Finnish Lapland: A winter wonderland
Door: Eline Bouwman
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Eline
05 December 2014 | Finland, Korvala
Hei kaikki,
You are maybe wondering why I didn’t upload my Lapland blog yet… The reason is simple: I wanted to make you even more curious about what I did. You’ve probably seen some pictures on Facebook, because it was impossible to miss them. But that was more or less a foretaste of the story. And then here finally is the story!
On Monday, the 24th of November I had to be at university at 10.00 in the morning. It was impossible to move my suitcase up on the hill nearby my house and I missed the bus I wanted to take. Thank god I was early, because I had to go to the Forrex Bank to get euro’s before departure. Come on... It’s logic that we have to pay for everything in Finland with euro’s, but why couldn’t we stop at an ATM or something like that to withdraw them…? Ah well, at Juneporten I bumped into my lovely friends Tiphaine, Diarry and Gaby who came all the way from Råslätt. They also had to get euro’s, so when we got them we went together to university. We were on time! Yay. At 10.00 everybody was there and the bus left. As expected: the bus drive was awful! Sitting on a seat for 22 hours is not kind of my thing… We watched some movies, made pee-stops, got irritated by our guide who was talking and screaming way too much and slept a little bit. The next morning at 09.00 Finnish time (it is one hour earlier in the North of Finland where we stayed) we arrived at Korvala. Our hosts were already waiting for us in their traditional clothing. They looked beautiful! After a nice breakfast we had the chance to sign up for the extra activities. I really wanted to do everything: the long husky- safari ánd the snow-mobile-safari, but that was expensive. I chose to sign up for the snow-mobile-safari (€65,-) and for the short husky-safari (€20,-). The trip was already expensive enough haha. ;-)
After signing up for the extra activities we went to our cabin to dress up in snow-clothes. Our house was sooo cute! We chose the biggest cabin and that cabin was kind of separated from the rest of the cabins. It was located in the forest, while the other cabins were located in half a circle around a lawn. We slept there with eight persons: My friends Tiphaine and Diarry from France, Gaby from Belgium, Alessandro from Italy, Ale’s friend Marco who is also from Italy, Hayley from Australia and Yuta from Japan. A really international cabin! It was nice, because if I wanted to speak Dutch with somebody I could speak in Dutch with Gaby. When Tiph and Didi wanted to speak French, they could do that and for Ale and Marco it was the same but then in Italian. It was perfect! Our cabin consisted of a living room with a fire place in the middle, 6 bank beds on the sides and a big table. There was one separated bedroom, one toilet and one bathroom with a shower and a sauna but without a mirror. It was cosy and cute! Everything was made of wood, so that made me really feel that I was in the middle of nowhere. The cabins and everything in Korvala was actually built by our host family themselves. They now are the 4th generation of the family who are living there.
After we kind of settled ourselves and put ourselves in to the thick winter-clothing, we went outside to play in the snow and for a ride on the reindeer sledge. It was amazing! And they are soooo cute! It felt like I was on the set of a Christmas movie. It was amazing. After that we had a demonstration for ice-fishing. That was not that interesting. It was cold. We went on the lake to actually do the ice-fishing but after five minutes of fishing I was already bored. Another thing why it was not that interesting was that I didn’t want to catch a fish. Catching a fish meant that you had to kill the fish with a hammer and I knew that I could not do that. Poor fishes…
In the afternoon there was the short husky-safari as well. The short safari was 0,5 kilometre. Everybody wanted to do that, so we had to wait for a long time until it was our turn. It was super fun to sit on a sledge while bumping on the snow! Too bad that it was just for 5-10 minutes… After when everybody had done the husky-safari we went to the we went to the dog kennel. I don’t like dogs, but the huskies were super cute, sweet and of course locked up. No, that’s a bad joke. They were really cute and sweet and I wasn’t so afraid of them. I mean, for the 5-10 minutes on the sledge my life was in their hands, or legs, whatever you will call it. That makes you like and trust those animals a little bit more. :-)
After the husky safari it was time for dinner. We got köttbullar with mashed potatoes and salad with bread. The food was amazing. I was super hungry and maybe because I was so super hungry it tasted even better, but it was good in any case. After dinner we went back to our cabin to relax and play card games. The card game ‘Scumbag’ was our favourite. I’m not good in playing cards at all, but I won a several rounds! Yay! :-) In the evening we went to the sauna. That was hot. For cooling down we jumped in the frozen water, what is in Finland famous as an ‘Arctic Swim’. I was really afraid of getting a heart attack, but my heart survived and after the first dip I wanted to do it again! It feels really good. And even when the temperature is below zero, you don’t feel that because your body is overheated from the air in the sauna. It was definitely an experience itself and it was amazing! When we got back to our cabin we all took a shower, played some cards at the fireplace and had a great time together.
