Day
1
(March 19, 2015) Arrival at Santa Claus Village
Before
Once on board of our flight at 10:15 AM to
Helsinki we
should end in Rovianemi around 5:40 PM after a quick link in Helsinki.
After being ready in our apartment we’ll spend the
rest of the day exploring the Santa Claus Village around.
The spots marked at map are:
0- Santa Claus Holiday Village
1- Husky Park
2- Snowmobile Park
3- Reindeer Park
4- Snowman World
5- Santa Claus Office
After
No issues in our flight to Helsinki, which lands 10
minutes in advance of its scheduled time. We’ve learnt in Finnair we
only can get water, coffee or blueberry juice for free. At least, I’ve
enjoyed the room leg of a seat in emergency exit.
With this catering, when we reach Helsinki airport
terminal we’re hungry. We’ve found our boarding gate and have less than
one hour for lunching.
We pass by a sandwich place which is automatically
discarded because we’ve already had a sandwich for breakfast so nearby
we only have a sort of Irish pub which is quite crowded.
It takes a while for getting a place between all
these people taking a beer, but we finally manage to get two seats in a
table and two portions of what seems to be their only option to eat: a
couple of sausages with Dijon mustard and potato salad they offer by
5€. Bread is not an option, though, and this meal doesn’t get our
stomachs full. Here we’ve already found the local standard of live: the
beer paint is 10€ and the half a paint Eva is taking makes we pay 21€
for this snack.
At the moment we land in Rovaniemi we can feel the
magic of this place: silver reindeer in the airport but, mainly, the
special decoration in the baggage claim hall.
It’s just in this hall where we’re picked up and
taken to the Santa Claus Village. Whether the girl who was waiting for
us and then driving the van or the van itself with a trailer load with
the baggage are dressing the colors of the main character of this
place, the ones used for these pages.
The trip is short and we’re delivered directly to
our apartment before we could barely step on the snow, which covers
everything here. When we’re ready we go to the main building for the
reception desk to check in. Surprisingly is the same girl who takes us
here who is in charge of it.
We explore the village which looks empty by 8 PM,
with the
most of business closed. We go to hotel’s restaurant where we will get
our breakfast for the next three mornings. Prices in menu are high but,
as we keep being hungry, each of us order reindeer, which is one of the
cheapest options by 16€. The dish comes with a few pieces of meat and
we eat the entire salad and the bread and butter on the table to get a
bit full.
Reception desk is at one side of the big gift shop
where
we buy some food to complete our meals today and I get all the info we
need. Among it, the girl write us a couple of websites where we can
check the chances to see the Northern lights as they have webcams to
the sky.
As we eat something more in the room I see how one of the webcams has
activity. As the girl explained, this is sited around one hour from
here, which means Northern lights can be here in a while if the sky is
clear enough. When I go out I can check the sky is showing all the
stars, as clear as possible, so I go for a walk looking constantly to
the North.
When I’m coming back to my apartment see people
all
looking to the same side, which is not the North, but is where
something is starting to shine in the horizon. I run to my place to
tell to my wife and take the tripod. The green light is brighter every
time and is like a wide line crossing the entire sky one side to the
other. Even for a moment, there is more than one line, always green,
beating the night. The bright is not constant and can change quickly in
the way that, when I’m ready for a picture with the maximum of
glittering, it is now in their lower version. We make a lot of pictures
on our first night. We’re very lucky managing our goal this soon.
We’ve enjoyed this time outside and cannot tell
for how
long we’ve been out there at the cold, but now we go to the warm of our
room as we’ve got all the possible pictures. This allow us to be at bed
before midnight.
