I've always wanted to see the Northern Lights. Back when I started studying at the university, I was dreaming of traveling through Europe with Interrail. While the majority of people I know who've done it concentrated on Central Europe and the Mediterannean countries, I wanted to see the North. Now, this doesn't actually make much sense. If you look at the map, you'll find that between Scandinavian and Baltic countries there's only 14 destinations you can visit in total. The northmost towns in Sweden and Finland, Kiruna and Rovaniemi, are not connected directly, and are both located around 1000km from the capitals. Traversing this distance takes time, and so does getting to the Scandinavian peninsula from Belgrade. What could these faraway places offer that would be worth the trip? Aurora Borealis.

Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights, is a physical phenomenon of extreme beauty. It appears as a veil of ligth in the northern latitudes when solar winds hit Earth's magnetosphere. The lights are best seen in clear moonless winter nights when Sun's activity is high. People often book full weeks in order to improve their chances of seeing them, and even then end up returning home empty-handed, lamenting about cloudy weather and lack of solar activity.

No one was interested in spending days on the train taking those chances. I was soon over the age when Interrail's discounts make traveling cheap, but still lacking the financial independence to take the trip at the regular price. As years went by, I came to peace with not being able to see everything that the world has to offer.

Around the time Covid struck, I received an offer from a Swedish company to relocate to Stockholm. After much deliberation, then delays caused by the pandemic, Maja and I found ourselves in a cozy apartment in the capital of Sweden, 300m from the Baltic Sea. The dream of seeing the lights turned into a possibility, and now I had someone to go with - Maja was as eager to see them as me. While we were now to be much closer to the polar circle, it's very rare that Aurora comes to Stockholm. We would need to travel further up north.

We spent the first winter partly in Stockholm, and partly in Belgrade. Making travel arrangements was difficult, and corona scare was real. There were no vaccines still, and getting sick in the cold north was not an option for us. I was surprised to hear from a colleague - an immigrant like me, now a friend - that he booked the trip, and also made several Aurora-hunting arrangements to increase his chances. He said he did see it briefly, but from his story it didn't sound as beautiful as I expected it would be. He blamed the clouds.

For us who are fortunate enough, the world we live in is one of abundance. Vast shipping networks and advanced logistic systems can get anything to your doorstep in a matter of days, and the Internet provides the same kind of instant gratification in the virtual plane. We've triumphed over seasons. Those who travel can choose to spend winters drinking piña coladas naked on the beach, and those who stay at home can enjoy a bowl of fresh fruit salad, safe and warm, while watching the snow collect on the window sill. Waiting is rare, and deprivation is unthinkable. In this world, the existence of the Northern Lights is special. They are as alluring as ever, as elusive for us as they were for the first people.

We started planning our own week-long trip North the next year. At first, we romanticized about traveling by train, but decided against it after learning that the 15 hours the trip takes is really the best case scenario. Snow build-up on tracks is common in February, and the trains can be significantly delayed or sometimes canceled. On the other hand, the flight is less than two hours, more punctual, and costs the same. We would land in Kiruna, a small mining town on the move. There, giant trucks are busy moving buildings, people, and their memories east in order to make space for mining operations. The town wasn't going to be our final destination. While being a hub for all tourist activity in the area, it doesn't offer much in terms of attractions itself, and being stuck there during cloudy winter nights seemed even more depressing than missing the show. Instead, we decided to go to Kurravaara, a sleepy village just 12km north, where we could take long walks in nature during the day, try spotting the majestic moose, and spend time in the sauna.

It was January, and we had just returned from a two month visit to Serbia. We spent days agonizing over the equipment we would take, warm clothes we needed to buy, trying to imagine how a week of -20°C feels like. One Friday evening, I was absently swiping over my phone's screen when I somehow ended up in the company's #stockholm channel. ""It's happening" - someone said. Under the fold, a photo of Northern Lights, faint but visible.

It had to be a mistake, or maybe a lame joke. I looked through the window and couldn't really see anything, it was just a normal chilly evening, street lights in full glow, dark blue skies. When I told Maja she had the same reaction - not probable. It probably wasn't, but I really wanted it to be true. So I opened the door to our balcony, letting the cold air into the room, and stepped out wearing just a t-shirt. The sky looked different. "I think I can see it" - I said to Maja. It was extremely faint, a slight change of shade from blue to green, but I was sure I could see it. Then I had an idea. If Aurora was really there, I should be able to point my phone's camera to see it better. Phone cameras nowadays are programmed to use every possible trick to create great photos at night - multiple and long exposures, contrast adjustments, machine learning. Just opening the camera app and pointing the lens at the sky was enough. Aurora came to our front yard.

