Day 4 Update

Well I guess I should have waited to post Day 4 until the day was actually over.  In my defense, I was literally falling asleep on the couch when I clicked the publish button.  And I did actually fall asleep on the couch eventually.  But Tommy (couchsurfing host in Kiruna) woke me up about 30 minutes later and said his friend was driving out in the country and just saw the northern lights!  I literally jumped off the couch, threw on some layers (and by some I mean like 5 on top and 4 on bottom) and ran out the door.  I went from peaceful sleep to giddy excitement in an instant.

We drove out of Kiruna and up a mountain - out in to the middle of nowhere - and parked on the side of a dark road and got out.  You could definitey see some sort of weird lights, but they weren't what I had seen pictures of.  Not the bright green and purple dancing magical lights.  These were more white - almost could have been mistaken for a cloud but they were brighter.  It kind of bunched up in one spot and then streaked across the sky.  It was definitely cool and very interesting, but it wasn't quite what I had hoped for, haha.  At least I can say I've seen them though, right?  I mean I did come all the way to Iceland and Swededn mainly for the northern lights, so at least I can technically check that off the list.  Definitely hoping for more and better ones at some point in the next three days though...

Oh, and I have no idea how to photograph them - or the night sky in general.  I literally could not get one picture to even remotely turn out.  Another one for the memory bank I guess. :)

We hung out for awhile in the snow and then drove back to Kiruna and to the opposite side of town to see if we could see anything that way.  We didn't, and the excitement was wearing off and turning back in to exhaustion so we came back and I finally got some sleep.

Chasing the lights. Middle of nowhere Sweden.