Lights out...then on

I wish I could claim this is what I photographed at night in Lapland, but it's actually only a picture I took of a video presentation at the Arktikum museum

The highlight of our visit to Lapland (at least for my wife) almost didn't happen, but more on that later. Our first full day in Rovaniemi, capital of Finnish Lapland, began with breakfast at the Guesthouse Borealis:

Fortified, we walked from the guesthouse to the train station, where we boarded a bus that would take us to the Arctic Circle...and the "official" Santa Claus Village that has been built around it:

Santa is available for consultations all year round, and there's no cost to sit down and have a chat with Father Christmas (who was quite proficient in English). The meeting is even live-streamed on the Internet, but you're not allowed to photograph the moment. Instead, official photos of your visit begin at an outrageous €30...and we felt compelled to capture the moment and bring it home, of course:

My daughter visited the Santa Claus Post Office - several of her relatives can expect Christmas cards from Lapland later this year:

Proof that we crossed the Arctic Circle, the southernmost line at which the sun doesn't set on at least one day a year. Evidence as well that it was pretty damn cold on a late February morning - the thermometer reads -12° Celsius (10° Fahrenheit):

One small corner of the village is set aside in a half-hearted attempt at providing information on Lapland's indigenous Sámi people, such as this example of a hut used to shelter livestock from the region's notorious summer mosquitoes:

Beer and a reindeer burger with fries for lunch:

The girls feel some pride in the village. There were lots of Asian tourists everywhere we went in Finland and Estonia, but nowhere more so than at Santa Claus Village:

Just walking around Santa Claus Village is free of charge, but engaging in any of the activities on offer (going down the world's longest ice slide, taking a reindeer or sled-dog ride etc.) will cost you dearly. One of the more reasonably-priced things to do is to let your younger one ride around a course on a child-sized snowmobile. Amber was a little hesitant at first...:

...but quickly got the hang of things, meaning that if should we ever move to an area with significant snowfalls in the winter, I'm going to pestered into getting my daughter her own snowmobile. The man who set her up on the vehicle was a former Nordic combined athlete who had competed in World Cup events in Salt Lake City and Vancouver:

It's possible to stay in cottages and even igloos in Santa Claus Village, but to do so and partake in all the activities there would necessitate taking out a second mortgage. Fortunately, Amber is now at that age where Santa is only...you know what I'm getting at. So after having spent around five hours at the village, we took the bus back into Rovaniemi, had dinner at an Italian restaurant and returned to our guesthouse to await the bus that would take us to see the Northern Lights.

We were picked up at 7:45 that evening on a tour organized by Lapland Welcome. Despite the fact we were already bundled up, the tour organizers issued everyone jump suits, hats, gloves and woolen socks:

Suitably attired, everyone got on the bus (there were around 35 people on the tour) and off we drove into the countryside, with our final destination being a hilltop which is supposedly one of the best spots for getting a clear view of the aurora borealis. And there we waited...and waited...and waited. The conditions that evening were ideal for seeing the Northern Lights, but nature was refusing to cooperate. Eventually, most of us retreated to tents, where we sat around fires roasting sausages and drinking hot chocolate while our Romanian guide told us stories of life in Finland:

Eventually, it was time to get back on the bus and return to Rovaniemi. I was disappointed at missing the opportunity to see the aurora borealis, but it still felt good to be outside in the very cold night air (as the bus pulled back into town, it passed by an electronic thermometer reading minus 24° Celsius, or -11° Fahrenheit; our guide told us that the temperature had dropped to almost -40°C one night a couple of weeks before) and to see so many stars in the night sky (a first for Amber). And then it happened - soon after the bus began the drive back to the city, a couple of Japanese guys on board started yelling for the bus to stop. Which it did at the next clearing, whereupon everyone disembarked to see the Northern Lights. My one single photograph of the momentous event:

Three things in my defense: 1.) You need a professional camera to do the Northern Lights any justice; 2.) I didn't want to remember the aurora borealis as having seen it only through a viewfinder. After the shot, I put the camera away and just stood watching in awe. And 3.) this is pretty much how the lights looked. They were a dull, dirty green shade, shimmering like curtains billowing in the breeze. The whole show probably lasted less than ten minutes, but it was worth the long wait. Kudos to Lapland Welcome for extending the tour past the originally scheduled five-hours so that everyone could have the opportunity to witness the spectacle that is the aurora borealis. I've never felt more content getting back home and into bed at three-thirty in the morning.

And in a further break, we were joined on our tour by Donald Burghardt, a professional photographer from the Netherlands who frequently travels to Lapland to get shots of the Northern Lights. Burghardt maintains a website and a Facebook page that are both worth checking out. He's also a very nice man who was staying at the same guesthouse, and he graciously gave me permission to use some of his shots from our outing on my blog. These two were taken on the hill, with yours truly sitting in the snow in the bottom left corner of the first pic (all these photos can be found here):

And this is his photograph from when the aurora borealis finally made its appearance in the early morning hours:

The funny thing is that my poor-quality photo is more indicative of how the lights actually look (or at least the way they did on the morning of the 22nd of February). The professionals use special filters and experiment with apertures and f.stops to produce the stunning displays like the one above. Regardless of how you view the aurora borealis, however, it's truly a spectacular sight. Scratching another item off of the bucket list...

