Not Again...RUN!

Hello my darlings!

Ok, a quick break from my Lapland tales. 

If you have any interest at all in health and fitness you know that it's suggested that you do interval training. 

I get my interval training by chasing after public transportation...

I am especially empathetic towards people who run/chase after public transportation. Unlike a car, where you can push the limits a bit and drive a little faster in hopes of gaining some time back, if you miss the bus, the metro, or whatever, you have to wait, and it's agonizing. You are basically left helpless, and breathless, and whimpering (sometimes panic ensues).

So you catch the next one. In a hurry? Too bad. The metro is still going to take 15 minutes to get to your destination, if not more. No matter how badly you think your internal motivational voice repeating, "Come on, metro. Come on, metro..." is going to suddenly propel the machine at an unimaginable speed, it's still going to arrive when it's supposed to arrive. **

Am I complaining? Heeeeccckkkk no!

All of this just adds to the joy you feel when you DO chase after a mode of public transportation and catch it. You experience a unique type of glee.

You were running late but you caught it. You didn't think you'd make it, but you did!

And now you're sitting in that ridiculously bright orange metro and have never loved the color more.

Everyone else on the metro is chillin' and just going about their sitting. But you? You experienced the Public Transportation High, and it was awesome.

Love always,

S

**I have had luck before though where I arrived sooner!

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LAPLAND PART 2

Hello my darlings!

NOTE: Juuuusssttttt in case you didn't know, you can click on a picture and then flip through them. This might be especially nice for the longer picture sequences, like the Northern Lights photo explosion of love.

Long overdue as usual.

We woke up the next morning to the sun shining through our window with all its might. The scenery was beautiful: crisp white snow everywhere, the sun, and silence. We were excited about the day but tired no less. So, to get us out of bed, Adrian opened the door and let the cold in, creating this cool fog show. I called it 'the magic trick.' And that morning, and every morning after, I would gleefully chirp from my top-bunk clubhouse "Do the magic trick dad! Do it again dad! Do the magic trick!"

Doesn't it look homey??

Morning Starshine!

Lapland's alarm, no clock necessary.

After we donned our snow pants and coats we wabbled on over to the main house for bbbbrrreeaaakkfast!

I remember I ate a lot that morning.

Time for cross country skiing!!!

Nope, just kidding, all of the skis are gone.

Elena and I decided to go on a self lead snowshoe safari and then go CCS later that day.

Bumped into Adrian!

Sank into a big pile of snow

Difficult to see perhaps, but the snow was in the shape of a mermaid. So we drew a face on her

Here she be! Arr! Brr!

SO MUCH [UNTOUCHED] SNOW

Llllaaaawwwwwddddd did we walk! We just kept going and and going deeper into the woods. It was a winter wonderland, like all of Lapland is.

We took a long break at one point and just stood in silence taking it all in.

I don't think I've every expereinced a silence like this.

Seriously, it was so quiet that I was like "Do I exist??" It was this strange sensation of feeling nothing and everything at the same time, a feeling that resurfaced a few times throughout the trip.

We found our way back to the cabin site and met the huskies of the land. The puppies were so cute and one was named "Friend" ^_^

The cross country skis were still being used by others so we did some sledding, and just chilled and enjoyed the scenery.

Around 4:30 it was finally our turn to ski!!

Now, I'd never done cross country skiing, and bless Elena she tried to teach me, but we got lost a bit in translation.

Use your sticks to help you, they said.

So, I would reach my sticks waaayyy out in front of me and try to pull myself forward. I was exhausted and going nowhere.

I did this for a solid 30 minutes in front of the cabins where the others were inside drinking hot drinks, and possibly watching me.

"Push your sticks behind you," she finally said.

BEHIND ME? They're supposed to go BEHIND me? So for the last 30 minutes I had looked like a total dumb-dumb.

Using this new knowledge, I was finally able to ski decently.

We took 2 laps around the lake and then entered the woods for a real treat.

Skiing through the woods was magical, especially since the sun was setting and last bits of the day's light made the snow glitter.

After the woods I did two more laps around the lake until the sun went away.

