City Hotel Rovaniemi

This is our frist of many night trains accross Europe.<br>We Leave Helsinki on the 9th and get into Rovaniemi very early on the 10th<br><br>We should have a fun packed Day in Rovaniemi. looking to do some arctic rally driving. and other male bonding activities.<br>

... of railroad to Irkutsk. From then on, my plans are quite open. I'll probably travel through Mongolia, so I would need to get the Mongolian visa either in Irkutsk or in Ulan-Ude as I didn't have time to get in Finland after the problems and delay with my Chinese visa in the Chinese embassy in Helsinki. The prices of the train tickets were about 1300 roubles (equals about 30&euro;) from Saint Petersburg to Kazan (third class, platskarta, about 1500km ) and about 5500 roubles ...

... t see the road at all. I have never been so glad to get back, there were times when I thought we were going to have to camp out at the side of the road until the snow had passed.<br><br>We had a fantastic time in Lapland and would recommend it to everyone. It was very expensive, particularly due to the strength of the Euro against the Pound, but was well worth it. I just hope that on one of our visits back to the UK in the future we can experience the magic again.

... me. Santa is of course there but was apparently on a break at the time we were there. After we found out that the picture with Santa costs &euro;19, we were headed out the door and back to the next bus going back to town. There was no sickly reindeer to gawk at and there was no elves of anything fun to do there. It was a giant gift shop complex. It was kinda cool to be at the arctic circle but there is only so much laughing at ...

... the past few weeks, first due to the cold, and in the past few days because freezing rain and hovering zero temperatures have made the sidewalks and roads treacherous. the fresh cool moist air filled my lungs like music as i approached the river. why do they always warn us that bridges become icy before roads, but fail to mention that sometimes, they also de-slippify themselves first too? as soon as i stepped onto the bridge i ...

... my imagination could dream up...). i did notice that finnish and chinese sound strangely similar after a while, and apart from the odd "and", "but" "not" and numbers, i really couldn't understand one more than the other. then the monks came out, dressed in very intricate multilayered robes of beautiful fabrics, iridescent greens, blues and purples, with large flowered sashes. their singing had a very meditative quality to it, not surprisingly ...

"Drifting is what one does when looking at lateral truth. He couldn't follow any known method of procedure to uncover its cause because it was these methods and procedures that were all screwed up in the first place. So he drifted. That was all he could do." (Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) So I'm back at school and really don't feel like I have been slacking, but with only one class once a week, the obvious question is: why have I still basically not ...

... Hotel Santa Claus, a nice luxury hotel, there for the sole purpose of rubbing salt into the wounds of budget travellers who are checking into the non-staffed Hostel Rudolph down the road. We checked in and paid up then headed the 10 minute walk to the outskirts of Rovaniemi where we located the hostel. The rooms were nice, we were in two adjacent twin rooms, with TV and en-suite, so living the high life again. As we were all pretty shattered it was ...

... or someone who can actually cc ski. speaking of skiing, i finally went snowboarding in finland this past weekend. we went to a small community run hill about an hour outside of rovaniemi, in the middle of nowhere, 20 international students stayed in the cottage on the hill, it was wonderful. warm temperatures, perfect snow conditions, and deep untouched powder lining all the runs made up for the fact that there were only 4 runs, all pretty similar (definitely ...

... the monthly "exam days". you can show up for the exam, look at the questions, and leave if you like, with no penalty. if you fail the exam you can write it again, no penalties. th**e is no maximum numb** of credits or courses you can take p** year. so, what this all means for me is that i will probably take an absurd numb** of courses this year, and if i need to give some of them up lat** on, so be it! i am so so so happy to be back in school though, that i am ...