Lapland Report!!!
Drove off at 6PM, after getting a bench of my own and from the highway we could see the ski jumping hills in Lahti, as they were lighted. Beautiful sight and I wanted to go back there, not that there was anything going on, but hey ;)
Seen Pirates of the Carribean in the bus. Nearly fell asleep, which I also did when we were on our way to Monaco in 2004. Well I fell asleep there, after demanding to see the movie, so I figured I HAD to stay awake now...
At a stop, the driver cleaned the windows with some snow. How to clean windows with snow? Make a snowbal, throw it against the window, done. Btw, it’s pretty normal here in Finland that you’ll only have 1 driver. So for a 14h busdrive, we had one busdriver. Wasn’t too pleased with that. They even changed busdrivers when we went to St Petersburg. And those were Russians!!! You’d expect it to be the other way around...
Heading back north we came to Muurola, where I saw 2 small ski jumping hills. Had to think for a brief moment, but they looked so familiar, because we drove past there on our way to Rovaniemi in Summer 2004. Fun to see it back.
We had a stop somewhere and were able to see the sunrise from there. As the bus drove off, Miriam yelled that she had forgotten her wallet. She looked everywhere and the bus already was on his way back to go back to the place, when she had found it again. Not even 10m after the bus had turned (no not a u-turn...).
Arriving in Pyha we had to store our stuff in the hotel and changed into our skiing outfits. Rented skis and went to the slope. Didn’t took lessons as it was all stored somewhere in the back of my head. Went skiing with Estelle and Rodrigue. And as Estelle knew how to ski, she sort of told me the basics again. Went down, and didn’t fell! *proud of self* Skiing was fun, but the one hill in Pyha is nothing compared to skiing in the Alps ;) However, the view was great! As was the weather for all days.
Btw, it was good that I hadn’t taken lessons as they were really only for the beginners. For people that had never seen a pair of skis in their lifetime. Would have meant a waste of money otherwise...
The apartment was small, but quite luxury. We even had a dishwasher! Which was great, only we didn’t have a clue how the machine worked...
In the evening we went sledging. That was huge fun! And it even went quite fast. Had a small competition: Holland - Germany, which was obviously won by Holland with 1 - 0, couldn’t be arsed to make it 2 - 0 as I was way to tired to climb up the mountain again...
Later that evening we have been able to see the northern light twice and it was SO beautiful. You are just staring and thinking how magical that is.
Woke up too late on Monday as my phone was still on St P. time. That once again shows how fond I am of my mobile phone... Couldn’t even feel the muscle pain when I jumped out of bed... Anyway, had to hurry as I only had 45 minutes to get ready, back, have breakfast and after that we had to go to the snow mobile safari. Dressed up there in a very very charming outfit. Blokes were falling for me instantly *cough* I started to drive and had Orsy as my passenger. It was sooooo cool!!! We drove through the woods and then went on the lake were we could do a pedal to the metal WHOOO!!! Stopped the thing, then accelerated as a freak and drove with 80kmh over the froze lake. Scooter didn’t go faster as there’s a law in Finland saying that it cannot go faster as 80kmh. We stopped at the lake to do some photos and I tried to get off in a charming way, but my leg was uncooperative. So far for being charming. Figured I’d better get off in a normal way when your legs are killing you... On the way back, Orsy drove and I sat at the back. Was also cool, because while I was driving I was concentrating too much to notice the landscape... Now I could take a look at the landscape and also I have been able to feel the bumps. Scooter jumped over a few bumps and those are a much better experience when you are at the back as at the front.
Then went skiing again, but I was so tired. Didn’t have one bit of energy left. So when I went back to the apartment for lunch, I just ended the skiing and went to the beginners slope and have a look around there and get a tan (now, that was something that did work out!). In the evening the firealarm went off in apartment number 13, because they had burned somethinw during cooking. Then you can call that nothing is wrong, but the firefighters do come anyway. So a short while later we had a truck of the firefighters behind the apartments... A few went up the hill to watch the northern light, but I couldn’t be arsed to take the 1h climb up, and not even knowing if there would be anything. Turned out to be a really really small thingy, but nothing as good as the day before.
Tuesday: Haven’t done much. Just a bit of skiing and chilling. Watched Keeping up Appearances on telly, came across it while switching channels, which was cool. Went to apartment nr 7 to do a game of cards, but it didn’t really work out well as we were practically all asleep there... Again a few went up the hill, and again there was hardly a northern light to be seen. Good I didn’t join them ;)
Stood up early. Had to leave my bags in the hotel, have breakfast, return skis and then head off to the snowshoe walk. Snowshoe walkw as fun. Nothing to exciting, but we crossed the Lappish woods and such. Didn’t meet a reindeer, which sucked, but at least our guide showed us what would happen if we wouldn’t have been wearing snowshoes. Was fun to see that he sort of disappeared in the snow! Bus drove us back and it turned out the other bus had been packed already, so all the snowshoe people stayed in this bus. Then the message came that they had to move to the other bus as we had to be in the same bus as on they way to lapland. Protests started, because their luggage was in this bus and this bus was obviously a little more luxurious. Jenni got annoyed and just answered the way change question with a ‘because.’ Marvellous....People still didn’t want to move, because their luggage was in this bus and no one would be able to tell who would wait by the luggage if the other bus would arrive earlier and such... Anyway, we arrived at Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi and it looks slightly different in winter than it does in summer. For a start, it was very quiet. Just a few random people and 2 buses with international students. Went up the watch tower and could see quite far ahead. Typically I couldn’t find the ski jumping hill, but it turned out to be right where I looked, only didn’t see it as I had to look into the sun. Stupid... went down again and did soe shopping. But another ‘Legs with Reindeer’. This time the winter version and both are now standing on the tv ;) Also bought 2 t-shirts. Then went to take some pics and unlike in summer, now the arctic line was covered underneath snow. Stupid. Went back to the bus and there the trouble started. The busdriver would only drive off with 35 persons, how stupid is that? Can’t he drive with more people? Lots of discussion and in the end it was solved and we drove off. It’s simply bad organisation as they already started packing the bus, while quite a few people were still away and therefore they weren’t able to go to their own bus.
After Rovaniemi we went to Kemi to visit the snowcastle. Not too many people there. Was very nice to see they made a real castle out of snow. Visited the snowhotel, but I don’t think I would like to sleep there for a night, the rooms were very small and there wasn’t a window. Already felt locked up with the door open. There was also a small church and a bar. Drank a tea in the snowbar, which was fun. Tables were made out of ice etc. We then went to the children’s area and went of the slide with these rubber blowup tyres, or whatever they are called. That was fun, although it didn’t went as fast as the sledging in Pyha.
Oh, in the bus we’ve been watching Mr and Mrs Smith btw, nice movie. Went to sleep, had again a bench for my own and slept better as on the way to here. At about 5.30 we were back in Helsinki (yes, the busdriver has been driving since 9.30AM the day before until 5.30AM and I doubt he’d gotten much sleep during the stops...). At 5.48 our train left and at 6.05 I was back in my bed to sleep until 9.