On Wednesday morning our alarm went off pretty early. We had to be ready at 10.00 AM for our snow-mobile-safari! :-D I was on the snow-mobile with Tiphaine and she was driving first. Those things are really heavy and scary when you see them at the first sight. And when another person is driving and when you are sitting on the back it’s even more scary. Bumping on the snow and hitting trees (sorry Tiph, I had to mention it haha), damn I was so scared. But the landscape was amazing! After 10 kilometre we stopped, had some hot apple juice or something like that, took some group pictures and then it was time to switch. I HAD TO DRIVE! Woah, it was so amazing. We actually went 25 km/h and that was really fast. Tiph said that I was a horrible driver, but yeah adrenaline does something with a humans mind haha. It actually felt like driving a scooter, but then one of 250 kg. Some people were even more horrible than me. I didn’t hit something and we didn’t fell, so I can say that I’m able to drive a snow-mobile.
In the afternoon Tiph, Didi, Gaby and me went for cross-country-skiing, or better known as ‘langlaufen’. Men, that was tough! It always looks so easy on television, but it is NOT! But still it was fun to do and to experience failing in a sport. It was hilarious! Didi her sticks were too long, so for her it was kind of impossible to move forward. And then with her Teletubbies outfit… Amazing!
For dinner we had salmon with mashed potatoes. It tasted again really good after a long day of exercising! After dinner we went back to our cabin to play cards and practise ‘The Cup Song’ at the fireplace again. Around 22.00 we went outside to take a look at the stars. It was actually the first time since we arrived that the sky was really clear and we were hoping to see the Northern lights as well. It was cold, but playing and running in the snow kept us warm. Around 01.00 at night we still didn’t see the Northern lights, so we decided to go back to our cabin. Too bad. I’m kind of disappointed that the Northern lights didn’t appear, but still it was really nice to look at the stars with lovely people around me.
On Thursday we went by bus to Pyhä to go to a national park. The way towards Pyhä was just amazing itself. It’s really cool to actually drive on a road what is covered in snow and see reindeers on the side of the road! After 45 minutes we arrived in Pyhä. Some people went skiing, but since I’m not a good skier and since I skied once in my live, I decided to go for the hike. I don’t regret that decision at all. It was amazing! The forest was really beautiful. There was sun, there was snow and there was us. It had something magical! The first few hours in the snow were really nice. We saw a frozen waterfall and a lot of other beautiful views. After two hours of hiking, I was actually quite done with it. But yeah, we had to go back as well. We went the touristic route. Normally I like touristic routes, but now I didn’t like it that much. It was kind of impossible and really hard to move in the snow. It took us like 2 hours to get back. We had to cross the ski piste and that was cool. There was namely a ski competition running at that moment. I mean, it’s awesome if you can say that you were part of that competition even the participants didn’t know that I was there. After getting back to the meeting point we decided to drink hot chocolate with marshmallows and eat a pizza. Damn, the pizza with goat-cheese and spinach was delicious! It was a long time ago that I’ve tasted such a delicious pizza like that. Forrest Gump would say: ‘What a wonderful choice.’
When we got back at Korvala dinner was served. On the menu was reindeer! :-D And it was delicious! I like reindeers. They are cute and they taste good. In the evening we packed our stuff, played some card games at the fireplace and went to sleep early.
On Friday the 28th we went by bus to the Santa Claus Village. That’s a village on the Arctic Circle and everything is about Santa Claus. You can also go on a picture with Santa if you want to spend €40,- for a link on the internet, you can do that as well. Luckily we were with a group of 50 people, so the costs for a picture were €0,80 per person. That was a good price! :-)
After the Santa Claus Village we moved on to Rovaniemi, the biggest city of Finnish Lapland. We arrived around 15.00-16.00 o’clock and it was already dark. So we didn’t see a lot of the city itself. Our main goal was to eat though, so we went to Subway to get a big sandwich. Oh my, if I think about the amount of food I ate in Lapland I realize that it was a lot! But who cares. Food is good. In one of the tourist shops we learned a Finnish word, namely: ‘Kiitos’, what means ‘thank you’ and at 18.00 in the evening we headed back to Jönköping. We watched some movies in the bus, talked with others and tried to sleep a little bit. It was horrible again… And for some reason the long bus drive was the reason why I cannot imagine that I was walking in the snow a week ago. It feels like that it is way longer ago that I was there in Korvala. At 10.00 in the morning on Saturday we arrived in Jönköping again. It was so weird to say goodbye to everyone and especially the people with whom I spent the whole week before. But conclusion of the Lapland story: It was amazing! And I definitely want to go back to really see the Northern lights!
Oh and by the way, in the attachment of this email you will find a few pictures of the trip, but I would really recommend you to click on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaxHJi2-BGA. My friend Gaby made this movie and it really gives an impression how Korvala was!
