Well, the 26th was quite the adventure-packed day. My first night in a hostel in over a year and a half certainly brought back old memories, and it reminded me of how I’ve become a bit of a light sleeper since I’ve had a room to myself for a while now. It didn’t feel like a super restful sleep, but I did fall asleep with all the lights on, before any of my roommates even came to bed, and by the time I woke up, I was surprised to see that most of them had snuck out without my noticing. So maybe I was sleeping a bit harder than I realized!

When I woke up, I dinked around on my phone for a little while before checking the busses around 8:45. Well, turns out not a lot happens in Rovaniemi, and there aren’t a lot of people there, so the busses do not run very often, especially on a Saturday. In fact, the bus to the zoo ran only once on Saturdays, and I had just missed it. The bus to Santa Claus Village ran only a few times a day and I had just missed the first. The next didn’t leave until noon!

I was a bit peeved, as I’m sure you can imagine. I felt (rightly) stranded at the hostel with nothing to do for the next three hours. It turned out fine in the end, but it was still not the best way to start the day.

I spent my morning in the kitchen, reading, eating free oatmeal and tea, and chatting with a Slovakian boy named Mario. He told me that he was originally planning to rent a car to drive up even father north, but the rental company wouldn’t accept his foreign credit card or bank account, so his next best option was to head to Rovaniemi by train. On his schedule for the day was to rent a snow bike and ride around the nearby mountains. Uhhhh… No thanks…

Haha. He said it was fun when I asked that evening, but he also said it felt like he was going to freeze to death. He mimed himself on the bike, bumping along the road and shivering uncontrollably. Sounds about right.

We made tentative plans to hunt for the auroras that night, and I headed out for Santa!

I arrived by bus to a lovely picnic area outside the main park. Ha! A bit chilly for my tastes.

I stepped inside the welcome center and was surprised with the opportunity to cross the Arctic Circle!!! Officially as far north as I’ve ever been. (This record of mine is being broken every second as I write, but more on that later.)

Another fun side effect of starting in the welcome center was that I was able to pack my day with unexpected adventures! When I originally planned my visit to Rovaniemi back in December, I was hoping to partake in dog sledding, reindeer sleigh rides, snowmobiling, or snowshoeing. You know, crazy winter things! But upon arrival, I found that all of these activities were ridiculously expensive. I’m talking over $100 for most activities, the exception being an $80 snowshoeing tour. Ugh. I decided these little adventures weren’t worth the cost, and I would be glad to even see a reindeer from a distance.

But when I got to Santa’s Village, I found that they provided reindeer sleigh rides and dog sledding for less than half the prices I’d seen before! It didn’t take long for me to decide that I should do both! I had the choice of 1km, 2km, or 5km dogsledding, and I went with the €40 middle ground of 2km. For the reindeer sleigh, I had 0.5km and 1km options, so I went with the longer for €29. Not a bad deal! I was originally expecting to spend that much on the dogsledding alone, and was disheartened to see that other packages were as expensive as €150!

So, tickets in hand and a smile on my face, I set off to meet Santa!

But I was intercepted by all of the souvenir shops. If you’ve ever had the unfortunate opportunity to shop with me, or even worse, to go souvenir shopping with me, you know how time-consuming this practice can get. But I love it! And all of these souvenirs were Christmas themed, so that made it even worse.

 

 

I wanted those sweaters and socks so badly! But I resisted. Because I am strong! And because I have no more space in my backpack! And so, finally, I donned my gloves and headband and braced myself for the cold once more.

It was a pretty cute little village, but I soon found myself inside again when I came across Santa’s official post office. Of course I had to write some letters! The mailboxes here all have two sides: one for normal mail and one for Christmastime delivery.

 

Also, I guess it’s a thing in Finland to leave your binky for the baby reindeer??? Seems like a hoax to get your kid off the binky, if you ask me!

There were some people here who seemed to be witting out all of their Christmas cards or something, giant stacks of letters in front of them and big mailbags on the table for when they were done. I stuck to two little postcards.

Also, I am so sorry I am such a mess here. I was only able to half-wash my hair the night before, and I didn’t have my brush with me, so Santa did not see me on a good hair day!

But anyway. If the post office served hot chocolate and cake, I probably could have cozied up in a corner for the rest of the afternoon writing letters to people. As it was though, I had a date with some puppies!

