Norway!

December 26th was meeting day, so we drove to Karasjok, Norway, to visit some of my host dad's aunts.

This is a picture of a traditional Norwegian cake, which also happens to be the national cake for Norway, called the Kransekake. Eaten during special occasions, it is a cake made of marzipan rings and assembled to look like a tree, then decorated with frosting, Norwegian flags, and poppers that have jokes in them.

We also ate some crepe-like cookies that were filled with ice cream and jam and topped with berries.

I had ice cream inside of mine and cloudberries on top of it. Cloudberries are very healthy for you, but only grow up in the far north, so there are many here in lapland. The cookie basically was a substitute for a waffle cone and tasted very good.

Some more different treats; homemade gingerbread cookies and cloudberry pastries.
We spent a couple hours visiting in Karasjok trying different Norwegian treats and drinking tea. It was really nice, and everyone was very nice.

The next day we woke up early and drove a few hours North East to the Norwegian town of Vadsø. The city of Vadsø is located on the Varanger Peninsula along side the Barents Sea in the region of Finnmark, Norway.

It was stunning driving along the coast the entire way. On the opposite side of the sea you could see steep cliffs and glaciers which were especially highlighted by the fog and sun. 

No, we didn't go swimming, but we did stop to get out and take some pictures and collect a couple of rocks as well.

You can kind of see how the fog lifts up at the bottom above the water and lets in the light and some glaciers on the opposite side. Now imagine that and sunrise too. It was amazing, and eerie too.

The streets of Vadsø. In Norway they have a serious holiday for Christmas which basically extends all the way to New Years, so if you plan be warned that nothing will really be open and the streets will probably look a lot like this.

Luckily there was a coffee shop open, so we stopped to get something to eat as a breakfast sort of snack. I ate a chocolate filled pastry and had hot chocolate.

At the 'kid's' table with the exception of my host uncle who you can hardly see. On the left side; Helmi and I, and on the right side, Lotta.

I'm guessing this means Merry Christmas or something along those lines, it was on a place mat at our table. I know from seeing Swedish that "jul" means "Christmas" in any event.

A Norwegian gingerbread house with little gingerbread men.

This is the lovely bakery and coffee house that we ate our snack at. It was full of Norwegians since everything else other than a gas station, hotel, post office, and grocery store was open.

Outside the bakery. The building in the background is the city library. Since Vadsø is even further north than Utsjoki, the sun is up for even less time during the winter. We got there just as the sun was coming up. If you were to look far enough through the gap in the fog and clouds, then you could even see Russia way, way off in the distance.

The Vadsø Church. It isn't necessarily a traditional style Norwegian church, but it is a nice one from the outside. It sits up on a hill overlooking the harbor and the rest of the town. The church is massive from the outside stretching up very high so that it can be seen from anywhere in the town.

Looking down at some of the houses and businesses in Vadsø. The main street is just a bit behind me where the lights are in this image.

The statue looking over the town represents Finns. In Vadsø there were many Finnish people at the turn of the century who really helped to get the town going and build things up, so the area, although it's very much Norwegian, it also honors some of it's Finnish heritage.

The Vadsø Kommune, or Vadsø town hall. There wasn't very much going on there though since it was Christmas vacation.

Along the harbor a bit. Vadsø is a very active fishing community, especially in the summertime. When we first drove in to the city, we actually saw fish hanging outside to dry using traditional wooden racks.

A lone boat sits at one of the docks. The sea was very calm and looked surreal with the cloudcover.

Looking back at the town from the harbor.
Vadsø is a beautiful little Norwegian fishing town, I really wish more things would have been open to go into and look around, but it was great to just wander around the streets and look around at all of the different buildings from the outside.

On the way back home, we stopped in a tiny fishing village in Norway to get out and look at a traditional style church. This is what most all of the churches look like throughout much of Norway.

Approaching the national border of Norway and Finland on the way back home.

The Finland sign, with the ring of stars symbolyzing it's membership in the European union. We never did see a sign for Norway on the way back, so I don't know. I am sure there was one, but we much have just missed it.

A stone on the Finnish side marking the year the official border was made with Norway there in 1850.

That's right, I have officially been to the northernmost part of the EU, been through the last, furthest north village in Finland, and beyond into Norway.