Kiitos ja hei hei! :-D
You are maybe wondering why I didn’t upload my Lapland blog yet… The reason is simple: I wanted to make you even more curious about what I did. You’ve probably seen some pictures on Facebook, because it was impossible to miss them. But that was more or less a foretaste of the story. And then here finally is the story!
On Monday, the 24th of November I had to be at university at 10.00 in the morning. It was impossible to move my suitcase up on the hill nearby my house and I missed the bus I wanted to take. Thank god I was early, because I had to go to the Forrex Bank to get euro’s before departure. Come on... It’s logic that we have to pay for everything in Finland with euro’s, but why couldn’t we stop at an ATM or something like that to withdraw them…? Ah well, at Juneporten I bumped into my lovely friends Tiphaine, Diarry and Gaby who came all the way from Råslätt. They also had to get euro’s, so when we got them we went together to university. We were on time! Yay. At 10.00 everybody was there and the bus left. As expected: the bus drive was awful! Sitting on a seat for 22 hours is not kind of my thing… We watched some movies, made pee-stops, got irritated by our guide who was talking and screaming way too much and slept a little bit. The next morning at 09.00 Finnish time (it is one hour earlier in the North of Finland where we stayed) we arrived at Korvala. Our hosts were already waiting for us in their traditional clothing. They looked beautiful! After a nice breakfast we had the chance to sign up for the extra activities. I really wanted to do everything: the long husky- safari ánd the snow-mobile-safari, but that was expensive. I chose to sign up for the snow-mobile-safari (€65,-) and for the short husky-safari (€20,-). The trip was already expensive enough haha. ;-)
After signing up for the extra activities we went to our cabin to dress up in snow-clothes. Our house was sooo cute! We chose the biggest cabin and that cabin was kind of separated from the rest of the cabins. It was located in the forest, while the other cabins were located in half a circle around a lawn. We slept there with eight persons: My friends Tiphaine and Diarry from France, Gaby from Belgium, Alessandro from Italy, Ale’s friend Marco who is also from Italy, Hayley from Australia and Yuta from Japan. A really international cabin! It was nice, because if I wanted to speak Dutch with somebody I could speak in Dutch with Gaby. When Tiph and Didi wanted to speak French, they could do that and for Ale and Marco it was the same but then in Italian. It was perfect! Our cabin consisted of a living room with a fire place in the middle, 6 bank beds on the sides and a big table. There was one separated bedroom, one toilet and one bathroom with a shower and a sauna but without a mirror. It was cosy and cute! Everything was made of wood, so that made me really feel that I was in the middle of nowhere. The cabins and everything in Korvala was actually built by our host family themselves. They now are the 4th generation of the family who are living there.
After we kind of settled ourselves and put ourselves in to the thick winter-clothing, we went outside to play in the snow and for a ride on the reindeer sledge. It was amazing! And they are soooo cute! It felt like I was on the set of a Christmas movie. It was amazing. After that we had a demonstration for ice-fishing. That was not that interesting. It was cold. We went on the lake to actually do the ice-fishing but after five minutes of fishing I was already bored. Another thing why it was not that interesting was that I didn’t want to catch a fish. Catching a fish meant that you had to kill the fish with a hammer and I knew that I could not do that. Poor fishes…
In the afternoon there was the short husky-safari as well. The short safari was 0,5 kilometre. Everybody wanted to do that, so we had to wait for a long time until it was our turn. It was super fun to sit on a sledge while bumping on the snow! Too bad that it was just for 5-10 minutes… After when everybody had done the husky-safari we went to the we went to the dog kennel. I don’t like dogs, but the huskies were super cute, sweet and of course locked up. No, that’s a bad joke. They were really cute and sweet and I wasn’t so afraid of them. I mean, for the 5-10 minutes on the sledge my life was in their hands, or legs, whatever you will call it. That makes you like and trust those animals a little bit more. :-)
After the husky safari it was time for dinner. We got köttbullar with mashed potatoes and salad with bread. The food was amazing. I was super hungry and maybe because I was so super hungry it tasted even better, but it was good in any case. After dinner we went back to our cabin to relax and play card games. The card game ‘Scumbag’ was our favourite. I’m not good in playing cards at all, but I won a several rounds! Yay! :-) In the evening we went to the sauna. That was hot. For cooling down we jumped in the frozen water, what is in Finland famous as an ‘Arctic Swim’. I was really afraid of getting a heart attack, but my heart survived and after the first dip I wanted to do it again! It feels really good. And even when the temperature is below zero, you don’t feel that because your body is overheated from the air in the sauna. It was definitely an experience itself and it was amazing! When we got back to our cabin we all took a shower, played some cards at the fireplace and had a great time together.
