nom nom.. however they don't taste as good as I remember all those years ago....

Being home!

The first night in a real bed was bliss, I drifted off to sleep like I was on a cloud.. I do love my bed! We managed to sleep in until about 8:30am.. latest we have slept in in a very long time.. even Nems slept in! It was awesome! Then we just took it easy over the next day.. going out to get a spot of shopping and having a look around town.. nothing much had changed.. sad really. Saturday night we headed off to the movies to see Harry Potter.. which was well.. for lack of a better word.. shit. Today was spent doing all this that you are reading, but with a little visit from Johanna, Christian & Dizzy... and Dizzy left us a little surprise...
Oh and would you believe since we have been home it has.... rained!! Typical! I want a summer dang nabbit!

Nemo is really happy to be home also.. rolling on his rug and sleeping on his back in his bed and on the couch.. o happpy days!

The Journey Home

Abisko - Hässleholm

Up earlish after bascially no sleep on the stoney, cold and slopey area.. we were all breakfasted and packed up and ready to go by 9:30am where we headed off to the station to wait for the train.. to wait 3 hours that is! but at least we actually got the tent down before it once again started to rain.. we really have had the best weather right?Waiting.. waiting.. waiting..
Still waiting.. waiting.. waiting..
The train came and we were off..
The yummiest fizz.. it was almost solo like.. o how I miss that drink!
Emma is back to the electronic world.. iPhone fun begins!
I tried to have a snooze but Emma woke me up coz I was snoring... even though we were the only ones on the carriage! She can be so silly sometimes! Soon enough though, more people joined us, one being a jerk who would open up a window to take photo.. what he was taking a photo of was beyond me.. maybe he had a tree fetish? So having a window open.. makes it very loud and rather cold and then he decides that he wants to take photo's over the other side and so without closing the window he already opened.. he just headed over to the other side and opened another window and of course it got SO much louder and SO much colder.. but then an older man stepped in and told him off and we didn't have the issue again.. I'm ok with people wanting to take a pic.. but don't open the window and then stand there with it open looking down at the photos you had just taken.. that is just rude. He was such a rude mofo.
There was also a creepy man who saw Emma go into the toilet, and then he was standing right by the door when he heard it flush.. coz it seems people just don't know how to flush the toilet so when you go in you have to do a pre flush.. *shakes head* Iam also surprised at how much pee makes it onto the floor in a train toilet! so anyways.. he saw her go in.. he heard it flush directly after.. and I know he would have heard it coz I could hear it from where I was.. and yet he still waited a minute before he then tried the door.. WTF? Creepy creepy man.

Train number 2 comes and we jump on.. and yes we have to share with a weird woman and her dog.. her dog had the coolest ears lol Then after a few hours on the train.. another woman got on with her big dog.. the room is too small for 4 adults and 3 dogs.. 2 of which are big dogs! but the women with the big dogs.. parked up in the floor with their dogs and snoozed.. which meant that Em, Nems and I had the table and chairs.. under my feet I seemed to get the floor womens feet.. but that was fine coz I had the chair to stick my feet on.. so it all worked out for the best.

Once again people would walk past and stare in.. just like on the first train.. maybe a little worse coz this time there were people asleep on the floor.. there was one main offender.. who would come past about every 30mins.. I really felt like I was a caged monkey. It made me wanna fling shit at them.. you know like at the Welly Zoo how they have the sign that says to not stand too close or the monkeys might fling their shit at you.. or something of that effect.

I managed to get a little sleep, especially once they turned the lights off.. which seemed to take longer this time than last.. and having the buff to put over my eyes really helped too. Next time I really want a sleeping carriage for the long haul! Once again the train was late and we only just managed to catch our connecting train.. which actually waited for us so it was then late.. but I am so happy that they did wait coz stuff having to go on a later slower train home for the final few hours. Once on the train we had to find places for our backpacks, Emma's was easy enough to get into the over head area whereas mine was a little larger and had issues getting in there.. just as I was about to give up this dude comes along and shoves it in tight.. it aint gonna budge thats for sure. It was in there pretty snug but then the dude's stupid wife came along and started bitching that she thought it was going to fall down on her, she tried moving it but it didnt budge so she bitched a little more and eventually he swapped seats with her. Moron. Then there was their eldest kid who wouldn't stop saying ''pappa".. like every 3 seconds! It was totally doing my head in.

We gave Nemo some tucker.. being hand fed while on Emma's lap.. spoilt much?
Then it was time to spoil us when we got off the train and we headed right for the ice cream wagon and got a couple of scoops in a fresh waffle cone.. mmmm yum yum for my tum tum! Once home, Nems got a bath, then Emma and then me.. all unpacked and Emma's mum had done a spot of shopping for us so we actually had food in the place and didn't actually have to leave.. ahhh nice! We just kicked up and relaxed... ahh so good to be home!

105km's down.. 4 to go!

