Odense

In the morning before we left for Odense we had time to quickly stop by the Danish National Museum, which I like because it's freeee and they have a really great Danish pre-history exhibition with some of the famous bog bodies. Archaeological finds in this part of the world would barely exist if someone back in the day hadn't decided that the gods would be super happy if sacrifices were thrown into the bog. It preserves things (and people) so amazingly.

Me in the classical antiquity section.

Dadsily and a big rune stone.

As much as flying is convenient, I definitely prefer to catch the train, especially in Europe where things aren't very far away. It was a pretty train ride to Odense, despite the constant suspense of whether we were going to be kicked out of our 'possibly reserved' seats. It's a weird system, you can be sitting there for the first part of the ride but if someone reserves a seat after the trip has started they're allowed to boot you out. Cause they paid more for a reservation! Atleast the ticket lady was nice to me, I bought a student ticket without having the proper Danish card and she let me get away with it.

Our first impression of Odense was a very good one, we got a bit lost and stopped to ask a couple for directions. They told us to jump in their car (with our big backpacks and all) and they drove us around until they tracked down the street we were looking for. Lovely Danes. Odense was a nice change after being in Copenhagen, a very cosy little place with a good atmosphere. We spent a bit of time wandering around downtown looking at the shops and old buildings.

I think the most useful assignment I've ever done at uni was a retail analysis of Denmark to hypothetically launch Kmart there. It's nice to be familiar with all the shops and know where you're going to find some bargains after so much time wandering aimlessly and trying to gage the level of fanciness by looking in the window. Tiger is my favourite, it's like someone took a $2 shop, classed it up a lot, and filled it with everything I could ever want to buy.

Our main destination on this leg of the trip was Svendborg, a little town 45 minutes away from Odense where our family comes from. It had the cutest little houses, especially the ones with thatched roofs!

We trekked out to Valdemar's Slot, an old royal residence out of town, which was unfortunately closed but we got to wander around the gardens and even found a beach to eat our lunch on! A real live beach with sand and water and sun! And the wind didn't even put sand in our eyes. Lovely.

This bambi's antlers were the perfect height to lean on.

A gatehousey part of Valdemar's Slot.

Look at that sand!

We had plans to make the most of our last morning in Odense, but they were foiled by the torrential rain that attacked us when we had to go walking down the street looking for an ATM to get money to pay our stupid cash only accomodation. I've never been so furious and soggy at the same time, I'm surprised I wasn't steaming with anger. Nowhere in Europe has enough ATMs, they're on every street in Aus and here you have to embark on an epic quest to find them. The time we spent trying to not drown and then drying our clothes meant we had to go straight to the airport without stopping again in Copenhagen. Oh well! The flight was good and airberlin gave us a delicious heart shaped chocolate when we landed. I can't complain =)

Oslo cont. and Copenhagen

We took a ferry to Hovedøya island in the Oslofjord, which has the ruins of an old monastery on it, and lots of nice walking trails. It was so tree-ey and beautiful. I want to hide out from the world on a little island forever! Australia isn't really little enough to fit the criteria. 

After a wander through Akershus Fortress and along Aker Brygge we managed to bump into the Beer Palace, a pub Simon and I really liked last time we were in Oslo. We were quite shocked when the lady working rudely informed us that they don't sell Borg anymore. It was even more rude because it made no sense; it's the most common beer in Norway AND it's still written on their menu. Strange.. I also got to visit my favourite polar bear sculpture and give him a hug, I'll have to do a before and after comparison of the photos when I get the new one off dad's camera. Mister polar bear really missed me, it was a very emotional reunion.

In the afternoon we visited Vigelandsparken, which is a truly bizarre sculpture garden. There were hundreds of sculptures, some of them quite nice and others truly horrifying. Never ever ever did I think I'd go to a public park and see a sculpture of a naked man kicking a baby. I wouldn't believe me either, which is why I have photographic evidence.

Yep, naked man kicking baby. Not to mention throwing/punching the other three.

Oslo chose yesterday to be the one day they closed the central station and changed their ticket zoning system, so figuring out how to get to the aiport was a leetle bit more stressful than it should have been, but we made it safely and even had time to spend our last 14 krone on a packet of gum. Woo! I firmly believe that airlines should give a discount to passengers who are forced to sit in front of small children in planes. Lucky it was only a one hour flight, because my chair got kicked the whole way. I thought about kicking her back, but she was 2 and I wasn't a naked sculpture in Oslo.

Copenhagen feels so ridiculously cheap after Oslo, even though it really isn't. The illusion is nice! We went for a big walk in the city with a nice Brazilian girl from our hostel room, and I ate delicious Nutella and banana crepes. My favourite! The National Museum and the Gauguin exhibition I wanted to see are annoyingly closed tomorrow, but we're thinking about maybe cramming some stuff in on Tuesday morning before we get the train to Odense.

We went on a ferry ride to see the famous Little Mermaid statue today. Two crazy guys were videoing their accordian and guitar performance in front of her, which was a bit silly, but I got a photo of them too seeing as they were clearly in the way. There were nice walking paths through the old Copenhagen citadel, which is laid out in a very pretty non-militaryish star/flower shape. They compensated for this by having lots of rules about not walking on the grass or riding your bike on the ramparts or eating from the canteen without permission, giving them some authoritarian cred.

