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.