Helsinki, to Santa, to the Fjords

So much has happened since my last post. I think it was almost a week ago that I was able to get online.



From Tallinn I took the ferry back to Helsinki. It was a nice ride and took about 3 hours. I spent the afternoon on Helsinki waiting until my 9pm train arrived. I walked around for a while, bought lunch at a grocery store and ate in a park, and did some laundry. The laundry was a little awkward to do. In my guide book it suggested a cafe that was combined with a laundrymat. I got there and it was packed with people eating lunch and I didn't see any laundry machines, so I asked where they were. The lady took me to the rear of the cafe to a single tiny washing machine. There were a group of people eating their Sunday lunch all around it, so I had to ask them to move as I pulled out my dirty underwear, smelly socks, and used bed linens. I am sure it was not very appetizing to them, but I did have clean close after having to sit there for 2 hours. At around 6:30 I met up with my aussie mate named Prasanth, we had met in Stockholm and I decided to tag along on his trip up to northern Finland. He was a great help and had a lot of good ideas of what to see.

We boarded the train around 7:00pm and did not arrive in Raveniemi until 8:00 am the next morning. As we were leaving the Raveniemi train station we ran in a lost Japanese girl named Ayoko. I don't think she had a map or a clue where she was going. We invited her to follow us to our hostel, where she too was staying. In the afternoon the three of us went to Santa's village and took pictures with him. Though Santa is willing to give free gifts on Christmas he charges $32 dollars for a picture with him. Though he does know how to speak English, Finnish, Japenese, and German. After hanging out with Santa we walked over to a tiled path that had a set of coordinates on it. That coordinates was the line that followed the Artic Circle. we took a few pictures of us jumping across and then headed to Santa's postoffice where we sent postcards home. On our way back to our hostel we went to the grocery store and bought dinner and then prepared and ate it at the hostel. In the evening we all went to to a local Irish bar and met a guy named Steve.

The next morning Ayoko departed and headed to Oslo. Since we lost our third member Prashanth and I decided to pick up Steve to replace Ayoko. We rented bikes from Artic Adventure Co. and road up to the highest peak in Raveneimi. It really wasn't that high, but it was hard to ride a bike up it. This peak included a hotel with a great view over the town and also a mountain louge that went to the bottom. We did not get to ride the louge, but contemplated getting McDonald's trays and riding down. For about 2 hours we sat inside the hotel and drank coffee around a fire that the hotel staff asked up to make. When we were leaving the hotel we asked the staff if there was a good place to use a sauna in Raveneimi. One lady suggested the local recreational building. We headed down to the sauna. When we got there we were told we need to rent bathing suits, and then were told that bathing suits are not allowed in the sauna. This wasn't so bad though we just stripped down and headed to the sauna where we spent about an hour.

The next day Prashanth and I headed to Kiruna Finland , a mining town with in the artic circle. After traveling across the Finnish Swedish boarded where we were to transfer to a bus in Haparanda. We thought it was funny that right on the boarder there was an Ikea. At the bus station we meet some men that said that Kiruna was a boring town that that Abisco in Sweden in much more entertaining. When we arrived at Kiruna we found that there are few words that could describe this town better than depressing. We arrived at our hostel, The Yellow House, that had great reviews and met the owner. We came to the conclusion that he reminds us of the killer in the movie Physco, Martin Bates. Our arrival was late so we decided to get some dinner and then head to bed. The next day we went to Kiruna Church which was beautiful and model after the Sami's people, native lapplanders, archicture. In the afternoon we hiked up a mountain that was the local ski mountain to get a view of everything. Looking away from the city was scenic, but looking at the city was not very nice. Most of the buildings had little dimension and the backround of the city were mountains covered in mine shafts. That evening we were heading to a local bar and ran in to a guy named Matt from the UK that was also staying at the hostel. We invited him to join us for a few beers as we all discussed this strange town. The next day we decided not to stay in Kiruna as long as we planned and decided to head to Abisco, Sweden.

The train ride to Abisco contained nothing, but mountains, snow, and pine tree. I felt like I was in Alaska even though I have never been there. When we arrived at the hostel we met the man that ran it and immediately he gave the presence of a grandfather. The hostel was set overlooking a huge lake with snow covered mountains in the backround. Prasthanth and I was walked around this small town of only 170 people bought groceries for the next couple of days. At the super market we ran into a girl named Madeline, we talked for away tring to find out what there is to do in Abisco and her answer amounted to "nothing". Since there was nothing to do we decided to invite Madeline and her friend Emma, from the local outdoors store, to hang out with us at the hostel. When we got back to the hostel we found Matt the guy we met in Kiruna at the hostel, it turned out that he could not stand Kiruna and decided to come to Abisco. It turned out that the girls we met earlier could not make it that night, but we replanned for the next night. Instead of the party the hostel owner had a sauna that he invited us to use. It was an authentic Swedish sauna, that was heated by a wood burning stove. It was a great time, but once again it was required that no clothes went into the sauna. After being in the sauna for about an hour the owner left and then almost immediatley came back in and told us that Norther Lights were out side. This was something that I wanted to see, so I dried off and ran out side. The sky was covered in green lights and concentrations of brighter lights that looked as if they were flames dancing across that sky.

We were planning on only staying in Abisco one night because it was such a small town, but ended up staying two. The next day we went up to the hostel owner's dog cage where he had 52 huskies for his dog sleds. We played with the dogs for a while and then took them for a walk. Walking a huskie is nothing like walking a laborador, huskies are ment to pull weight and they don't care if you don't want to be pulled. So for a full 2 hours us three were being pulled by each of three huskies. With the dogs we walked to a canyon 2 kilometers from town. The canyon was where the river from the mountains ran. It was a roaring river stuck down in 75 feet tall canyon walls. The river ran through an underground tunnel and then out to the big lake. Since the girls could not hang out the night before they invited us to their friends house. Prashanth, Matt and I went over there around 9:00pm and met all their friends and had a great time exchanging stories and travel histories. A couple, Paula and Peter, were especially friendly and asked if they could show us around the city the next day.

When we contacted Paula and Peter they asked us to come over for coffee and cookies. After the coffee was served Peter pulled out what looked like a 2 pound prune. It turned out that it was actually a dried reindeer's heart. I had a slice of it and it had good flavor, but too saltly to eat much. After the coffee they took us to a Sami village, their native people, where we saw their traditional house, storehouses, and traps. That afternoon we said our farewells and started our trip to Narvik.

We arrived in Narvick at night and headed to our hostel and then headed out to find what there is to do. As we were walking we ran into a 13 boy, who we invited to participate in a snowball fight. It was Prashanth and the boy and Matt and I. It is fun to have a snowball fight with Australians, English and Swedes when you are American, they don't play any throwing sports. They may be good at kicking soccer balls, but they are no good at throwing. I ended up hiting Prashanth and the boy multiple time, but we all had a good time.