I could hear the puppies whining and crying with excitement long before I reached the husky park. I arrived just as the two sleds tore away into the forest, and a chatty, smiley young woman with pink, round cheeks greeted me excitedly as I approached.

“It’s free entrance!” she declared. “Come on in and warm up! And of course you can pet the dogs as much as you like!”

She introduced me and another girl to some of the dogs who were off-duty. The white one’s name was Musky, and she was desperate for attention. A puppy, the lady explained. Musky and I became fast friends!

I made sure to say hi to the other puppies, too, but Musky was just so excited to see me whenever I turned toward her. She would spring up and jump into the air on her hind legs as I approached, and once, she even jumped on top of her dog house to try to reach over the fence. Too cute.

Eventually, the sleds came back, and it was my turn to ride! The sled drivers were two heavily-bundled men with glasses. One was short and stocky and kind of reminded me of a friendly dwarf from The Lord of the Rings. The other was his tall, skinny, reserved counterpart, and this was my driver.

I was pretty excited to get going, and my hair was doing this strange thing where my breath would fog onto it and then the hairs would individually freeze, creating an effect that made my hair look white.

Nobody was quite as excited as the dogs, though! They jumped and squealed once the driver got in place. They could feel that we were going somewhere, and they wanted to go NOW. When the driver finally gave the call, they bounded off in delight.

I squealed and giggled around every turn and over every bump. We were going so fast, and the dogs were clearly in their element. I however, was not! I was getting so cold, and the white hairs around my face grew more and more plentiful. My toes and fingers were losing feeling, and at one point, my phone even shut off from the cold!

I tucked it under my thin blanket for safe keeping and resorted to breathing heavily into my hands to warm both my fingers and my face. I couldn’t figure out why my gloves smelled so funny, but I realized later it was the smell of dog from all that petting.

We zoomed through fields and forests, along paths marked only by previous sled tracks. The dog directly in front of me and to the right was cracking me up. She kept veering unconsciously to the right before being pulled back into line by the others, and her tongue hung out to the side the whole run.

It was honestly one of the most silly and fun activities I’ve ever experienced. I couldn’t believe it was happening, even while I was on the sled! At one point, the dogs turned a corner too sharply, and the driver hollered out a command. The dogs slowed a bit, and I had to duck under a tree, but the driver wasn’t so lucky! I heard a loud whack, and a huge piece of branch fell into my lap. I hope the driver’s head was okay! I thought about asking, but I wasn’t sure if talking would confuse the dogs with their commands.

With every passing minute, the cold was biting into my soul. At one point, I considered casually telling the driver that he could cut the run short if he’d like, money forgotten! I didn’t think I could last much longer with the icy wind blowing in my face. But it was also so fun, so I tucked in and focused on the joyful puppies and our beautiful, magical surroundings instead of on my weak self.

When we finally came around the corner and the kennels and warming hut came in sight, the driver called another command and put on the breaks. The dogs slowed, and one of them instantly rolled onto their side to rest as soon as we came to a stop.

“So, I guess you were meant to gave the two kilometer ride?” my driver asked me.

“Yes!” I responded.

“And instead, you got the five kilometer ride.”

I had thought the ride seemed a bit long! Just then, the other driver called out, “Five kilometers???” I suppose he could tell based on how long we’d been gone.

“Sometimes I cannot stop them!” my driver hollered back with a chuckle. I asked how long they could run before they got tired, and he said, “All day. Sometimes, I feed them, you know. But besides that, they run all day.”

I gave them a quick pat, but when the smiling woman ran out and told me to warm up inside and to help myself to as much warm juice and as many cookies as I wanted, I all but sprinted into the little hut. I was greeted with a roaring stove and benches covered in reindeer furs. The kettle of juice sat directly on top of the stove, and it rattled and jiggled with the boiling liquid inside.

I spent about half an hour in the little hut, holding my juice to my socked feet to try to warm my toes faster and sitting on my phone to try to bring heat and life back into it.

At one point, my driver came in to warm up. I asked about the injured puppy in the small dog kennel, whose front paw was wrapped up, and he let her out to stretch. She almost immediately jumped into his lap, wriggling with joy. He could hardly pet her (or even move, for that matter) because of all his layers, but she didn’t care. He ended up bringing her outside and hooking her up to the sled. The woman explained that she hadn’t run in two weeks, so they were going to let her do a run or two, just to test out the foot and to help her not feel so restless. Good luck to the little pup!

