We saved the best for last!

We saved the best trip for last, last week we went to Lapland. We already booked this trip in october and I since then I was looking forward to this trip.

We left on the 18th of december in the evening, so we had the whole night to sleep in the bus. well sleep... I think I slept for 3 hours. But it was worth it. After almost 14 hours in the bus we arrived at the Santa clause village, in Rovaniemi. It was so beautifull with all the lights and the christmas music. It was already a little bit dark (it was 2 o'clock) so that made it really nice. There were a lot of people who wanted to see santa, so we didn't see him, cause it would take us a lot of time and we wanted to see more of the little village. Maybe I will see him an other time. We had to spend two hours in Santa claus village and after that we had to drive about 4 hours to our destination. We stayed in Inari, a village in the northern part of Lapland. We made our bed, got our dinner en went to the sauna. I was really tired so after the sauna we went to bed. 

On Thursday the 20th we did the Arctic challenge, we learned how to make a fire, we did some Ice Fishing and we made a quinzee. A quinzee is a snow shelter that is made from a large pile of loose snow which is shaped and than hollowed. After the arctic challenge we did some Cross-Country skiing. We had some practice in the beginning I had never done it before and I felt really clumsy on those skis. But ofcourse after some practice we had to go in to the forest to try some real cross-country skiing. It was hard but also really fun to do. After skiing we had our dinner and we had
our last activity of the day, the snowmobile safari. Aniek drove the whole way on the snowmobile, cause I don't have my drivers license so I wasn't alowed to do it. But still it was nice to do. Because we were beginners we didn't go fast and we had to stop a lot of times to wait for the others. But we did it and it was fun, but if I will do it another time I hope we can go a bit faster. This was a long day and we had done a lot, so we were tired, but there was a chance we could see the northern lights, so we stayed up to try to see them. Unfortunately we didn't see it that night, so time to go to bed again and get some sleep for the next day full of activities.

On friday we had a trip to the arctic ocean. We went to Bugøynes in Norway, it took us around 4 hours to get there. On or way we had some very nice views, Norway is beautifull and I really want to go back there to see more of it. In Bugøynes we went to the Sauna and we had to swim in the Arctic sea, the temperature of the water was around 5 degrees so it was really cold, but we did it. And after a short swim in the sea we could warm up in the sauna, what was so nice. After the Sauna we went to the village and had some free time there, even though there was not much to do and it was already dark at 1 or 2 o'clock, so we also couldn't make nice pictures. We also had our lunch there, we ate a lovely fish soup from a local there, he told us a bit about the little village and how it is to live there.

When we got back in Inari we had our dinner and again we did northern lights hunting. We were with a lovely group with a lot of nice people. So we played some games and had a fun night waiting till the northern lights would be visable. And this night we were lucky. We saw some northern lights, it wasn't really good visable but we saw them. So we took a lot of pictures and went to the lake to see them a bit better and had an amazing night with the others. 

Saturday we went to the Reindeer farm, here we had the chance to feed the reindeers and to make a sleighride with them and to meet the sami people. You have different tribes of sami people and most of them live in Lapland. They explained about their habits and their believes. After the reindeer farm we went to Inari village and we had some time there to walk around and do some souvenir shopping. When we went back to our accommodation we had some free time and we had did some sports. In the evening we had the night snowshoe hike, what was a real adventure. We had to walk through the snow and had to find our way through the woods with the help of a GPS. It was also really cold that night, around -20 degrees. So we were freezing, but it was really fun to do. After the hike it was time for a BBQ, we had marshmallows and sausages and a lot of other food. That night there was again a chance to see the northern lights so we stayed there for a couple of hours. And again we were lucky, we saw them, again not really good visable, but I'm still glad that we saw them. And it was a fun night playing games around the fire. 

Sunday was already the last day in Lapland. We went to the Husky's. Again it was really cold, -20, and we didn't have our overalls anymore, so first we had to get an overall. But it took us about an hour to get it and get back to the husky's, so unfortunately we only had one our left with there. We did a sleighride with the husky's what was really fun, but also a bit difficult. we had to drive by ourselves, so you have to take good control. It was so fun to do it and an other great experience. After that we went to the city Saariselka, the place with the most northern skiresort. We could go skiing or sleighing, but we were so cold that we decided to stay in town eating reindeer burgers, drinking hot chocolate and searching for nice souvenirs. At 16.00 it was time to get in the bus, to leave Lapland and to go back to Turku. 

This week was so amazing, I got to know lovely people, we did amazing things. It was a great experience and I'm so glad we saved this trip for last. No better way to end these amazing for months with. 

Puhua myöhemmin

Emma