When we got back we ate some more Christmas food, but also some Norwegian food we had picked up from the grocery store before our return. The two ball-shaped things on the right are fish patties made of real Norwegian fish. They were really tasty, but didn't feel like fish so much.
Just a side note, Norwegian chocolate is the best! I got some of the Freia brand chocolate and it was absolutely amazing, perhaps the best I have ever had. So if you come to Norway don't forget to get yourself some chocolate.
My trip to Vadsø and Karasjok may not have been a very long one, but it was absolutely amazing and something I will never forget.

Christmas, Meeting Day, & Return Home

On December 25th, Christmas officially arrived.

We woke up early, dressed in layers, and then piled into the cars and drove to Utsjoki to go to the Christmas service at the only church in the area.

It was really nice to go to a ceremony for Christmas. In Lapland, there are Sami people (which are the native people to Finland), and also the Finns (who are also native, so that last part didn't really make sense), so the service was to be in both Finnish and Sami. There also happened to be a lot of Chinese tourists at the church for some reason, so they ended up having the ceremony in English too. The priest did an excellent job, for not planning on having to speak English too.

By the time the service ended, the sun was just begining to come up. My camera was a bit cold and the lighting was a bit off, but you can kind of see how the church looks from the side even if it isn't entirely clear.

After church, we drove a little bit and stopped at a cemetary to visit the graves of my host grandpa's parents. We didn't stay long because it was quite cold, but it was nice to be outside and see the wonderful colors in the sky as the sun came up.

On the drive back home from church in Utsjoki. There are several spots in Lapland considered to be sacred and holy to the Sami people, and the vuori (mountain) in the background is one of those holy spots.

Looking at some other hills the opposite direction. As fast as the sun comes up, it seems to set too. In the winter, the sun never really comes up in Lapland and it is only light for a few hours, but in the summer, it's opposite, because the sun never goes down.

The holy vuori again. I believe it is on the Finnish side of the border, but that doesn't matter so much, because the borders are open for the Norwegians and Finns to cross relatively freely.

Back at home on December 26th for meeting day. Through the window, you can see Norway, the country we would visit later in the day.

While my host sisters were still waking up, my host mom and I decided to go snowshoeing before the light disapeared from outside. Snowshoeing is one of those activities that can get you warm despite it being freezing outside.

We climbed through the snow and up the hill across the street from the house. It was quite fun and nice to be outside and getting some exercise too.

If you look to the right bottom corner of this picture, where there is a while line (the road), and right above it is dark (trees), that is where we started on our winter hiking adventure.

The house and yard all covered with snow. There was quite a lot of snow in Utsjoki, but surprisingly, we actually had gotten more south in Lahti.

Both of my host sister's brought their snowboards, so we took the cart off of the back of the snowmobile and attached a rope so that one person could hold on and try to ride behind the snowmobile. It didn't really work out too well, because they didn't end up staying up so long, but it was a lot of fun. Also, riding on anything when it is -30 degrees celsius (-22 degrees fahrenheit), is never the smartest idea, because you get cold really quickly. My fingers were just about frozen after two rides, so I had to go inside and defrost.

I also made my first snow angel here, since coming to Finland.

The moon had already started to come up around 3pm, bright as ever.

We drove on the only road leading west at the very top of Finland along the border of Norway. We wanted to go see the sacred cave and sacred rock, but those are very hard to find and get to in winter, because of the snow, so we ended up not going to find those, but driving to Karigasniemi to get some groceries and then onwards to Luonnonpuisto.

It was a bit hard to actually hike around a lot, but we did walk over a snow covered bridge and a little ways. We wanted to see the holy stream, and so we did.

Here is a picture of the holy stream. It's sacred because it never freezes during the wintertime. Large rivers like the one by our home in Utsjoki, freezes, but this little stream never does despite it being so cold. It is supposed to be goodluck to drink from it, but I was already cold and didn't want to chance falling in, so I didn't take a sip.
After briefly seeing the holy river, we drove back to Karigasniemi. It was really an amazing drive, because on one side of the road was the moon, and on the other was the sunset. In Karigasniemi, we drove over the border and went into Norway where we drove to Karasjok (but Norway is in the next post).

The last day after our trip to Norway was spent at home getting things ready for return to Lahti the next day, and enjoying everything as much as we could before we had to leave. #3882, along the only road at the very top of Finland. Not too many neighbors nearby.

I went sledding with my host sisters, but the snow was so thick, so it was a bit hard to actually sled at first. I ended up just rolling down the hill entirely trying to make a path, and it was a lot of fun too.