When I felt I could properly feel all of my appendages again, I put on my winter face and set out! One last goodbye to the puppies, first, though. Musky would barely let me go. She kept pawing at me whenever I tried to leave. It was heartbreaking!

But alas, I had a date with a reindeer!

The reindeer sleigh ride was, uh… Interesting, haha. Not quite as fast as the puppy sledding, that’s for sure. Honestly, I’m not sure how these guys manage to pull Santa’s sleigh, unless they are a lot more energetic in the air compared to when they’re on the ground! Everything about their walk and their countenance reminded me of a donkey. So… Not super fast, and not super happy. I was also using reindeer pelts as blankets during the ride, so that seemed a bit awkward. I enjoyed myself, nonetheless!

The reindeer behind me only had one antler, and the lady driving the sleigh had only one facial expression: “I’m cold.”

It took about as long to do the short one kilometer route with the reindeer as it had for the puppies to run five. We looped around the park, and as we came back towards the starting point, the sun peeked through the trees, glowing a brilliant orange just before it tucked behind the horizon. The sleigh driver even gasped and tapped my shoulder to point it out.

As we came to a stop, I noticed I could no longer feel my toes. They were still mobile, though! I commented on my amazement at the driver’s ability to be outside all day, and she laughed and said, “Oh, I have so many underwears on right now!” And she made a big sweeping motion to her body as though to show me where exactly the underwears were.

My next stop was Santa!

I was pretty excited. And a little nervous. It wasn’t until I was almost next in line that I realized I didn’t know what I wanted for Christmas! How was I to know what I would want eleven months from now?? I finally settled on this: a nice place to read. Like a stylish, comfy arm chair similar to that leather one in the National Library of Finland, or a lovely little window seat, or a big pillow corner. You know, something normal like that!

It reminded me of my favorite Christmas present that I’ve ever received from Santa. In fifth grade, the white, plastic, two-shelf bookcase in my room was filled to the brim and double-stacked. Reasonable as I was, I knew that this meant I needed a book case with four shelves, and that is exactly what I asked for. Imagine my surprise Christmas morning when I came downstairs to see a towering, beautiful, wooden (okay, it’s probably ply-board or something, but it looked wooden and definitely not plastic) bookcase in the corner of the living room, with not four, but FIVE SHELVES. I ran upstairs to wake my parents with a crazed jumping dance and the exclamation, “HE BROUGHT ME AN EXTRA SHELF. HE BROUGHT ME AN EXTRA SHELF!”

God, I was such a little nerd. And of course at the time, I didn’t know that most common bookshelves come with either two or five shelves. Four is rather uncommon, much like the things that excite me most in life.

But anyway. I had it all rehearsed, but as I entered the room with Santa, he sent a beaming smile my way, and I forgot all my lines. He greeted me with a hardy handshake, and we chatted about the winters in Seattle. I wanted to touch his beard, but I resisted. I was honestly super nervous. It felt like the first time I met my favorite author, Scott Westerfeld, in seventh grade and could hardly handle the fangirl, dizzy-making emotions inside of me. (Again, nerd.)

And it was over all too quickly. We shook hands again and I took a mental picture of his kind, smiling eyes, and then an elf ushered me out the other door. He never asked what I wanted for Christmas, which was at once relieving and confusing. Maybe it’s just an American tradition? In the end, I had to secretly snap a photo of the computer screen to avoid paying $40-60 for prints or digital copies. I barely succeeded, but I count this smiley photo as a win.

After Santa, I had just enough time for a sit-down dinner at a salmon teepee recommended by the hostel owner. “It is the best thing, I have ever tasted. If you like fish.” (Her punctuation, not mine.) I made it just in time for the attractive Finnish boy to put a piece of salmon on the fire for me. In fact, salmon was the only thing they served, and the oven doubled as the heater for the ‘restaurant.’

It was really quite delightful, and I paired it with a cup of hot glögg and some more of those heartshaped gingerbread cookies that had been in the husky hut. They are quite popular in the area, it seems.

And for the record, it was fluffing delicious.

Delayed flight adventures to come.

Parhain terveisin/ best regards,
-Lizzy-wa