We took the kids out of school on Thursday and Friday and got on a plane to Finland, Lapland. Our main aim was to see Santa in his office before Christmas this year. This weekend was the only weekend free that we could make it fit in with Phil's busy work schedule.
After a couple of long flights, we landed in the evening in Rovaniemi, Lapland, which lies on the Arctic Circle in the far north of Finland. As a comparison, this is well above the level of Scotland on the map and one hour's flight north of Helsinki.
Whilst we were connecting from Helsinki and we were waiting to board our flight, we ran into another family of Aussies (although with 5 kids plus granny, they sure were outnumbered!) who were also heading to Santa. They are ex-pats in France, and thought that the only people who make this trip are 'mad Aussies like us!'. Turns out they were staying in a cabin, one hour out of town, and that they had chosen the 'optional extras' of running water and power - with 5 kids!
When we arrived it was dark. The question was - would it always be dark? There is only supposed to be one hour of sunlight a day in December. In mid-November it probably wouldn't be a great deal more.
It was not too cold, either. We had bought enough clothing to dress for the top of Everest, but it was only -3 when we arrived. We are used to in these temperatures in Berlin.
Rovaniemi is famous for two things.
The first is Santa (of course, why we are here)
The second is a heavy metal band called Lordi, who recently won the Eurovision 2006 song contest and dress up as monsters. These guys are so popular, they are in the local paper every week, and they have even named the town square after them.
We settled into our hotel - we had adjoining rooms with the kids excited to have their own (me too!) and then went out for a late pizza for dinner.
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