Delicious strawbs. I had to take a photo of them glistening in the Copenhagen sun.

The Little Mermaid and co.

Odense time tomorrow, I'm excited to be in historical Nielsen territory! My great great grandfather Anders Nielsen was a farmhand until he was 16, then an apprentice weaver until he was 18, and then got on a boat and came to Australia as an able seaman when he was around the same age I am now. I can't even imagine being so brave! It's difficult enough when you know something of what to expect on the other side! Anway thanks Anders, I'm a huge fan of being alive.

It's been reediculously warm and sunny for our whole trip so far, it's going to be such a shock to the system when I get back to Rovaniemi. I'm going to be pretty devastated if I miss the first snow, so hold out Rovaniemi skies, pretty pleease!

Papa's Arrival

Im my previous post, Eve and I hadn't left Inari yet. We had an interesting drive back to Rovaniemi, travelling through such thriving metropolises as Pokka and Helppi. We stopped at a roadside coffe shop in Pokka and the four old inhabitants of the town stared at us like we were aliens. The super unfriendly lady gave us possibly the worst coffee I've ever tasted, and I think she thought we were going to steal the cups when we went and sat out on the verandah to escape the stares of the locals. Pokka is famous for having the lowest recorded temperature in Finland, -51.5°C, and from what we could see that was their one moment of glory.

Just a typical sign.

I was feeling super tired when we got home, but the Aurora forecast said that it was a good night for Northern Lights viewing, so we trekked up Ounasvaara hill and with the skills of people much more talented than I, managed to get a fire started. We eventually saw some pale lights, none of the amazing colours yet but it was still very exciting. I was so happy to finally get to bed later that night! In the morning Eve got on her flight to Helsinki and dad arrived in Rovaniemi.

Adele had heard about a knife making workshop just out of town called Hornwork where we could check out their stuff and do some crafts. We didn't really know what to expect, maybe a short demonstration and a quick activity before hurrying us along, but we got the complete opposite! The couple that run it, Irene and Ari, are the sweetest people alive, and we ended up spending about 5 hours at their place hearing about Lappish culture, chatting and making handicrafts! Here is my first attempt at making a bracelet out of beads, reindeer horn and bone. I really want to go back and do more!

Irene engraved the little symbols for Lapland and the Aurora for me.

And now dad and I are in Oslo! It was a painfully slow day at Helsinki airport waiting for our flight, but since then everything has fallen nicely into place. Our hotel is right in the city so we can walk around really easily, today we took a ferry to the Viking Ship Museum, the Museum of Cultural History, and did a quick tour of the Historical Museum to check out an Ötzi exhibition. The Viking ships were as incredible as I remember!

Amazing dollhouse!

I love this building!

Model of Ötzi

Time for me to go to sleep, lots of things planned for tomorrow!

Roadtrip North

So with some very last minute organisation, Evelyn and I hired a car and headed off on our adventure. Driving with Ev was more than slightly terrifying; what with being on the wrong side of the road and her propensity for taking corners at a million k's an hour and getting distracted by the view and veering into the next lane.

Funnily enough, Ev didn't share my concerns.

Avoc indulging in some dangerous car planking.

I managed to relax a bit by the time we got to Sodankylä, a little town we stopped in quickly and wandered around for a while. The ladies in the tourist information centre welcomed us with coldness and hostility, I think maybe we ruined their tourist-free day. We headed off again pretty soon, it was miserable and raining and we had a lot more driving to do.


Our next stop was Urho Kekkonen National Park, which was very beautiful. I'm so glad I bought gumboots before we left, I had fun sloshing through mud and puddles on our hike without my usual soggy sock situation. The forest was insanely silent, I'm sure there were birds and animals out there but they didn't make a single sound. Usually that would be creepy, but it was just very peaceful. We stayed at Hostel Ahopää which was out in the middle of nowhere. A good thing about this part of the world is the minimal road network and very good signage, even with my terrible sense of direction it's basically impossible to get lost. Also, every place we went it was so easy to see the Finnish trustworthiness and honesty. I can't think of any other place where hostels would bother to leave hairdriers in the sauna or laptops sitting around for guests to use.

The view from our hostel window, a nice little stream.

Post-sauna warm snugness.

The first time we saw reindeer on the road as we were driving we freaked out with excitement, Ev wanted to stop the car in the middle of the road and take pictures but unfortunately (luckily) there was someone behind us. As it became more normal and frequent, we worked out a good system where I would help steer the car while Evelyn put her head out the window to take photos as we crawled along, trying not to scare them away. Teamwork!

Much cuter than cows on the road!

I'd include pictures of our drive up the Kaunispää fells, but the fog was so intense it was like being on another planet. A really really foggy one. By far the best place we stayed was Guesthouse Husky outside of Ivalo. Outi and her family have a pack of 150 huskies, with traditional looking husky dogs for sledding and a slightly different breed of 'ferrari' dogs for racing. The guesthouse was beautiful, we had so much space and fanciness. All the dogs were so different, I can totally understand how their owners view them as people and know all their names and personalities. I definitely want to go back there when it's snowing and get my sled on.