We chilled in our room and then had dinner.

That night we had the traditional, though hardly ever eaten (apparently), Finnish dessert. Baked cheese and jam. It was delish.

SAUNA TIME!!!

For those of you who don't know, I love sauna, really really really.

There were a lot of girls on our trip and not as many boys. Though the saunas are supposed to be gender seperated at this place, Elena and I went to the boys sauna where there was more room. They didn't mind.

We had a jolly good time, laughing, talking, and occasionally playfully complaining about the sudden intense heat that came after someone poured water on the hot stones.

The time had come. We were sufficiently hot which meant, LAKE TIME!!!!!!!!!!

That's right kiddos, this chick [carefully] ran outside into the below freezing weather and then voluntarily stepped into the lakehole. Yells of "OHMYGAWDITISSOCOLD" ensued.

We paused for a second and looked up the stars. Another "everything and nothing" feeling occured.

We dropped down so that the water reached our necks and then got the hellabit outta there.

The run back into the sauna/cabin was killer.

We got hot again, and then ran back outside to roll around in the snow, twice.

The snow roll was especially cold. The snow hugs you like "I love you," and you're like "sssnnnnnnooowwwcccoooollllld. me cold. let go"

When we got back in the sauna steam arose from out tummies and it looked rad.

It was time for Lake Crawl part 2!

Half way between the sauna cabin and the lake a girl on the lake very calmly says, "Look, Nothern Lights." Stopping myself like they do in the movies, I look up, don't see anything, and then to her. "Are you drunk?" I didn't mean it in a mean way, it's that everyone was drinking so it seemed like a good thing to ask before I sounded the Northern Lights alarm.

I ran over to her and sure enough you could see a soft green light in the sky.

I was in and out of the cabin yelling "NORTHERN LIGHTS!!" faster than reindeer number 1 of yesterday's tale.

I was in nothing but my swimsuit and managed to survive a good two minutes before my friends were like, PLEASE, put some clothes on before you die!

I went in, grabbed clothes and my camera.

We got lucky, the green became more vivid and there were 4 seconds where they lights did a solid dance across the sky. It was incredible.

This is the dance sequence, I had "Yellow" pop into my head during this.

They left and then came back for an encore:

The lights said good bye for the night, and so did we.

Actually, no we didn't. We all went to cabin 1 where there was a fire going and chilled until 3ish in the morning.

Good night.

Always,
S

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LAPLAND Part 1

Hello my darlings!

FIRST: Radio SpiritLight--You can see the link to my "radio" sow on the right side. Do you see it? Right now there's only one uploaded, more coming soon!

Here we go, Lapland part 1.

Thursday: I was excited all day just thinking about how that night I would be off to LAPLAND. Our group met up at the central railway station at 21:10, we were handed our tickets, and at 21:30 we headed out to the trains to board!

Night train estimated journey duration: 12-13 hours.

Actual time: 15. FIFTEEN. That's how long it took me to fly to China from Detroit. And there were an endless number of movies and tv shows to watch on the plane...
I'm not complaining though, there's something that I genuinely LOVE about night trains and not sleeping and being uncomfortable. I think it's fun, like really really!

Looked like a Polish pillowcase, so I took a picture of it.

THE PASILA EXPERIMENT

We left the central railway station at 21:45 and we were like YAAAYYY!!!!! TRIP TIME! NIGHT TRAIN TIME!! WE'RE OFF TO LAPLAND! HERE WE GO HERE WE GO!!!!

We board the train and it's more or less silent. People are already going to sleep. Crazy Night Time Experience: No. Where was the youthful spirit? The singing and laughing?

My friends Maria, Adrian, and I found the rest of our group in a different wagon, and it was just exchange students. So we hung out in there it was really nice.

So, our train gets to the next stop Pasila to pick up some people.

Pasila is "home" to like a third of the group of E.S.'s

Pasila is a minute train ride from the CRS.

We stayed in the Pasila station for TWO HOURS.

Jokes:
Our 13 hour Lapland ride is split up like this: 10 hours in Pasila, 3 to get to Lapland.

The people of Pasila could have met us 2 hours later.

