Oh Life!: finland, Finland, FINLAND

First of all, I wasn’t that too excited for this trip. The only real reason why I went on this trip is that Jess wanted to go, and so I went with her and Andrew. This is how the vacation panned out.

We started our trip off in a microbus. A microbus has like 18 seats, and it basically a little version of a tour bus. We get to the Russian border, and go through passport control, and it took forever for us Americans. Apparently Americans usually have problems with our visas or something. Then there was something wrong with the bus. A dog was sniffing it, and then they drove it away, and it was gone for like an hour. Then when the bus finally came back and we were able to get on, we had another problem. We get to the Finnish border, and 3 guys had problems with their passports, visas, drugs, their life maybe? We don’t know what happened, but it took forever! At least an hour, sitting in a freezing vehicle, and being way sleep deprived. It was a great night. We were sitting around the border for probably two, two and a half hours. They were the best time of my life… Not really. It was pretty awful. For a while we thought we were going to miss our train to Roveinemi, but we didn’t.

That train was the nicest train I have ever been on. It was so quiet, had wi-fi, and electricity. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have spent way too many hours on trains and buses in the past week. It is a little ridiculous. Haha. We transfered trains, and got on a new one, and it wasn't the best train. I ended up sleeping for the most of the ride.

When we got to Rovaniemi, it was only 3, but it was so black. I guess that is what happens when you go to the top of the earth. We walked around a little bit, froze a little bit more, had donuts, dinner and then the sauna. I do not like saunas. I don't like the feeling of being hot, sweaty, and not being able to breath. At least that is how I felt about it. Oh, and everyone there except for Jess and I were nude. That was a little much. Oh well, I didn't stay in there for very long.

On Saturday, we ate our buffet breakfast, which wasn't that good, and left. We got on a bus and went to SANTA VILLAGE! Yay! The whole reason why we were there! Before we went to Santa Village, we went to Husky Park. I loved Husky Park. We got to go around the park petting Huskies. There were all sorts or Huskies there. We even saw puppies! They were soooo cute! Jess and I just wanted to take them home. They were soo cute! You could go 500 meters for 25 euros. That isn't that far, and it was expensive. So we were just content to watch other people doing that. After that, we got a warm fruit drink, and left.

In Santa Village, we saw Santa, (if you go here, you can see the live feed, which we were on.) You could get a flash drive with your pictures, and your video of meeting Santa on it, but it was 49 euros. That is a lot of money, so we didn't do that. The post office was the next place, and Andrew and I sent a postcard to both of our nieces. Hopefully they get there before Christmas! Crossed the Arctic Circle several times, looked in the shops, and saw some reindeers. Which, they are actually small, and not what I was expecting. Then we went to Santa Park.

We are cheap, so we didn't take the bus that took us to the Park, so we just walked there. It was about 2 km apart, so it wasn't that bad. It was really pretty too. I liked it a lot. We get to Santa Park, which is in this "mountain" that they cleared out, and go in. We went up to pay, and it turned out their machine for swiping cards broke. Apparently it is safer to have a chip in your card for when you purchase things, but none of us had that in our cards, so we couldn't pay for it. It was a little sad, abut that is okay. The amount of time that we would have been there probably wouldn't have been worth it. It was 29 euros to go in for 4 or so hours. So it could have been a good thing. It felt like forever that we waited for the bus. The bus finally came, and took us to the main square. We were hungry, so we had dinner at this restaurant, and then went to a grocery store to buy food for the train ride.

Because of not going to Santa Park, we were 3 hours early to the train station. Oh, so much fun. Andrew charged his computer, and I charged my ipod for our long 12 hour ride. That was an awful ride. They never turned off the light, my chair didn't recline, and I was right by the door that went to the bathroom. It was a joyous ride. I was able to sleep for a while on it, but I would get so uncomfortable, and wake up. I am so sick of trains, and buses! We finally get back to Helsinki, and walked around a little bit, got our picture taking with more cathedrals, and purchased Helsinki shirt, then we were off to go back to St. Pete's!

We caught the bus back to St. Pete's, and that was an adventure too. While driving back, the driver either ran out of gas, or something. It was awful. We were stranded in the middle of Finland for about an hour or so. It was awful. We were cold, and it was bad. Like 10 minutes before the driver came back, another tour bus drove by, and would let people join if they wanted to pay. We decided that we weren't going to do that, the driver came back. We finally got going, we stopped at a gas station and filled up with gas. Then continued on our way. The driver wanted to make up for the time, and we went flying a couple of times because we sat in the back of the bus. It was fun. We got back at 11 that, night, and I was soo glad. I was just so excited to not be on a moving form of transportation