Lappi

well, I'm a bit backlogged on blogposts... let me start out with one about the AFS trip to Lapland. it's something that AFS Finland hosts every year, and if any Suomi hopefuls are reading this, I hope it convinces you how worth it this trip is.

so, shortly after posting my previous post, I headed to the train station and to catch a train to Rovaniemi. well, actually it was to Lahti, from which I got on another train to Riihimäki, from which yet another train brought me to Rovaniemi. at each stop came more lost-looking teenagers with big bags (it's easy to recognize exchange students) until the last train's crowd consisted mainly of high schoolers from around the world, and a few old drunk Finnish men. some of us recognized each other from previous chapter meetings, but there were many new faces--and faces that until now had only existed to me as facebook profile pictures. there's nothing, I think, quite like being on a night train with a group of other exchange students. by the time we got to Rovaniemi, I had already met some incredible people, and didn't even notice the fact that I had only gotten about half an hour of sleep.

  

sunrise, and one of my first views of Lapland. this must have been near a stop because most of the way there were no electric lines. just trees and snow and trees and snow and trees and snow. it was mesmerizing. when we got to Rovaniemi, we were assigned groups and filed into two buses. 

 

we went to the Arktikum museum where we were served food and received tours. I took, with a few friends, the Finnish-language tour (and had a lovely chat afterwards with the tourguide about Saami languages), and then discussed philosophy with Felix (from Germany)while watching a slideshow of photos of Lapland. we then went to Kairosmaja, the series of cottages in which we would spend the next five days. I roomed with the lovely Angela (Italy) and Isa (Brazil) in one of the remote cabins by the lakeshore, next to the sauna building.

  

this, folks, is was the view from the porch of the sauna building (and very similar to the view from our room's window). that hole in the ice is called an avanto. it's not just a hole in the ice--it's an experience. and it is one of the loveliest experiences I have experienced. as soon as you step outside of the sauna building into the frigid air, you can feel your sauna-scorched skin stop steaming immediately. hair freezes. you can feel the stars (god, the stars!) staring freezingly down at you as you hop from foot to foot, waiting for your turn in the lake (we went in groups of two or three--going alone was not advised for good reasons). if you stand still too long your feet freeze to the icy walkway. then, it's your turn in the avanto. you climb down the ladder into the water and at first it feels as though your heart will freeze, but you grind your teeth. just between the pain of entering the icewater and the pain of being in the icewater for too long, comes a moment of bliss. if you're brave, you dunk your head. the run back to the sauna is a blind blur of eyelashes freezing together and icy feet trying not to slip. then you get back to the sauna and throw water onto the stones and bask in the steam until you conjure enough courage to go again.

the feeling afterwards is like nothing I have experienced. invigorating and refreshing and relaxing and exhausting.

  

the first three days, we had the choice of skiing, snowboarding, or snowshoeing. skiing/snowboarding lessons were available on the first day and snowfishing was available on the third. in the spirit of trying everything, I went for snowboarding lessons on the first day. the only thing I mastered was the art of falling and getting up again, knowing you will fall again very shortly. but it was fun. I don't think I have ever received so many bruises so quickly. I still hold to my original theory that the idea of tying someone's feet to a board and sending them off a cliff probably originated as a form of torture, but I gave it (a bit more than?) my all, and it was fun. but then again, how could one not have fun on slopes with such fantastic views?

in between falling bouts, I rode the lift up to the top (and back down again). it was utterly fantastic up there, with globby snow coating absolutely everything. it gave the lift equipment an abandoned air, like the disty algae that blankets the ruins of a forgotten ship on the ocean floor.

 

on the second day, I opted for the snowshoe hike. we set out shortly after the late-morning sunrise. we started out on a walking trail, complaining about the ski poles we had been given (who needs ski poles while snowshoeing?! we wanted our hands free to take pictures...), but soon our guide took us off the paths and across what turned out to be valleys and slopes.

 

it was beautiful. we plopped down in the -23 Celsius snow and ate our frozen sandwiches.

 

 in one valley, our guide took us to an outdoor theater that is used in the summer, a wooden stage structure in the depths of the valley, with wooden benches lining the slopes. there he lead us in singing Maamme (the Finnish national anthem) before we headed off on our way. 2.5 more kilometers back to Kairosmaja, where we huddled in the kota around the fire and ate the remainders of our now-frozen blueberry soups.

 

on the second to last day, we visited an amethyst mine. above is the entrance to the mine. we got there part by bus, part by trolley, and part by foot.

I have always liked amethysts (being my birthstone and being purple, and having an A initial, I feel we have some things in common), and I was looking forward to visiting the mine. I had been expecting cavernous icy caves that would glisten purple under dusty flashlight beams... well, I suppose I was setting myself up for disappointment. we crawled around in a sort of underground sandbox until we each found a small amethyst crystal (mine is rather pretty, I must admit).

...but whatever was lacking in the mine experience was made up for many, manyfold by the sunset that graced us on our ~40 minute walk down to our bus. many of us photo-inclined folks transformed into snaphappy shutterbugs.

it was rather fantastic.

as we descended, so did the sun and at the bottom of the hill we were surrounded by nothing but snow-coated trees and a fruity-colored sky.

...speaking of skies. we saw northern lights every night. with Jan-Gerben (the Netherlands), Simone (Italy), Felix (Germany), and a few others (I think we may have been the only faithfuls who went every single night, but I'm not sure...), I snuck out onto the skislopes to watch the sky explode. admittedly, most of the nights it was just a twinge of green that only showed up in longexposures. but on our last night there, I saw the most fantastic revontulet (northern lights... repo=folk name for fox, tuli=flames => revontulet=fox's flames=foxfire). it was after a sort of disco we had at a restaurant on the skis lopes... Benoît ((French) Belgium) and I climbed to the top of a ski jump and basked in the sky. it swirled and clustered and faded just barely too slow to notice, and little sprouts shot off here and there and inched like fantastic, luminescent grubs across the sky. we exchanged a hug of jubilation that gave me nosebleeds for several days. by the time we got back to Kairosmaja (where my camera was) and got back to the slop nearest there, the foxfire had expanded into a gently convulsing green mist that coated nearly the entire sky.

on the last day we visited a reindeer farm and obtained reindeer driving licenses. the grueling driver's-ed process consisted of sitting on a wooden sled with a friend and hanging on to the reigns while the a beautiful animal with fascinating hooves clopped a rapid loop through the snowy forest.

our (my and Felix's) steed was named Kuuro, which means deaf, because, according to the Lap I asked, it was.

and then it was back to the trainstation and back to a sleepless nighttrain with friends I had only just made and would have to say goodbye to already. I haven touched upon but a fraction of the trip in this blogpost, as I have focused mostly on our out-of-camp activities. we had several activities at Kairosmaja as well, in the evenings and mornings--dizzy races on the ice and a beauty pageant for gentlemen and group-Sudoku-torture and making pancakes on the fire in the kota, and other such things to keep us from boredom. we also visited Santa Claus and straddled the polar circle, and when we didn't have anything organized for us, we found ways of keeping ourselves from sleep, talking, pingponging, playing cards. I have never met a group of such friendly, interesting, interested people.

(photo by Jan-Gerben from our evening of pancake-making. in exchange for this I shall learn Frisian.)
and I still have much more to blog about... but I think this is enough for now. hopefully I'll get to the other things before we leave for Rome next week. (oops, spoiler...)