To this day we haven't the darndest idea as to why we were stuck there for so long. The conductor would come on and say announcements in Finnish that to me sounded like "[sigh] So we're still here...it's going to a little longer...hang tight [sigh]."

A little after midnight we were off again! 

Around 1 we decided to call it a night and try to sleep.

Try. Yeah, that's what I did. Between the hours of 1 and 4 I remember having my eyes closed, but just could not fall asleep. To allievate the pains I felt from hearing some man snoring in our wagon I listened to Late Night Finnish radio. It was a gem. They played Finnish folk that was catchy and put a smile on my face.

I eventually dosed off to wake up to the sunrise at 7.

The sun was rising, the snow was falling on an already snow covered forest, and I promise you I could hear fairies singing.

It was like we had arrived in Narnia.

I fell back asleep, woke up around 10 to Adrian wanting to hang...I accidently fell asleep while he was sitting next to me.

Woke up a little before noon, and we arrived in Ravonemi shortly after.

The heart shaped doughnut I had for breakfast on the train :)

WE MADE IT.

Almost immediately after getting off the train I spotted a guy in a reindeer costume walking around the station.

We climbed aboard our bus, met our "I'll see you a few times over the next few days" 20-something tour guide, went to the shopping center to by lunch foods, and then finally hit the road to Korvola.

Spotted: A REAL REINDEER CROSSING THE ROAD. The bus erupted into "ajdsld;sjds oohhhhh look at the reindeer! oh my gosh! awwww!!!"

We arrived in [the city? of] Korvola, and from what I can tell, Korvola was literally just the property we were staying on hahaha

Beautiful cabins and a big red house is what we were greeted by, that and the lady of land dressed in old traditional Finnish clothing.

She told us about the property and how her husband built ALL of the cabins we would be sleeping in. He chopped the wood from their forests to build them. Incredible.

THE LONERS

Look, I have friends, and my friendly aquaintences joined me on this trip...but when I sent the email about choosing cabins I had to say "Hi, I'm technically alone." I wanted so badly to write, "BUT I DO HAVE FRIENDS!!"

Oh, not only did I write that I was alone, but I also wrote, "If I could be in a cabin with Alice and Naomie that would be wonderful."

Alice and Naomie weren't even on this trip. Of course, I didn't find that out until we were at the CRS getting our tickets.

The Awkward: So here we are, getting sorted into our cabins. Lady calls my name "Sylvia, Alice, and Naomie." Oh gawsh. I couldn't form any coherent sentences but I think I said something along the lines of "Um, I messed up, I sent you a bad email, they're not here." "where did they go?" "um there was a misunderstanding...different lapland trip. dfjsh lasdkuw lkfjgaou." The lady looked so confused. "Alright so there's a cabin for a so-called Sylvia and nonexistent Alice."

Adrian then told me to ask if we: Adrian, Elena, (fellow loners) and me, could get that cabin.

Success.

Our cabin was just your basic cabin. Nothing fancy, but beautiful through and through. We had a bunkbed and two normal beds. I called top bunk as per usual, and set up my clubhouse bed.

We had lunch between our beds and bonded :)

REINDEER MAN

We made our way to the Reindeer Sleigh Ride area. 

Reindeer shed their antlers (I think once a year) and it takes 3 months for them to grow back.

Sometimes the reindeer lose one before the other so it's not uncommon to see reindeer banging their heads on trees in the forest trying to knock the other one off to regain balance.

"So how many reindeer do you own?"
"A Reindeer Man never tells." I'm not kidding, I think the world went silent immediately after he said this.

The Ride:

R1 thought each round around the course was a race and would run with great speed. R2 didn't care and walked lazily around the course. R3 was antlerless and stuck behind R2 and therefore also went slowly. 

I rode in R3 and then in R1. R1 was SO FUN.







Oh, we got reindeer sleigh driver's licenses!!

Afterwards we had dinner and then went back to our cabins to chill. We were all exhausted from the train/day so we took it easy and went to sleep a little after 1.


Next time: Winter Sports, Frozen Feet, and the Northern Lights.

Love always,
S

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