Our search for winter wonderland

This fall/ winter has been exceptionally warm in Finland. Warmest for the last 50 years, or something like that. We haven't seen a lot of snow in southern Finland. Just rain, rain, rain and more rain. Enough to cause some floods, even. Some people have liked this "balmy" weather. I, however, have not. For me, the only thing that'll make the darkest season just a little bit more bearable is the snow. Without it it's just horrible. Very short gray days and long black nights. And constant rain. Who could ever like that, is beyond me. I don't like it too cold either. The perfect winter weather for me would be just a couple of degrees below zero (celsius) and enough snow to make it white and enable skiing and sledding. That is in Finland, of course. I liked Sydney winters much better. I don't really need to have the snow if the days are sunny and bright, like they are in Sydney.

The kids have not liked this "warmer" climate either. They've really missed snow a lot. They said that Christmas is ruined if there is no snow. Some people travel south, for the sun, in the mid-winter. We decided to travel north, for the snow. And for Santa Claus. So on Christmas day we packed our bags and got on a night train to take us 840 km north, to Rovaniemi. When we got out of the train in the morning, we were not disappointed. It was -5C and there was snow. The kids climbed the first pile of snow they laid their eyes on at the train station.

It was the 26th of December at 8 am. The 26th is a national holiday in Finland so not many places are open then. However, we were sure there'd still be some place open to get breakfast. We walked around the downtown (which is not very big) but couldn't find anything open. Finally I decided to go ask a taxi driver where is the nearest cafeteria that would be open, they'd be sure to know. He instructed us to go to a petrol station, which wasn't very far from the train station. Dang. We should have maybe done some research beforehand to save us a few steps. Anyway, we got breakkie and decided to head for a local skiing center. We had to take a taxi to get there. We booked some snowboarding lessons for the boys and also did some sledding.

This was our kids very first time to try snowboarding. Teemu and I have never tried it ourselves so we could not be of much help with that. I offered to teach them downhill skiing, but they did not want to ski. They wanted to snowboard. So we better find someone who actually knows something about it.

Going up

And coming down

The kids enjoyed it so much that after their lessons they kept going for 2 more hours. After that it was time to go find something to eat. We asked the staff at the skiing center if there was a bus we could take back downtown: The answer was: "we're at Rovaniemi and it's a national holiday, so no chance". So the taxi was our only option.

We went to a McDonald's restaurant. I should say that Rovaniemi is packed with foreign tourists around this time of year. I knew it was popular, but never realized just how popular it is. I had never thought of Rovaniemi as one of our bilingual cities before. Now I learned that it is bilingual. The other language being English instead of Swedish. We saw some Asian tourists taking their pictures in Mc Donald's. I found this a bit odd at first, since I was pretty sure it wasn't the first McDonald's restaurant they had ever seen, and at first I didn't see what was so special about this one. Then we saw the sign they were taking their picture next to:

I see. So now I've been to the northernmost golden arches too. I wonder if I've also been to the southernmost one. I remember there weren't many golden arches to be found in Tasmania. That might have changed, though.

The next day we headed to Santa Park. Luckily the buses were running then. It was very easy to forget that we were still in Finland in Santa Park. Even the staff would first speak English to you and some of the staff were clearly foreign, although they did speak some Finnish too. I have to admit that I was a tad disappointed with Santa Park. I had imagined it'd be a lot bigger place than what it turned out to be. The kids loved it, though, especially Erno. And we did get to see the Santa. I mean the real Santa.

The things our kids liked the very best about Santa Park was this place with ice sculptures

An this ball




Rovaniemi and Lapland are also famous for their Reindeer and husky rides. Those are pretty pricy, though. However, in downtown we found a guy who would give us a sled ride, pulled by this beautiful horse and that price was more reasonable so we went for it. The kids had the time of their life!

The following day we weren't sure what to do. Our tickets to Santa Park were for two days, but since it was so small, I didn't think it'd hold our interest for another day. So we decided to go and have a look at the Santa Village, which is just a couple of km north of Santa Park.

We found a giang snowman

And a baby reindeer



There was also this place called "Arctice" that was supposed to have all kinds of winter fun too, but we didn't go there, since it was already arctic enough for me (i.e. freezing) and we didn't know if there'd be any place there to keep warm. I suppose it takes a while to acclimatize even though it wasn't really that cold.


By the arctic circle:





So after seeing enough of the Santa Village we headed to the Rovaniemi library to play a board game. Then we dined at an Indian restaurant which was really good! Then it was time to head back to the train station to take a night train back home after hour short visit to the snow.