On Wednesday morning our alarm went off pretty early. We had to be ready at 10.00 AM for our snow-mobile-safari! :-D I was on the snow-mobile with Tiphaine and she was driving first. Those things are really heavy and scary when you see them at the first sight. And when another person is driving and when you are sitting on the back it’s even more scary. Bumping on the snow and hitting trees (sorry Tiph, I had to mention it haha), damn I was so scared. But the landscape was amazing! After 10 kilometre we stopped, had some hot apple juice or something like that, took some group pictures and then it was time to switch. I HAD TO DRIVE! Woah, it was so amazing. We actually went 25 km/h and that was really fast. Tiph said that I was a horrible driver, but yeah adrenaline does something with a humans mind haha. It actually felt like driving a scooter, but then one of 250 kg. Some people were even more horrible than me. I didn’t hit something and we didn’t fell, so I can say that I’m able to drive a snow-mobile.
In the afternoon Tiph, Didi, Gaby and me went for cross-country-skiing, or better known as ‘langlaufen’. Men, that was tough! It always looks so easy on television, but it is NOT! But still it was fun to do and to experience failing in a sport. It was hilarious! Didi her sticks were too long, so for her it was kind of impossible to move forward. And then with her Teletubbies outfit… Amazing!
For dinner we had salmon with mashed potatoes. It tasted again really good after a long day of exercising! After dinner we went back to our cabin to play cards and practise ‘The Cup Song’ at the fireplace again. Around 22.00 we went outside to take a look at the stars. It was actually the first time since we arrived that the sky was really clear and we were hoping to see the Northern lights as well. It was cold, but playing and running in the snow kept us warm. Around 01.00 at night we still didn’t see the Northern lights, so we decided to go back to our cabin. Too bad. I’m kind of disappointed that the Northern lights didn’t appear, but still it was really nice to look at the stars with lovely people around me.
On Thursday we went by bus to Pyhä to go to a national park. The way towards Pyhä was just amazing itself. It’s really cool to actually drive on a road what is covered in snow and see reindeers on the side of the road! After 45 minutes we arrived in Pyhä. Some people went skiing, but since I’m not a good skier and since I skied once in my live, I decided to go for the hike. I don’t regret that decision at all. It was amazing! The forest was really beautiful. There was sun, there was snow and there was us. It had something magical! The first few hours in the snow were really nice. We saw a frozen waterfall and a lot of other beautiful views. After two hours of hiking, I was actually quite done with it. But yeah, we had to go back as well. We went the touristic route. Normally I like touristic routes, but now I didn’t like it that much. It was kind of impossible and really hard to move in the snow. It took us like 2 hours to get back. We had to cross the ski piste and that was cool. There was namely a ski competition running at that moment. I mean, it’s awesome if you can say that you were part of that competition even the participants didn’t know that I was there. After getting back to the meeting point we decided to drink hot chocolate with marshmallows and eat a pizza. Damn, the pizza with goat-cheese and spinach was delicious! It was a long time ago that I’ve tasted such a delicious pizza like that. Forrest Gump would say: ‘What a wonderful choice.’
When we got back at Korvala dinner was served. On the menu was reindeer! :-D And it was delicious! I like reindeers. They are cute and they taste good. In the evening we packed our stuff, played some card games at the fireplace and went to sleep early.
On Friday the 28th we went by bus to the Santa Claus Village. That’s a village on the Arctic Circle and everything is about Santa Claus. You can also go on a picture with Santa if you want to spend €40,- for a link on the internet, you can do that as well. Luckily we were with a group of 50 people, so the costs for a picture were €0,80 per person. That was a good price! :-)
After the Santa Claus Village we moved on to Rovaniemi, the biggest city of Finnish Lapland. We arrived around 15.00-16.00 o’clock and it was already dark. So we didn’t see a lot of the city itself. Our main goal was to eat though, so we went to Subway to get a big sandwich. Oh my, if I think about the amount of food I ate in Lapland I realize that it was a lot! But who cares. Food is good. In one of the tourist shops we learned a Finnish word, namely: ‘Kiitos’, what means ‘thank you’ and at 18.00 in the evening we headed back to Jönköping. We watched some movies in the bus, talked with others and tried to sleep a little bit. It was horrible again… And for some reason the long bus drive was the reason why I cannot imagine that I was walking in the snow a week ago. It feels like that it is way longer ago that I was there in Korvala. At 10.00 in the morning on Saturday we arrived in Jönköping again. It was so weird to say goodbye to everyone and especially the people with whom I spent the whole week before. But conclusion of the Lapland story: It was amazing! And I definitely want to go back to really see the Northern lights!
Oh and by the way, in the attachment of this email you will find a few pictures of the trip, but I would really recommend you to click on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaxHJi2-BGA. My friend Gaby made this movie and it really gives an impression how Korvala was!
Kiitos ja hei hei! :-D
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