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Shoop, shoop, shoop

Having gotten a taste for all things snow, today was the day Kyles was knocking another thing off her bucket list and learning to ski.

After smashing the freebie brekkie again, we headed up the mountain/hill/hump to the Saariselka Ski & Snow Resort.

One thing about Finland, everyone that works here, albeit not Finnish, are absolutely lovely, and happy. Pretty sure I would be too if i lived and worked in a magic snow globe.

We once again kitted up, hiring boots, skis and helmets ready for our noon lesson. The awesome Heather from Birmingham, while helping us sort what was what, let it slip that last night, while we were snoring our heads off, Saariselka had one of the most impressive northern lights displays – no hunting required. They could be seen as clear as day from very ski hill where we stood, 5 minutes from our Inn. Far out brussel sprout is the PG reaction.

With half hour to burn before our lesson, we heel and toed it to the cafe next door, I forgot how damn awkward it was to walk in ski boots, and that after 5 minutes your feet feel completely numb!

Both full of nerves at the impending doom, for once, we decided that gin was not the answer, just coffee – caffeine and warmth.

Luckily for us, since we didn’t book in advance we got our own personal ski instructor, Danny from New Zealand. Another awesome human being who for 90 minutes helped us shoop shoop shoop down the slopes.

Having skied three times before, although not in over 10 years, I still needed a lesson too. Turning out the left ski to turn right still doesn’t make sense in the blonde head of mine.

For a complete newbie to skiing, Kyles absolutely killed it. In a good way. For the whole 90 minute lesson, only fell over once! But there was the fencing incident…

Overall, absolute superstar! Never seen a first time skier stay upright while top speed down a slope and come off the winner with the rope lift. She was legen… wait for it… dary! Legendary!

I managed to make it through some wobbles and to the end of the lesson without any going arse up… the reward, a nice cold beer and sweet potato fries in the half time break.

After not seeing each other for 6 months, I love that we can still spend an hour and a half sitting in a cafe laughing til our stomachs hurt and talking crap about everything and anything… while still somehow pondering our existential existence. We go between crying tears of laughter at lame jokes like these:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikespohr/new-dad-jokes

To talking about the meaning of life – to live every moment, do things that scare the crap out of you and to never for a moment forget that we are blessed to live the life we lead. Sounds like a fridge magnet.

Round two and it was time to tackle the slope without Danny as our guiding light. Once again, superstars. 2022 Winter Olympics here we come! Maybe not but kinda proud I made it down the main slope without stacking it, although at snails pace…

As the slopes cleared we thought it was time for a break and headed back to the cafe for more courage. I mean beer. After resting our battered bodies, we decided to retire gold medal winners. Too bad the last bus to town had already left. No wonder the slopes were quiet!

After hiking back to town and indulging in more delicious Rudolph burgers and loki, we finally got around to a pub crawl around Saariselka. And then for some reason thought it was a grand idea to hunt for auroras again. Made sense at the time! We hiked up the tobogan hill but alas, the clouds hid the lights and Eileen was no where to be seen.

More vids and pics to come!!

Saturday 5th January 2019.

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Opposites attract

Waking up in Saariselka is like waking up in a snow globe, magical views, snow delicately falling and I swear I can hear sleigh bells jingling all the way. After a quick hotel buffet brekky – which I’m still not sure whether we were meant to pay for – Kylie being an amazing Wonder Woman had our day all sorted, snow mobiling then sauna, or sow-na as they say here, don’t go being a bogan aussie and saying sore-na…

So before kicking off our adventures we had time to burn, or freeze… spent trekking around Saariselka just taking in the wonders and enjoying the living snow globe. I’ll never get sick of the sight of snow covered trees but after this blog post, you might be…

So after exploring and planning our pub crawl for the evening, we kitted up at Husky & Co for our 2 hour snow mobiling adventure. It’s no secret I like anything with a motor, it’s in my genes, so I was super, ridiculously excited for this one. Kitted up and ready to rumble…