My camera became a bit frozen, but we all were a bit frozen. Sledding time! I have to admit, I was awful at sledding, I kept falling because I couldn't turn the sled. Oh well, it was still very fun!

When we decided to call it quits after sledding. The sky and landscape really is an artists paradise. I never did see the northern lights, but with the moon and sunrise and sunset, you see so many amazing colors in the sky as it is.
The next morning, we headed home bright and early. I really didn't sleep so much the night before, so I fell asleep pretty quickly. I woke up to the car swerving a bit and I kept my eyes closed because I was too afraid to open them, thinking that we were going to drive over a cliff or something because it was so icy. As it turns out, there was a herd of about 15 reindeer in the road, and we were trying to avoid them. In the end, we did hit a reindeer, and stopped and drove back to see if it was okay, but there was no blood or any sign of the reindeer, so we continued on our way. It was a bit frightening and unexpected though.

Six or so hours south of Utsjoki, we stopped to take a little break and eat a real breakfast.

Then we continued on our way south. It was a beautiful drive with the wintery landscape, so I did my best to stay awake while the light was still up.

We stopped in Oulu and ate dinner. I had the Al Capone pizza, which was very tasty, but a lot of food. Then afterwards, we drove the rest of the way home, stopping once more just beyond Jyväskylä for a little break.

When we arrived home, we unloaded the car and opened our remaining Chtistmas presents, and then went to sleep exausted. Thus ending my wonderful trip to Utsjoki and a fantastic Finnish-style Christmas.

Preparations & Christmas Eve

At last the 24th arrived and so it seemed like Christmas was finally here.

In the morning we did a bit of snow work out by the shoveling, and making a hole in the ice. Origionally we planned to have Christmas Eve sauna outside in the sauna house, but it turns out that a ferret had gotten into the house and torn everything apart.

It´s a tradition to eat rice porridge with a sauce of dried appricots and prunes for breakfast on Christmas.

I got to ride on a sled pulled by a snow mobile. It was so much fun, and my dream of riding up front on a snowmobile came true (if you know what I mean).

We dug a hole in the ice to get some water for the sauna house which we ended up not using. It was cool to make the hole using a huge metal stick, shaped like a spear. Walking on the ice can be very dangerous in some areas, but for the most part it is safe just about anywhere if there aren't major currents. The ice was several feet thick, and it's easy for animals like moose and deer to walk across and if it is thick enough, they make ice roads so that cars can drive over it.

Our Christmas tree all decorated. It was so tall and the stand was so small for it that it ended up falling over and puncturing a hole in the couch, but luckily that was the only damage and it wasn't so bad.

The table all set for our meal on Christmas eve. 'Dinner' here in Finland is usually around 4pm and then later in the evening around 7 or 8pm, there is an evening snack.

The traditional Finnish Christmas dishes all baked, set out on the table, and ready to be eaten.

The traditional foods are kinkku (ham), perunalaatikko ("laatikko" means "box" in Finnish, and it describes any dish cooked in a casserole/box-like dish. "Peruna" is "potatoes", so it's a form of mashed potatos), porkkanalaatikko ("porkkana" means "carrots," so it's a mashed and sliced carrot dish baked together), lanttulaatikko ("lanttu" is "rutabaga," so mashed rutabaga), then a salad with beetroot, apple slices, carrots, and some other veggies, and eaten with cream dyed pink from the beet juice. Also, brussel sprouts are eaten too.

It's also tradition for Santa (Joulupukki) to visit sometime during the day, because he is the one who delivers all of the presents.
About an hour after we had eaten, I was sitting in the livingroom with my host mom and two host sisters while everyone else was taking a nap. My host mom said something and pointed to the window and for some reason I was expecting to see the northern lights because it was already dark outside. Instead joulupukki was right outside the window and I nearly had a heart attack because it was so unexpected to see him. He then disapeared back into the darkness and then a few minutes later there was some knocking from the backdoor. We went and greeted joulupukki and he brought all of the presents in before having to leave. It was so funny to see him, but he was a bit forgetful, he couldn't even remember if he had come by reindeer or not. After a few minutes rest, he left again. It was so cool.

After Joulupukki left, everyone gathered in the livingroom and distributed presents and opened them all up. Most of the presents were from tontu (elf). It was a new way to celebrate Christmas Eve, and a great way too.