Rest day and cultural tour

On our rest day yesterday, we took the cultural bus tour that the organizers had organized for us. It was informative, little bits of trivia about Boden, which is actually quite a large city for this region.

Boden houses a bunch of military types. I gather this is where they send Swedish males to turn them from boys to men. The guide said (in a very bubbly, sing-song voice) that they do a lot of testing of humans and vehicles in cold weather up here.

"We don't have McDonalds, but we do have MAX hamburgers. They are very good". Interesting that a tour bus points out the hamburger restaurant... but ok, we'll try there!

Nordpoolen (I think) - looks pretty awesome. Apparently the blue slide is really fast.

Swedish army men jump in this lake - see that strip of open water? - in the winter, sounded like purely for the pain of it. This is part of the whole swedish-man-toughening program I mentioned earlier.

The train station - apparently it won a historical award. Pretty.

Western farm. What this place is, I'm not entirely sure, but it was worth bringing a bus-full of ski orienteers to see. Sounds like they do events and stuff, and you can get in touch with your inner cowboy. Apparently the banquet on Sunday is there, but we're all three going to miss that, because we have an earlier train to Stockholm.

More Western Farm.

The church.