Week Seventeen: Lapland Tour

Friday night the exchange students from all over Finland piled up into four different buses leaving from different parts of the country to pick up students in different cities to make the journey to Muonio in Lapland, Finland. Coming from Helsinki we had a seventeen hour bus ride to arrive in Muonio at eleven the next morning. We blasted music late into the night and talked to our friends, excited to see new people when we made a stop to pick up more students in other cities. The bus ride was a time of bonding and catching up with the people we hadn’t seen in a while.

Saturday morning everyone was extremely anxious to arrive in Muonio. When we did arrive we were given our rooms and ate before we went to get our ski supplies for Monday. We got to catch up with people we haven’t seen since language camp and meet some of the Australians we hadn’t met before. At the ski slopes, once we had gathered all of our materials on the buses for Monday the exchange students got to go sledding on the hill. They had to make snow for the slopes because there was barely any snow in Lapland, which is very rare for Lapland in November. It is actually the warmest it has been in Finland this time of year in the last sixty years. After spending about two hours at the ski slopes we headed back to the hotel before going to the “Winter Camp” for dinner. The Winter Camp was a type of large hut where there were multiple fire places with benches surrounding the fires. There were staff members there ready to serve us food. We were all freezing sitting outside eating, but it was amazing to spend time with the people I hadn’t seen in a while. Back at the hotel we had a “party” in one of my friend’s room. We played music and everyone was coming in and out, dancing, sitting on the couches, and just talking. Most of the people were speaking Spanish, but my friends were always good at making sure I was included. It was a really fun evening despite the fact that Rotary had a lights out time of 10pm.

Sunday was extremely busy. The day started with breakfast and then splitting up into groups based on the buses we took to get to Muonio. My bus (Bus 2) left at 9:45 to go dog sledding. Dog sledding was really amazing. The huskies were really friendly. Despite the fact that the track was not very long, just a short circle, it was still a super cool experience. Before we headed back to the hotel to see the near by husky farm we went to this bridge that was on the boarder between Finland and Sweden. All of the exchange students had fun taking pictures on the boarder and saying “I just walked to Sweden”. At the husky farm they have about 420 dogs that are trained to pull sleds. There were even adorable husky puppies. Each dog has a name and many of them we very social. It was really cool to see so many dogs and learn a little bit about how they go about training the dogs and how they properly take care of so many dogs. When we finished visiting with the dogs and eating lunch we went to one of the fells in the area, and explored the Pallas Nature Center where we learned more about the nature of Finland and importance of Lapland. We didn’t spend much time there before we transferred back to where we went dog sledding that morning to go reindeer sledding. The reindeer sledding was also amazing (a lot slower though). The reindeer were partly wild animals so we were not allowed to pet them but we got to feed the other reindeer that were not being used for sledding. We we shown briefly how to throw a lasso to catch a reindeer and were taught about the job of a reindeer herder. After dinner in the evening we had a small talent show at the school in Muonio. There was a Finnish group playing music in the start and then a few groups from the exchange students performing. I mostly spent the time talking to my friends and enjoying the performance before we got back to the hotel and were sent to our rooms.

Monday was the day for downhill skiing. I was super nervous for skiing and felt really unprepared especially clothing wise. Arriving at the slopes was really scary but they had a ski school for the people who hadn’t done it before, so I was there with most of my friends. Moving with the skis on my feet was super hard. I had some difficulties in the ski school and was really confused on what to do, but they told me to go ahead to the slopes. I went with two of my friends from Ecuador and from Colombia. The first time I went down the hill was a huge mess. I fell so many times and was so frustrated about how hard it was to stand up and stay up. I didn’t want to do it again but after a break I got back up and did it again because I knew I would regret it if I didn’t. My friends and I all tried together and helped each other. We spent most of the day skiing, I was still really bad by the end of the day, but I had a good time. Arriving back at the hotel we had an hour break before we had sauna time. I decided not to go to sauna because I was super tired and I ended up hanging out with friends instead. In the evening we had a program that would act as a going away party for the students from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa (we call them “oldies”) since they will be leaving in January and this was our last time seeing most of them. There was a Sami man (Sami are the people who are natives in Lapland, speak the Sami language, and follow their traditions) that sang to us in the Sami language, and the “oldies” gave their own kind of presentation afterwards. There were people in tears because their exchange was coming to an end or because this was the last time we would see our “oldies”. To counteract this sad time we had a large party in this cabin outside of the hotel. Rotary allowed us to blast music and dance until eleven. We reluctantly went back to our rooms to pack for our early morning departure and separation.

Tuesday everyone woke up, ate, and began to load our luggage into our assigned buses. We left around nine in order to make our stop fro two hours in Rovaniemi. In Rovaniemi we visited the Santa Claus Village, met the real Santa Claus, and crossed the Arctic Circle. The experience was absolutely amazing. We all spent time together, taking pictures, joking around, and saying goodbye to those not on our bus before we loaded back up to continue our trip down south. The bus ride back resembled the one we had on the way up except it seemed to take so much longer and everyone was super tired from our long week.

After the Lapland trip I slept all of Wednesday before returning to school to finish up the week.

November was for sure the best month I have had so far. I made so many new friends, experienced new amazing things, and had the time of my life.