I arrived to Lapland the following evening after Cyn does, due to work-scheduling conflicts. Fortunately, I was able to catch a redeye flight to my connection airport (Washington DC) right after work. I get to Finland late Saturday evening, giving me a total of 29 hours of adventure time. So as usual, it was crunch time.
Our tour guide, Kati picked us up from our hotel around 10am and brought us to Santa's Village for Adventure #1: Snowmobiling through the Arctic. We stop by the office to gear up and off we went.
We ride our snowmobiles to the farm for Adventure #2: A Reindeer Ride. We are greeted by Locket, a 12yr old reindeer from Lapland (reindeer years are like dog years) Not sure where he fits in sequence with Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, etc. But we'll just call him Santa's unspoken reindeer after Rudolph). Locket takes us for a spin in the sleigh, making a few pitstops mid-route sniffing around for snacks. Then off we go to the host-family's home for some reindeer school.
Funfact: Reindeers have the third thickest fur after the Tibetan yak and the polar bear, and shed a few layers during the summer to adapt to the warmer temperatures... We enjoy these little reindeer tales, share a few stories over tea and cookies, and graduate from reindeer-school with our very own "Reindeer Drivers License (yes, really)...and they're good for 3 years! I know what I'm pulling out the next time I get pulled over!
And then we're off to Adventure # 3!
Dog sledding has been on our bucketlist for a while now (then again, EVERYTHING is on our obnoxiously-long bucketlists), and we were able to cross this one off on our Arctic Adventure along with many other activities. Lapland has some of the cutest Siberian Huskies, making our hearts melt. Our team consisted of 7 dogs with the two strongest and oldest leaders in the front. Siberian Huskies surprisingly know the value of teamwork. At one point I see one of the dogs attack its sibling is if it were telling the other to quit slacking and run faster.
After our dog-sledding adventure, we're off exploring town in Santa's Village. Here, we visit Santa's official post office where you can have your letters stamped by Santa's official postal service. You can also sit down and write postcards, draft your wishlist for next Christmas, or send a letter home to your friends bragging about how you met Santa. Totally fun. The post office visit is followed by more child activities because of course, we're never too old for snow-sliding.
As usual, Cyn finds something to climb and I find somewhere to run around.
Finally, the moment we've been waiting for, we visit Santa! After a short tour around Santa's toy shop, we're able to sit down for a little chat and picture taking. We recited every catch phrase we could think of from the movie "Elf" starring Will Farrell, which Santa apparently hasn't seen since he seemed pretty confused when we ask him questions like "If you're the real Santa, what song did I sing to you for your birthday last year?" We got a good laugh from it. And now we can say "SANTAAAAA, I know him!!!" now and really mean it. (If you haven't seen that movie, the last couple sentences wouldn't have made sense, so we apologize in advance to those who think we're crazy). And FYI, yes his beard is real!
After our Safari adventure we took a cab to the Sky Hotel Ounasvaara to try to get a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis (The Northern Lights). We were told that their roof deck was one of the 2 best places in the city to catch the lights (the other being by the Arktikum museum). We were warned that they don't come out every night, and we would have a better chance to see them on a clear night with no snow. Lucky us! We timed it perfectly, they first showed up one or 2 strands at a time and then disappear within minutes, that night they came back every 10 minutes or so, and then all of a sudden at around 9:30pm, right when we were ready to call it a night, directly above us multiple streaks of greens and yellows began to appear, everyone on the deck went on a frenzy of "oooooo's and ahhhhhh's" while trying to capture the lights on their cameras. Witnessing the Lights definitely completed our trip.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
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