It did not disappoint. Instead of saving for a mustang, I’m now saving for a snow mobile… and moving to a place where here’s snow… Could not wipe the smile off my face the whole time! Not only amazing scenery but “fangin it” (as one my fave people says) on a snow mobile is my new favourite thing. Gliding, skidding, bumping, all too much fun – only disappointment is that I wasn’t allowed to just let it rip and get the amazing beast up to the 100km/h I knew it was capable of. Something about insurance, blah blah…

On an adrenaline high after our spin, we were off to our next adventure – a Finnish sauna. Interestingly, sauna is the only Finnish word to appear in the vocabulary of every other language, thanks for that Mikko! Somehow, we are killing it with our navigating skills, finding a remote resort when I still get lost on my way to Henley. Must be the Kyles factor.

So apparently a “fun” thing to do in Finland is to roast yourself in a smoke sauna, to the point where you’re eyeballs boil… then jump into an ice pool – and by ice pool I literally mean a hole in the ice. The ice pool quite literally takes your breath away and made me squeal like a… I don’t know what, never made that sound before!!

Hylie after sauna…

Hylie in ice pools… those are crazy smiles…

Boiling hot + freezing cold = fun. Kinda was. I love trying new things and not too much is out of my comfort zone but damn this was. We repeated about four times before calling it and trekking back to Saariselka for reindeer pizza and beer.

What a day!! Needless to say, we didn’t make the planned pub crawl…

Friday 4th January 2019.

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Hobbits

Ahhh, the day after auroras, waking up with the thought of “did that really happen?!?” Absolute awe. Now just to wait for the pics because if there aren’t pictures, it didn’t really happen right?!?

Both a bit overwhelmed and tired from a late night we got stuck into some good ol’ Finnish delicacies – well, the version from the local Kioski, heat n eat style from our kitchen with a snowy view…

Salmon soup, chicken & cheese soup and meatballs with mash… surprisingly tasty… or just really damn hungry…

Having not heard back from our 2 star Airbnb host, we had hoped to stay in our accommodation for a few hours longer to avoid the -17 outside, but low and behold Annikki (made that up) arrived to clean so time to leg it, out in -17 at noon with no where to go, luckily the Finnish get the whole drink coffee and veg thing. Their coffee houses are funky as hell and the coffee ain’t too bad either.

So having to wait it out til 3.30pm for our bus to Saariselka, after the coffee house got bored of us we dragged suitcases and all to the local shopping centre where our eyes did not deceive us, a rock n roll Mexican restaurant – never knew those two things belonged together until now! Cue gin… and a trip to supermarket to stock up on snacks for the road trip… and then some more gin… my first taste of the national Finnish drink Lonkero, which just happens to be Gin… knew I belonged here.. and you can buy it in the supermarket aisle… triple points for Finland!!

And in another plus for Finland, their bottle shops are called Alko, for reals… this place has my heart!

So bus station bound with Google leading the way, how the hell people got around before Google maps in this weather without turning into icicles is beyond me, but we trudged, dragging suitcases through the snow to the Linja-Autoasema and after some interesting conversation with a local who thought we needed advice on how to live our best life – we were off to Saariselka. I guess we did look that bad and the dude thought we needed it…

So after a breakfast of microwaveable goodness, second breakfast of coffee, elevenses of gin and I guess a lunch of gin, it was time for random supermarket snacks for luncheon and afternoon tea – Thai Green Curry Pringles, something chocolate, another thing chocolate then this green sugary bundle of yum – still no idea what it was, just tasted like green according to Kyles…

The bus ride was like crossing the Mountains of Moria, snow blizzard outside and Saruman trying to bury us in snow.. luckily takeaway cans of gin took the edge off the fear… somehow on a road we couldn’t see, our frickin amazing bus driver got us to Saariselka, and what do we know, our accommodation is at the local pub where there’s a roaring fire and karaoke!!