As the evening progressed, it became more visible to the naked eye. We must have spent at least half an hour at the balcony. The Northern Lights aren't static, we learned. Of course, a lot of people including us have seen videos of the Aurora moving, but I somehow always assumed that these videos has been sped up to make the effect stronger. That couldn't be farther from the truth. It dances. It shimmers. It is like dunes of sand, and gentle waves, like silk drapes rippling in the breeze.

That first year in Stockholm, while we were both working from home because of the pandemic, we spent almost every lunch break just walking around the neighborhood. Gärdet, which is an open, unlit, and slightly elevated field nearby which would often visit, seemed like a great location for watching the Northern Lights. We put on our jackets and headed out.

The lights were growing in the sky as we were on our way to Gärdet, and streaks of purple started to appear above the greens. It was still not very bright, but as our eyes were getting more accustomed to starring at the night sky, it was easier to see.

Gärdet proved to be the perfect choice for the viewing. So was the timing. As we were approaching the Protest monument which stands at the entrance, the lights started expanding from right to left, soon arching the whole field.

There weren't many people, and those who came were mostly quiet. Some brought tents, some professional photographing equipment, coffee. We didn't bring any, and we didn't need it. Our eyes were wide open as we were standing there in awe.

An hour later it started to fade. On our way home, when my ability to form full sentences returned - and I regularly ruin great moments this way - I remarked how funny it would be if this was the last time we saw the lights, with Kurravaara booked and everything. Maja wasn't amused: "Please don't jinx it!".

A few weeks later, the time came to fly to Kiruna. We were obsessively looking at the weather forecast, and by then we've both installed an Aurora forecasting app. It didn't look good. Rain was forecasted for most of our stay, and solar activity seemed low. We tried to see if it was possible to change the dates of our trip, but most plane tickets were sold out, and there wasn't much we could change about accommodation. I am not superstitious, nor can I control the weather, but maybe I shouldn't have joked about it on our way back from Gärdet. Early in the morning we caught our flight. We must have been sleeping on the airplane, because in an instant we were lugging our bags over the fresh snow, blinded by light.

Kiruna mine is as large as the town itself. Always in sight, it towers over small buildings that lie scattered in the snow. It is the reason for the town's existence, and most people work there or have someone who does. There are tours you can take to learn more about its history, operations, and it's possible even to get under ground. We however decided not to visit, maybe because for us it would be just a mine, just a place owned by a corporation, and because any experience we might have there wouldn't actually match the one had by generations whose lives were and continue to be intertwined with it. In the countryside where my grandfather had built a house we had a neighbor who's recently passed. He used to be a miner and would tell us how he still dreamt of being in the mine, and one time in the moment of lucidity he said how a strange thing it is to be human and be underground. This is that experience that we would never have, and that we can only abstract. Instead, we decided to visit the Kiruna Church, an otherworldly wooden building built during the dawn of the twentieth century, rightly described as "the Shrine of the Nomadic people".

There is service on Sundays, so we went in, creaky floors not stopping us from getting to the one of many free benches. We didn't get to see much of it however, as it was just about to end. From what we had seen, the service looked more like a play than anything, and that was somehow fitting. The church is nominally Christian, but there in the far north, at the edge of Earth, that somehow stops being important. After ten minutes we were already on our way out, as the organ was playing the final notes.

We headed to get supplies next, replacing spiritual with the mundane. Peanut butter, bread, rice, pasta, sauce, tuna, eggs. We even found Serbian sweets, 3500km away from Belgrade. Then we headed to the tourist center, from where we would head out to a small camp near Kurravaara, our final stop. It was dark and the sky was cloudy when the van came to pick us up. The driver was extremely chatty - a Finnish guy who was happy to answer all the questions we had, even if he probably heard them hundreds of times. Yes, it was very likely we were going to see a moose. No, this was not a good time to skate on the lake; even though it was completely frozen, it was covered with half a meter of snow. Northern Lights? Maybe.

The camp consists of a dozen cabins, some fully equipped with small private saunas, others with not even a private bathroom. As we were going to stay for five nights, we chose the former. In front of the camp is the river, completely frozen in wintertime, with the ice thick enough to support snowmobiles. Flat and open, it's a perfect place to look for the lights.