Tis cold up north...

  Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland
Friday, September 22, 2006

According to http://www.sleepinginairports.net, Helsinki Vantaa airport was awarded the "2005 Golden Pillow" award, however we didn't find any golden pillows, but there were plenty of flat seating areas ideal for a quick snooze. They opened the check in desks about half four so we checked in our packs and headed through the passport control/baggage check area and nodded off for another half hour or so. After hopping on the plane and taking our seats I think that me and Laura were out for the count before we even took off. All I can remember is waking up an hour and a half later just as we were about to land.

We got off the plane and collected our packs and went out into the cold (About 3 degrees C), damp and foggy laplandish morning. We hopped into a minibus that for the grand sum of €5 each was willing to take us to the hotel we needed to check in at for our hostel rooms. We checked in and paid at the 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 agreed that we would sleep for a couple of hours and wake up about 11am then do something in the afternoon.

When we woke we nipped down into the town again and after looking at a few local eateries we decided on an Italian buffet called "Golden Rax" - As dodgy as it may sound, it was actually very nice and put us on for the rest of the day. We decided to grab a bus and take a drive 10km north to the Arctic Circle marker, also home to Santas main post office, where all his post world wide gets sent to. Alongside the post office resides Santas grotto where we met the 'real' Santa Claus and had some banter with him, before getting our group photo taken by one of his elves! *** Better quality photo to come ***



We wandered around the souvenir shops a bit before grabbing a coffee then getting the bus back down to the town. We grabbed some bits and bobs for dinner from the supermarket so that we could have a bite later on once our "Golden Rax" had worn off! We began our quest to find an Internet terminal in the town so that we could e-mail loved ones or just update travel diaries. However it appears that as Finland has the greatest amount of technology per capita in all of Europe (To add a little perspective: 91% of Finnish people own a mobile phone!), there is no need for any public Internet terminals apart from in the public library, which was shut, maybe tomorrow then!