The Wild Rose

This morning, several hours before the sun was up, we rode out of Turku for the last time. A few tears were shed as we left our home away from home. We have really come to love Turku, and absolutely enjoyed our past 6 months there. Though we left our apartment, we are not done with our Finnish adventure! We had a few days left on our travel visas so we decided to take advantage of that time and fly up North to Rovaniemi, Lapland. The official hometown of Santa Claus!

Because it is the off-season flights were cheap and it was easy to book a room with only a couple of weeks notice. The majority of the terrain up here is covered in pine trees, but every once in a while you could spot the brilliant yellow leaves of a birch tree. It was beautiful flying into Rovaniemi, but we weren’t quite ready for the temperature change. Stepping off of the plane we were smacked in the face with a bitter 2°C (35°F).

Being the hometown of Beardie Weirdie himself, you can see traces of him all over. In one of the malls we came across Santa’s Wish Bell, which can be rung at any time while sending a wish to Santa and no matter where he is he’ll hear it.

Our wish was to come back to Finland soon! Maybe Santa is just the person to make that happen! We’re enjoying our time here, and look forward to meeting the big man himself!