No surprises, we took two minutes to drop bags at our room and head to the local. We settled in fireside for a dinner of salami sticks and potato chips while indulging in a supper of Lonkero, which I renamed Loki after my favourite Avenger and then somehow my arm was twisted into singing Karaoke… after a Wonderwall warm up, we struck a chord with Don’t Stop Believing then our final ballad of I Got You Babe… of course we are both amazing singers, we didn’t at all clear the bar, just enjoyed the wild applause from our audience…

Yeah nah. Bedtime.

Thursday 3rd January 2019.

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Grateful

In all our chats before heading over to the UK, Kylie and I had one thing straight… the only thing we HAD to do was see the northern lights. Our whole trip to Finland revolved around what the locals call hunting auroras.

In all the research we did, it was clear that it all depends on the weather – clouds or snow means no auroras. Also depends on holes in the sun and sun dust?!? WTF. Us amateurs had no idea when or who would be the best to make our dreams come true.

Enter Mikko. During our visit to Santa Claus’ Village, while ordering the best Finlandish coffee vodka, Kyles mentioned to the bar man about wanting to see the northern lights. Twenty minutes later, we’ve organized a random dude to pick us up at 9pm and take us aurora hunting. Had he not had a decent Facebook page or Instagram account, maybe we would have been more cautious. Maybe not. Maybe I still messaged a friend with links to the dudes socials in case we went missing…

So after collecting our luggage, legging it back to our accommodation and smashing some hesburger, it was time to hunt.

Mikko was super entertaining and obvs not a psycho, he knew everything about hunting auroras, was all hooked up to the sites and groups that discuss the nights upcoming spectacle… let’s be honest, I just sat in the back, ate chocolate and drank Glogi while Mikko and Kyles did the real hunting…

So literally in the middle of absolutely nowhere we stopped and waited. Heater cranked, since it was a a cool -28.5 outside… Glogi, heater, chocolate, wait…

During the wait we learnt heaps about Finland, school is free, school lunch is free, university is free, even for foreigners – uh, stuff London, I’m moving to Finland… lowest crime rates, gender equality in their government since 1906 and was the first country to make a broadband connection a legal right (xtra info from Kyles).

So around midnight, Mikko made the call, “it’s time”. Nothing can ever prepare you for -28.5 degrees, just as nothing can prepare you for seeing the most beautiful feat of nature that ever existed.

Jumping out the car and staring into the sky, it appears as a green haze at first then slowly it appears in all its glory. I’ll be honest, in the pics, it’s clearer and more spectacular but for reals, it’s still bloody brilliant. It fades in and out and is called Eileen… because when you dance in the snow and sing “Come on Eileen..”, she appears…. for reals…

So no sugar coating the experience, it was cold beyond words, my lame arse Aussie boots were no match for trekking through knee high snow, I honestly thought I would lose some toes. Defrosting toes is pain beyond words. Luckily, there was a heated car to jump back into when the lights faded and it was time to wait again.

And thank god for Mikko who knew when to jump out to see Eileen and when to be patient. Other groups gave up on the night but we persisted til around 1.30am and I can honestly say it was the most beautiful, amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life. So grateful that I’ve been in the position to do this. Grateful doesn’t even feel strong enough – thankful, privileged, lucky. So much so that my first born child will be called Aurora, worst parent in the world if it’s a boy…

Wednesday 2nd January 2019.

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WTF

Jumping off the train station you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d just disembarked from the Polar Express… snow, snow and more snow, still no Jon Snow though…

Arriving in Rovaniemi just after 7am, we were like kids on Christmas Day, having literally arrived in the official home of Santa Claus. We stashed our bags at the train station and headed for the jolly old man’s home. Having been lucky enough to visit the snow before, this was still something else. Trees covered in snow, cars covered in snow, everything had a thick layer of snow… and then amongst the fascination it hit… snow is farken cold, -11 cold, WTF!!

