Helsinki, Finland – All we had done by this point was walk around looking at everything Unique Lapland had to offer. I was getting very warm in the parka and took off my hood. A few minutes later I unzipped the parka a bit. The overalls were doing a very good job of trapping body heat. As the heat rose up through the suit and out the neck, it kept my head toasty warm. I should look into buying an outfit like this when I get home.
One of the signs we saw read “Joulupukki (Santa Claus). Joulupukin Kammari (Santa Claus Office)”. Even though summer is his off-season, Santa was in his office today. If you want, you can have your photo taken with him. My wife and I did not take advantage of this opportunity, though.
My wife and I did pose for photos on tandem skis and aboard a snowmobile. A lady from our group kindly volunteered several times to take our photo. We were very grateful she did this for us. That was until we saw the results. She had a very unsteady hand so nearly all of the photos she took came out blurry. There were a few that were not blurry but these were ruined because she exhaled when she pressed the shutter. You know what happens when you exhale in below-freezing weather. In the resulting pictures, all you could see was a cloud of vapor from her exhaled breath that almost completely obscured us. If that wasn’t bad enough, the flash was reflected off the water droplets in the vapor making it look like my wife and I were posing in the fog.
About those tandem skis: They sure look like fun…until you try to ski with two people on them. Standing on them is easy. Trying to coordinate any movement on them is not. It took several tries before we could even take more than two steps without losing our balance. We finally got the hang of it (somewhat) and were able to do a limited version of cross-country skiing.
On the other hand, the toboggan was much easier. All we had to do was push and hang on as we slid down the hill. The hill was not very steep but enough to get you moving.
After all of that we ventured back over to the dog sled track and decided to take a ride. It seemed like this would be a great way to complete our visit to this winter wonderland. We rode an actual sled pulled by a team of sled dogs. The team of eight dogs pulled us with very little effort. For a while I imagined myself mushing through the Yukon. The only thing missing was the open space. The short course wound its way around the inside of the building, over behind all of the other activities I told you about. But it was still a lot of fun. I would love to do this on a much larger scale. Yes, I know I admitted I’m not a cold weather person, but with one of these parkas, I think I could handle it.
My wife and I finished our time in the wonderland before most of the others on the tour. That gave us time to visit the gift shop for souvenirs without being rushed. Many members of our group still hadn’t come out by the time we finished at the gift shop. So my wife struck up a conversation with Ritva. They talked about quite a bit including the Finnish economy. Little by little, the rest of our group exited the wonderland and our talk with Ritva had to end.
Although our time here was relatively short, and the courses on which we skied, sledded, and rode were just as short, it was nice to sample what it would be like to participate in these winter sports outside these walls.
Photo credit: My wife
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