Sweden is a country that isn’t considered a sunshine destination by many Brits. I was in the same boat before visiting, I thought Sweden would just be cold all of the time. Well my tan tells a different story. The main thing I have learnt about Sweden and Scandinavia is that during the summer the hours of sunlight they have is unbelievable. If you venture to Norway at the right time too around late June to early July you can even witness the ‘midnight sun’ which is where the sun doesn’t set until sometime after midnight, if it even sets at all.
One night in Pitea, North Sweden on the Pite Havsbad beach me and George decided to stay up and see whether or not the sun actually sets. If you are ever in Pitea visiting the Pite Havsbad area is definitely something you should do if you are into tourist stuff. It has a water park, theme park and a beautiful beach! Anyway, we decided to go down to the beach at about 10pm as the sunset was predicted for 11pm and the sunrise predicted for about 2am. We took down BBQ stuff and were going to build our own fire pit down on the beach and BBQ ourselves some halloumi. Witnessing a beautiful sunset as we got there.
We arrived on the beach halloumi in hand and decided to start making the BBQ. That day I learnt that you can not just lite coal with a lighter. You might think this is something everyone knows well if you haven’t’ gathered from everything that happens to me I am not a normal person with a normal life… Something else I have learnt whilst travelling is that if it doesn’t work the first time don’t give up. So what did me and George do? We gave up… Just kidding that would have made a boring story… so we made a few phone calls home as you do in a situation like this. If you are wondering how we can make phone calls home without it costing a bomb well if you are with the network 3 you can use your phone like you were in the UK in loads of countries just google ‘feel at home countries’. We discovered that we needed to create an actual fire first before putting the coal on top. After about 2 hours we had a fire. I guess you’re probably wondering why it took 2 hours to make the fire and if you are not I am going to tell you anyway.
When trying to make a fire the key to fire making is obviously the kindling and the initial flame. First of all we had the smallest lighter in the world and I probably burnt myself about 100 times by holding the light on the kindling, secondly, it took us an hour to realise our kindling was to wet and that is the reason it wasn’t setting on fire. Idiots I know. At this point I remembered going on fire making practice with my friend Haidee back in Torquay and her telling me that tampons made the best kindling. So like a raging hormonal women I sat on the beach ripping apart a tampon and setting it on fire. There were a few drunk men on the beach at the time too they approached everyone women on the beach apart from us, i have just realised why. In no time we had fire…
The BBQ was going the halloumi grilling it was perfect even a hedgehog joined us on the beach which I found hilarious. It was so light it could have just been the afternoon and what made it better we had the beach to ourselves. This is just one reason you should visit Sweden in the summer months I never met one other Brit in Sweden whilst I was there…
And remember all these photos were taken between 11pm and 2am…
