Tuesday November 22 - First day of Lapland!!

We rolled into Lapland early in the morning after the most uncomfortable sleep of my life. I already knew i was going to be half dead all of today.

Our stop for breakfast was the at the classiest gas station I had seen in my life. They had a buffet style breakfast complete with delicious bacon and yogurt. Already this trip was an improvement from SeaBattle food-wise. 

Our next stop was at the Arktikum Museum in the city of Rovaniemi. It was a really great museum with exhibitions on different aspects of northern life: the animals, the Sami people, different natural occurrences (like the Northern Lights), and so on. I quite enjoyed this museum and also got to know more people from my bus. 

The supposed one and only grocery shopping stop for the week was next. Although it really wasn't the only stop although it may have been the cheapest. We stopped at many supermarkets during our week and even more Alko's (the Finnish alcohol store, i mean we had to keep warm somehow!). 

After a delicious meal at Hesburger, we set off to the Santa Claus Village that should be renamed as the Souvenir Village because all we could do there was honestly just spend money. I enjoyed the wood cutouts were you could stick your gorgeous frostbitten faces and get pictures for free but otherwise, the christmasy spirit was lost on me here. I did get a picture done with Santa Claus or the guy with the Santa day job, because i really wanted to. Otherwise, I practiced my smart consumer's right to abstain from buying lots of overpriced souvenirs.

We were an hour late arriving at Vasatokka so our stomachs were grumbling but we got to see the northern lights so the drive wasn't a complete loss at all! Dinner was more than welcomed by all of us. I was so happy that I chose the half board option which included all the meals because there was no way i was cooking anything after such an exhausting day. I crawled into my uber comfy bunk bed and fell asleep with dreams of new sights and sound in my head :)

We saw the northern lights for the first out of 3 times when we were approaching Vasatokka (our dorms)

The scenery everywhere made winter look appealing

Me striding through the Santa Claus Village

Polar bear in the Arktikum Museum in Rovaniemi

Santa village

The beautiful lighting - like walking through a fairy tale

We're in the arctic circle !

Me and Marjanne found a nice Christmas tree

On the bus to Lapland (the order will now be normal)

More or less rested up for the day

We are making 'Cs' with our hands for 'Canadian beaver' that is in the display case behind us

and here is the close-up of the majestic animal

the brown bear in better times

the brown bear in slightly worse times

watching a presentation of the northern lights that was projected onto the ceiling 

Many people fell asleep during this and ended up staying for multiple viewings of the presentations because the cushions we were lying on were MUCH more comfortable than the bus seats.

Yay for polluting the environment!

This is a statement about our ecological footprint

The landscape outside the museum - beautiful!

I took these pictures from indoors so that my hand wouldn't freeze

Inside the Arktikum Museum

more expressive art - i decided to join in

nice and cold

our group of explorers

Even though we had only not seen each other for the 10 hr bus ride, I was soooo happy to see Stefan, Annelies and Marjanne in the museum. Distance does make the heart grow fonder.

Santa village decorations

Warming up with a friend by the fireplace

All the letters that we send to Santa are here

santa's little helpers

cutest postcard ever but i still chose to take a picture instead of buying it

And speaking of buying things, I didn't enjoy the Santa Village as much as I thought I would because everything was much too commercialized. Everything was about buying the souvenirs, or the picture with santa. Even Santa himself wasn't really in character! It was disappointing in the sense that i didn't really feel the Christmas spirit there but still a really fun place to visit.

You'll be seeing lots of snow pics in the next few entries

the official santa office where you can mail letters to friends and family

Cute buildings with, wait for it, SOUVENIRS inside. what else?

Our frozen yet happy group

I really enjoyed the Swarovski shop, the figurines were beautiful!

This is my room in Vasatokka

And that's Babsi in the background drying her hair after sauna. She was one of my 3 roomies. our room wasn't huge but it was cozy. 

I was SO exhausted after this extremely long 32 hours that I didn't make it to sauna tonight but decided to sleep instead. Who would've guessed that 1 am was the earliest I would go to bed this week?