Rocking up at the Santa Claus Village well before anything was open, which was fair enough given the dude just had a really heavy workload, we killed time with a Finnish breakfast buffet, copious amounts of coffee and a view like something from a fairytale… through the blur of a crappy iPhone.

We hit up the old man straight away to get ahead of the pesky kids who hog Santa’s time – Kyles was sweet and just wanted to ask Santa to see her niece Paige next Christmas, I took a more pageant queen angle and wanted world peace. Neither of us will get what we wanted, dude didn’t even ask. Isn’t that part of your job description? Anyhoo, pics to come later, new age Santa gives you pictures on a USB and that’s one adapter I didn’t bring, damn would have been more useful than the curling iron I packed… here’s the creepy LEGO version instead…

Out and about in Santa’s Village, it really is magical. Fairy lights, snow, reindeer (yum!) and snowmen (sorry – snowperson)… and my fave, an ice bar! We were super touristy, paid to do all the overpriced things and didn’t care one bit… it was worth it!!

Check this out and try tell me you don’t believe in Santa!!

So the husky sledding was freakin awesome but heartbreaking in the beginning. Stay with me… walking up to Bear Hill sledding and seeing all of these glorious dogs tied up and yelping, broke my heart and then realised I was one of those arsehole people that hurt animals for my own entertainment. Didn’t sit well. Thank goodness Kylie is her awesome self and talks to everyone so we found out that these dogs love to run, the yelping is from having to stop and wait… the huskies (Alaskan, not the pretty hyped up Siberian ones) are born and bred to run over 1,000 clicks a day at up to 30km/h so pulling our heavy arses around is just part and parcel of what they love… hmm, did I fall for the tourist pitch, yeah, kinda…

Awww, you’re a good boy…

Anyways, after our sledding adventure with the incredible Tom Hardy (oh yeah…), it was the ice bar and all the vodka…

Hey Kylie, lick it…

… and of course, where there’s snow, there’s ice ice baby, ice planks and hammer time (that’s for you Pattie!)…

In case you’re wondering how to dress for -11, or -17 by the time we left, all that is required is: 3 x pairs of socks (the third an overpriced pair of wool ones from the souvenir shop that saved at least three toes), knee high winter boots, thermal leggings, jeans, snow pants, thermal top, jumper, ski jacket (hood up), snow gloves, neck/face protector, scarf and beanie… yes I’m full of Christmas pudding but looking like the Michelin man is just part of snow adventures… which is what I’ll keep telling myself…

Special thanks to Paula for lending me everything, would be coming back minus a few fingers and vital organs otherwise…this is how big our smiles are when we find an open fire to warm our cold arses on…

The scenery in Santa Claus village is other worldly – in that a good little Aussie lass without a sense of adventure would never in her life see such beauty in the snow covered trees, purple and orange skies, icicles and glittering snow, just wish my pictures could show just how mind blowing amazing it really is…

Oh yeah, and amongst it all, I found the wall… knew it was out here somewhere…

Our last adventure at the Santa Claus village was a 3km reindeer sleigh ride. When booking it in the morning for a 4pm departure, it seemed like good timing – obvs forgot that at 4pm it’s dark and around -17 degrees… the look on Rudolf’s face says it all: “Paybacks a bitch, this is for eating my brother…”

So for all our adventures at Santa Claus’ Village, the biggest adventure was our night time hunt for auroras courtesy of the bar man at the ice bar who Kylie made friends with… a dude we don’t know, picking us up in the middle of the night and taking us to the middle of nowhere…yeah, all kind of psychotic serial killer movie twists running through my head but must have made it back alive… unless its a ghost writing this, or the bar man… nah, he wasn’t this funny… (ok, we all know only my mum thinks I’m funny).

So we made it back alive but I’ll save the hunting auroras update for when we have all the glorious pics from the bar man… auroras on my dumb arse iPhone looks like this:

Wednesday 2nd January 2018.

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