August 21-23 I'll tell you what - hiking is a lot easier than traveling!

These few days between hikes were intended to travel to the next trailhead, explore a few cities, and most importantly rest up. I guess we accomplished all that, but figuring out public transport, coordinating departure, arrival, check-in, and checkout times, and fixing places for improvement in my previous planning upped the stress level. Luckily, Mrs. Dude is calm under that kind of pressure and everything worked out fine.

August 21 - Great night of comfortable rest! It was nice to be in beds. I slept over 8 hours! We had this whole day to explore.

We took a bus to a Sami outdoor museum to pet raised reindeer and learn about the local indigenous population. Sad that it seems to have many similarities to American and Australian (and I imagine many more planes) indigenous history stories.

We enjoyed a nice lunch of reindeer stew, and moose/pork sausage stew.

Also, walked through the oldest church in Lappland.

We walked down the road to the famous Ice Hotel with no ice this time of year. Not much to see.

A highlight was meeting three boys (about 10 yrs old) walking home from school, tearing apart a math workbook. One of them was a real chatter box and spoke great English. He said it was his old book and he's getting his next one tomorrow. They told us that they go fishing and the types of fish they catch.

When we got back to Kiruna, we borrowed two old clunker bikes from the hostel and rode to an ATM to get cash to pay for it stay. Then, bought some food for a light dinner at a grocery store. Then, checked in a sports store for new hiking shoes for Mrs. Dude since hers are not as waterproof as she wants and the forecast is currently for days of rain on Scotland. (No luck on the shoes)

August 22 - Plane to Stockholm. Took train to Upsala North of the airport but the ticket guy said to get on the wrong train which headed south to Stockholm. So, we explored Stockholm for the afternoon. Found new boots for Mrs. Dude. Toured Sweden National Museum. Stayed at Airbnb in strange no-personnel hotel building right at the airport for our very early flight tomorrow.

August 23 -

Early plane to Edinburgh. Explored Edinburgh all day. A big 'Fringe' event was going on so it was very crowded. Toured Scotland National Museum and the new parliament building. I loved the old architecture and buildings reminding of Harry Potter, Mary Poppins, and 101 Dalmatians. Stayed at Airbnb home of a young Lithuanian man which was nice and quiet