Couple of hours before Abisko - Abisko

Emma gave me a break from cooking and took on the mozzies and made breakfast for me today.. while I stayed all curled up in my bag inside the security of the tent.. it was total bliss.. however I don't think Emma enjoyed it too much if her face is anything to go by! lol After breakfast we saw the grey clouds closing in so we packed up as quick as we could and made a hasty retreat.. in fact we were so fast that we didn't get rained on at all! ACE! However Emma did get hit on by an old lady.. she has all the luck right?
Our tent was a little behind this.. we forgot to take a pic of it before we packed down.. silly us!
River side art.. there was so much of it!
The last 4km of the hike seemed to go by rather quickly with a good steady tempo in the areas that we could actually geta good steady tempo that is, because of course there were still all the rocks to contend with.. and with again the added bonus of roots! oh and lets not forget mozzies! Who thought that I was their very own personal snack machine! Little bastards!
Kungsleden.. I kill you!
Once we reached the end we then had to find the tent area.. which seemed a little harder than we thought.. but we got there and picked the best spot we could out of all the shitty spots there was.. stones, lopsided and just crap.. worst of all they charge 110sek a night each for it.. but they had FLUSHING toilets and hand basins with taps!! and a shower.. the shower story is a little funny actually.. for hours and hours we kept going back to check that it was free and we could never get the door open and we were getting mighty pissed.. at 11:30ish pm I headed in to check one more time and that is when I doscovered that we had been checking the wrong door the entire time and that the door which led to what we thought was just a third toilet was actually in fact the freaken shower! So we quickly grabbed our gears and took charge of the shower! Ahhh fresh.. kinda.. as fresh as one can be in oldish clothes! lol
Ok lets go back a bit.. we got set up and headed off to check out the store and the area.. it was quite a happening little place with just a few mozzies which was totally a welcome relief! I was really looking forward to being mozzie free once we get home.. that is for sure! After having a nosy about, Nems, Em and I sat outside the store and ate ice blocks and chips and fed the birds.. which turns out.. birds don't much like me in this part of Sweden either as one bird tried to take my head off while I was waiting for Emma to come out with the goodies! We then dropped Nems off at the tent and headed back so that I could go and have a looksie inside.. which is where we came across a little lounge area that had big comfy couches.. so as you could imagine.. we got a drink and a chocolate bar and had a little sit down.. it was way nice to be on an actual seat! Once again just what the doctor ordered!
Not wanting to leave Nems alone for too long we headed back to have a rest in the tent, where I zonked out for a couple of hours and had a weird dream about Emma knitting.. is this what hiking does to me? Or maybe I was overdosing on choco and fizz!
I really have had some rad hairstyles!!
The things Nemo lets Emma get away with!
Nemo really does love his sticks..
We stayed up late and checked out the midnight sun.. even after the past 9 days I was still not used to there being no darkness.. I really couldn't imagine living there and even more so in winter when its all darkness.. just nuts to me.
Sometimes I forget how short She-Ra is!
My sausage toes feel a little worse for wear today but I am happy that I don't have to wear my boots again! Thank goodness for my sandals.. however thongs would have worked just as well and at only a fraction of the weight.. but hey whats an extra 800gms when you are already carrying 18kg right? LOL My blisters didn't get too much worse and to be honest my feet looked better than I thought they were going to.. score!

Oh and remember how I said we lost a peg.. well all of a sudden we appeared to have ALL the pegs and nothing was missing.. how this happened is anyones guess.. maybe the tenting gods felt a little sorry for me with the bent peg and broken knobby!

Nibble Nibble!

Abiskojaure - couple of hours before Abisko

Nemo in the sleeping bag.. his most favourite place to snooze.
As Emma said.. the Nemo flower!
Swat those mozzies She-Ra!
It was nice to finally wake up to some warmth.. it was also nice to be able to take it easy as we were in no real rush as we were well in truly a day ahead of schedule. We had breakfast then headed off to the beach to give Nems a little dunk.. we weren't back long before it started to.... rain! We sat in the tent and waited it out and then slowly started packing up and getting organised.. we had hours to go before we were actually going anywheres so there was no real stress... noice!

When it started to rain.. I quickly went and grabbed the washing in and in doing so I tripped over the storm line and lost the peg. Good on me! Then as we are packing up we discover that one of our main pegs got bent.. hardcore. THEN as I am zipping up the tent door for the last time.. I somehow manage to pull off the little knobby! Total suck ass! Nothing good came of staying at Abiskojaure! Stinky dunny place it was!

After we were all packed up.. we sat down for a spot of lunch.. but no matter how much we ate it really did not prepare us for the total lack of drive and rocky shit again and once again coz I filed and cleaned up my feet, they started hurting like a mofo. It really felt like this leg wasn't going to end and we finally came across the bridge which meant we weren't far from where we were to set up.. YaY!
We get the added bonus of ROOTS with the rocks today! YaY! *straightface*

Nemo likes accessories.. what can I say he likes to be pretty! He also likes to nibble nibble at his paws.. [watch video]

Bloody mozzies! The mozzies at this place were... horrid.. there were SO many.. we had hundreds in the outer part of the tent.. attaching to the screen just wanting to break on in! The toilets however were a welcome relief.. especially compared to the disaster of the previous place.. and better yet we didn't have to pay for these ones! Go figure...
As we arrived a little girl came up to me but didn't actually say anything.. it was kinda on the freaky side and out of a horror flick.. you know like the little girl would pull out a big mega ass knife and go all Chucky on my ass! As it turned out all she wanted was to give Nemo a little pat.. why she came up to me and not Emma.. who was actually holding Nemo is beyond me.. I will never understand the way kids minds work.

Once again the skies opened.. luckily we had actually managed to get the tent up.. and just chucked everything in the opening and just sorted it out from there.. we were cramped.. but at least everything wasn't wet!

Dinner was Polenta & Cheeseburgers... in a can! I just couldn't go on a hike without giving them a go.. and I can quite honestly say.. never freaken again will they ever go into my belly.. and no matter how much sauce you added it didn't taste any better but at least now I can actually say I have tried Cheeseburger in a can! I am still kicking myself that I didn't get to try Cheese in a can when we were in America.

I took another tumble today.. nothing serious.. just a knee popping.. only about 4km to go so all is good in the hood! I must say though.. over all the days and everything that has happened I believe that today was really the worst day for me.
Even Nemo wasn't impressed with the Cheeseburgers!