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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Laskiainen!!

Hello my darlings!!

I know I promised Radio Spiritlight Helsinki, but the computer I'm using today is in Russian and I don't know how to work it. SO, next time....

On February 12th I had one the BEST days of my Helsinki adventure.

There's an annual university student sledding event and being the sledding enthusiast that I am, I COULD NOT WAIT TO GO.

I should have skipped class that day (like, really) and I regret that I didn't BUT anyway...

So after class half of my friends wanted to go to lunch and then to the sledding event. And I was like, "No."

So I banded together with my gal pals and we made our way over to the park where the event was going to take place.

How would we find our way there?

"Follow the overalls."

University students have these REALLY RAD overalls (actually, they're jumpsuits) and they wear them throughout the year for various events. Each faculty has a different color overall (mine is red). Additionally you can buy patches from events and sew them onto your overalls; it's a wearable scrapbook. I WANT ONE SO BAD. But apparently my faculty's are currently sold out [crying]. Also if you're "serious" (you define serious) with someone, you cut each other's leg ear calf-length leg off your pants, swap, and sew! CUTE RIGHT?!!?

So back to the story. 

We CRAMMED our way into the tram full of overalled sledding enthusiasts, exchange students, and innocent tram riders who I think were living vicariously through us.

We got off at our stop and followed the overalls.

Take walk, take a walk, take a walk , take a walk, woooaaahhh

Note: seeing REALLY attractive guys in their overalls getting excited about sledding was beyond adorable.

We marched in with our tram group, ready to take the hill!

It felt like we were a league.

I was in love.

I found my friend Olivia and wasted no time. We ascended the hill, found an extra sled, and sled and sled and sled and sled and sled. And watched other people sled. And ran into other people sledding. And yelled "Look out!" And had "Look out!" yelled at us in Finnish.

There was loud rock, pop, indie rock, 90's punk and more, music playing during the whole event. It totally added to the atmosphere.

The dedicated crew

At 3 we cleared the hill for the sledding competition! Students who built their special, creative sleds got to exhibit them.

The best 2:

A group of like 6 guys with ropes attached to their backs ran down the hill. The ropes, we discovered, were attached to a guy on a sled at the bottom of the hill. So, using a simple pulley machine, as they ran down, the sled guy sledded up the hill!!

The other one came as a surprise. We thought the competition was over. Oh no, it wasn't and I didn't have my camera ready.

All of a sudden I hear my call .

I whip my head to the hill like MC at 0:39 to find a TITANIC sled coming down the hill complete with captain, the 4 steam stack pipe things, and Jack with a Rose [doll] in the front. 

They crashed into an iceberg, aka a big pile of snow.

It was my favorite.

THE TITANIC GROUP!!! They ran into an "iceberg" aka a big pile of snow

 After the competition we went sledding some more. 

Before we left we grabbed some hot rum, honey, and water. 

It was gross. 

I think it needed more honey, or less water, or both.

The event was AMAZING. Full of youthful spirit, unadulterated happiness, and well, it was just kinda perfect.

I was supposed to go home at this point to eat and prep before the after-party, but I was offered a 6 euro ticket for a hockey match. Realizing I didn't know when an offer like this would come up again, I took it. Yay spontaneity!!

So I went the Assat vs. Jokerit hockey match (rooting for Jokerit, but I don't think my support will stay with them ahah).

Olivia and I pigged out on hotdogs and popcorn because we both hadn't had anything since breakfast and were starving.

The game was fun to watch and "get into."

We were just so happy about full on Finnish day!

We ran out of the arena after the 2nd third because I needed to catch a train back home if I wanted to still attend the party.

Arrived at railway station, ran for a metro, ran home, changed, ran back for another metro into the city. So tired. 

Long story short: the tickets for the after party sold out, but Nic and I tried to sweet talk the controllers of the club to let us in. It didn't work.

So we went to McDonald's to eat away our sorrows.

It was Fat Tuesday, so we had doughnuts and McFlurries too.

I went back home.

The End.

Best Day.

Love always,
S

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Strictly a Recap

Hello my darlings!

So, it's mid February? How?

The only post I've done on my Finnish Adventures has been day 1. So I need to catch you up on the last 44 days of my life....

I like lists, so this is going to be a list.

Ok, let's get to it. It's recap time.

• Went to orientation, met my "tutor group." We still hang out, so it's really great.
• At the "Finnish Culture Crash Course" we learned that: There are "many layers of Finland" which I believe means Narnia is underneath Finland. I made a note to find it; We should learn Finnish words: Words I knew at the time that started with the letter "K"- Kiitos, Kiipis, Kettu: Thank You, Cheers, Fox. I felt like I had a pretty good start, "Cheers! Thank you for the fox!"; You might experience among other things, anxiety and potentially years of struggle. YEARS??
• The weekend after orientation I went to a party, and while I was planning on spending the night with a friend who has an extra mattress, my other friend as a little too drunk to go home by herself (she was DETERMINED to catch a night bus), so I decided to go find this bus with her. She kept saying she knew where the bus stop was. She did not. After walking down some street to a nonexistent bus station, some ladies asked if we needed help. They told us we needed to get to the Central Railway Station to find out bus. We began walking back. 
• So, here we are, on the cold streets of Helsinki at 4:40 in the morning when all of a sudden I see six naked men running on the other side of the street. "I can't be that drunk," I thought to my at this point perfectly sober self. I take a double take. Sure enough there they still are. 6 dudes just taking at night? morning? joy run.
• Can't deny, I want to do it to....
• There was no bus. The last one last one left at 4:20. Called friend, spent the night in the center
• On Sunday we visited the Sibelius monument, but what was more fun was the Cafe we went to afterwards. It's the cutest little cafe by the sea. They had great hot chocolate and pulla (cinnamon buns)!!! AND, they were having customer appreciation day/week/month (I'm not sure which) and you could get a free sausage to cook over the fire outside!



Strange Wooden Baby Figurine



• Monday was the first day of school and I smelled like smoke.
• "It's dangerous to walk around the university at noon; all the students want to eat you."- My friend Nic about our smelling like campfire smoke.
• WARNING I don't know how chronologically ordered the following stories will be.
• One day in January we went out for Blinis before going out to parrrtttaaaayyy. Blinis are these deliscious salty fluffy pancakes that you can eat with all sorts of stuff! I had mine with salmon tartar, mmmmmmm. I was one happy camper
• Another time our Finnish friend Lilli invited us over to her flat for an authentic Finnish meal. SO TASTY. We had fish, a fruit and beet salad (if i remember correctly), mushroom salad, dip a really good dip of sorts to be eaten by the Rye crakers, and a berry cake for dessert!!! 

Ok, that's all for now!! As memories come back, I'll write more regarding the recap.

NEXT TIME: Special "treat"! Next post I'm uploading the first of Radio SpiritLight Helsinki! You'll see what I mean soon... ;)

For now, love always,

S

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