Lapping it up

Baltic Amber in the Great White Nordic

As it was a Monday and we would be returning on Wednesday, our hotel in Helsinki kindly let us keep our one large suitcase in their care for the two days that we would be up near the Arctic Circle, thus saving us a few Euros on baggage fees with Finnair. It was snowing that morning as we checked out - snow, in fact, would be a constant companion for the remainder of our trip to Finland and Estonia. Nevertheless, it wasn't too difficult walking to the train station in central Helsinki:

We did have to make a dash to the airport train, however, to get out of the snow:

Killing time Finnish-style at the airport, with a shot of caffeine and a pulla (a cardamon-flavored bun):

A reindeer pelt on sale at an airport gift shop. I seriously wanted to purchase one to use as a cover on the back seat of our Honda Accord, but my daughter and wife were opposed to this idea for some unfathomable reason:

The plane that would take us from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. I've taken off and landed in snowy conditions in the past, but this would be the first time I was in an airplane that to wait its turn to be de-iced on the runway before taking off:

Flying out of Helsinki on the 80-minute flight to Rovaniemi:

A minibus dropped us off at our accommodations, the family-run Guesthouse Borealis. It didn't look like much on the outside, but we had a nice self-contained apartment large enough for six, with its own kitchen and sauna:

Rovanimei (population: 61,000) is the capital of Finnish Lapland, the Nordic region that is home to the aurora borealis, the midnight sun, the Sámi peoples, reindeer and Santa Claus. Lapland is a vast area comprising 30% of Finland's land area but only 3% of the country's population. Rovaniemi serves as the region's main gateway, and the Arctic Circle is only a few kilometers from the city center. Needless to say, there was a lot of snow on the ground. Amber quickly adapted to conditions in Rovaniemi:

We spent the afternoon and early evening exploring the downtown area. Yaktrax proved to be a sound investment yet again:

Shu-E checks out a stand selling products made from reindeer antlers:

The Jätkänkynttilä Bridge spanning the frozen-over Kemijoki river:

The thermometer reads -7° Celsius (19° Fahrenheit) - this would the warmest it would get during our three days and two nights in Rovaniemi:

For dinner we went to Nili, a popular Finnish restaurant with a Lapland theme:

I began with the Lappish Blini (served with pearl onion, sour cream and codfish roe), following it with salmon and finishing off with an all-blueberry trio of ice cream, meringue and tartlet (not pictured). The bear roast was tempting, but the price was off-putting:

And beer, of course:

Back out into the crisp evening air and the walk back to the guesthouse:

Amber and I took turns using the sauna, with my daughter lasting a lot longer than I could in the steamy cubicle. When in Finland, Amber did much better than me in doing as the Finns:

Hell yeah Helsinki

Uspenskin Katedraali

Our second full day in Helsinki wasn't as sunny as the first one, but it would turn out to be the only day of our trip to Finland and Estonia where the temperature climbed above the freezing point. The documentary on life in the Arctic Circle that was on TV in our apartment as we were getting to ready to go out set an appropriately Finnish tone:

Back on the streets of central Helsinki:

The Tuomiokirkko (Luthern Cathedral) was designed by the German architect CL Engel and completed in 1852. It dominates the Senaatintori (Senate Square):

The interior is suitably spartan as the likes of Martin Luther keep a stern watch over visitors:

In contrast to the Lutheran church stands the red-brick Uspenskin Katedraali (Uspenski Cathedral), standing on nearby Katajanokka island. It was built as a Russian Orthodox church in 1868, and now serves as a Finnish Orthodox house of worship:

The interior is suitably Orthodox:

The Tuomiokirkko is visible from the Uspenskin Katedraali:

We returned to Senaatintori for Sunday brunch at Ravintola Sunn, somehow managing to get a table without a reservation:

Next on the Helsinki sightseeing itinerary was Finland's premier art gallery, the Ateneum:

I don't claim to know much about art, but I was completely ignorant on the topic of Finnish painting and sculpture. I'm still largely ignorant, but some of the nation's art is impressive, such as Pioneers in Karelia (1900) by Pekka Halonen, a celebration of the Finnish landscape and people:

The Fighting Capercaillies (1886) by Ferdinand von Wright, one of the country's most famous paintings. His brothers Magnus and Wilhelm were also famous painters:

The touching Old Man and Child (1913) by Hugo Simberg:

Pride of place in the museum's collection goes to Aino-taru (1891), a triptych by Akseli Gallen-Kallela depicting a scene from the Finnish national epic Kalevala, in which the central character Väinämöinen pursues the maiden Aino (who drowns herself instead of marrying him):

It isn't all Finland all the time at the Ateneum. The museum also boasts a small but interesting collection of 19th- and early 20th-century foreign art such as van Gogh's Street in Auvers-sur-Oise (1890):

Le Corbusier's Two Women (1939):

Gauguin's Landscape with a Pig and a Horse (Hiva Oa) (1903) and Degas' Woman Caught Unawares (1919):

Warhol's Electric Chair (1971):

Back into the real world, and an ice-skating rink across the road from the Ateneum:

A gathering by the rink (with the Ateneum building in the background). The sign reads "Refugee in not your enemy. Enemy is who make them refugees". Finland, unfortunately, hasn't been immune from the growth of nationalistic, populist anti-immigrant parties:

Beer in Finland tends toward lagers, but there are also brewpubs like Teerenpeli to provide much-needed alternatives:

We ended our day with dinner at a Japanese noodle restaurant, where the old cliche about it being a small world played out: the woman sitting at the table behind my wife and daughter turned out to be a colleague who had been in the same Mandarin program with me at the Foreign Service Institute four years ago (she went to Beijing while I was posted to Shanghai).

Amber strikes a pose outside the natural history museum

Due to its relatively short history (it didn't start developing as a major city until after Finland was annexed by Russia following the latter's victory over Sweden in the Finnish War in 1809), Helsinki doesn't have many historic sights. What it does have is a lifestyle rich in cultural attractions (with several museums and concert halls located in the center of the city) and international restaurants (though going out to eat can be expensive). It wouldn't be a bad place to be posted someday - I'm already used to long, dark winters!

It should come as no surprise that hockey is the national sport