day 04 of our sweden trip - new year's eve. we started it by going to a nearby lake. the lack of daylight is really hard to get used to. there's a little daylight from 09:00 to around 13:00, then it starts to get dark again. the surface of the lake was totally frozen and there were some people ice-skating or walking on the ice in the distance. so we dared to step on the ice too and walked around a little. sonja did some drawings in the snow too. next we tried to find the tourist information in abisko but at first we found some exhibition centre (or whatever it was, we're still not sure) providing us with an exhibition about wild life in north sweden and some multimedia show about the stars and the galaxy. due to that the local people put up some telescopes and people were invited to participate in watching the stars. so we did participate and had a nice view on some stars and the moon. after getting back to our hostel we enjoyed the sauna there. sauna at this hostel means that the old man running this place tells you a certain time when you have to be at the sauna with the maximum of other eight people. so, the group of people go in there and get instructions from the old man. going to the sauna here also doubles as taking a shower (they are very keen on saving warm water here, i don't know why). once you were given water to shower and had taken your seat in the sauna, the old man leaves again and comes back 1.5 hours later. during this time you are free to do as you - and the other people - like in the sauna. in the evening we gathered with lots of people of the hostel at the local helicopter landing place around a fire they lit there. there was also a friend of the people who run the hostel from norway here. he had absolutely delicious salmon with him which he gave away to all the people in the hostel that wanted to taste it. this guy turned out to be quite fun actually so we ended up with him and some other guys in the kitchen of the hostel being a little drunk and having fun. also one of the two sons who run this place together with their father was at the celebration. he will be our guide for tomorrow's dog sledge tour and he's quite fun too.