Pupsicle

Blondi

The dogs are in the process of growing their winter coats, so some of them look crayzay!

I really didn't want to leave the huskies, or the most comfortable beds ever, but it was time to go to Inari. We went to SIIDA, the museum of the traditional Sámi people of Lapland. It had an amazing outdoor component of Sámi dwellings, which made me need so badly to live in a cosy little log cottage and survive by being super resourceful.

Taking in the views of Lake Inari

Everything is so much more spectacular than my camera can convey!

A bear trap - similar to a mouse trap except for bears. Ouch.

In the evening Evelyn convinced me to hike up Otsamo Hill, I was pretty worried that we'd run out of light before we made it back down but she was right in the end, it was totally worth it. Once we reached the top we both had the same thought that it was like being on Pride Rock except instead of African savannah we could see Finland. There may or may not have also been a super cheesy Titanic 'I'm king of the world' re-enactment.

For any other His Dark Materials nerds out there, Seraphina Pekkala is from Lake Inari.

I left my coat down on a trail marker, hoping a bear wouldn't steal it.

We also went on a cruise of Inari Lake (the lake in the above pictures) out to Ukko Island, which is a sacred Sámi site of the thunder god. As we climbed to the top our eyes (and feet) were assaulted by the corpses of sooo many disembowled lemmings, the owls must have a 24/7 feast there. I found one last little guy alive and suggested some kind of witness protection program, but he scurried off to hide. I hope he's okay.

View from the top of the island

The sole survivor

This post is already far too long, so in the next couple of days I'll fill you in on the departure of Evelator, the arrival of Dad, and our imminent trip to Oslo!

Evelator times!

It's starting to get cold and rainy in Rovaniemi, which would be completely okay if I owned a single piece of warm waterproof clothing. Also, the wind violated my umbrella today, so I'm unprotected from the elements!

Evelyn is visiting me for two weeks, so it's like living with the paparazzi, she even took a photo of me while I was sleeping! We met Santa and officially crossed the Arctic Circle! Santa was kind of intimidating, we felt like nervous little kids in his presence.

The co-ordinates of the Arctic Circle.

Avoc found his own custom-sized log cabin!

We're going to hire a car on Friday and do a trip up North. Yes, more north than we already are. It would be amazing to see some northern lights.. fingers crossed. We're going to stop at a couple of different places, but the only one I can remember the name of at the present moment is Inari where a lot of traditional Finnish Sámi people live.

We went to the pub to practice our Finnish last night, and I very much enjoyed these giant beer tea cups. Especially cause I was wearing my new blankety shawl and it was like being in bed with my blankie and a cup of icy cold tee!

On Tuesday I swap guests, papa arrives at 9am and Evster goes back to Germany at 11am. Busy times! But I feel very much loved with multiple people coming to see me up here on top of the world =)

Lapland Activities

So uni has started, which means I have a pile of textbooks to read at my leisure! After three months of not studing I was worried it'd be difficult to get back into the swing of things, but my brain still works. So life is basically everything I hate; reading, freedom and not having to go anywhere I don't want. Whee!

We had a very interesting trip to Ranua zoo yesterday, for many reasons. The zoo was really nice, very pretty and green with cute little buildings such as this one! I don't know what it was for, but I want one.

Of course, the animals were fun too. It was raining on and off, but they still came out to say hello, which was very considerate of them.

Hedwig!

This polar bear was so cute, he was frolicking around...

pretending he was going to jump in the water...

but really he was just messing with us and had a lie down instead.

They had brown bears too!

And wolverines. Now that I know what a wolverine is, the X-men character seems inappropriately named. This one was taking his chicken for a walk around.

There was also this funny lookin' creature.

Bambi!

Up close and personal with a moose.

Angry ox! If he didn't like the way you looked at him, he'd charge at you behind the fence.

Unfortunately, because this is in the next town, after we finished at the zoo we had about 5 hours to kill before the next bus home. He had a deliriously funny afternoon trekking into town, and finding the only signs of life at a dodgy pizza place. The pizza lady only spoke Finnish, so I took what I thought was the safe option and clarified my order by pointing at the picture of the pizza I wanted, to avoid any surprises. Unfortunately she felt like surprising me anyway and when my pizza arrived, instead of pepperoni and mushroom, it was pepperoni, ham and tuna.

Yum! It wasn't even that they had run out of mushrooms, Edda managed to get them on her pizza. I just got lucky. I ate a lot of it because I was hungry, but it was a very bad choice. We had a look at the local newspaper too, I especially appreciated the highly exciting front page article on some rocks and autumn colours.

Feeling quite ick after our interesting meal and hours of waiting around and searching for the exact bus stop (we even went to the supermarket just for something to do), we eventually made it home and I snuggled up in my new reindeer blanket and fell asleep. It was a very long and silly day, but good company made it a fun and memorable one!

This afternoon, very spontaneously, Paul suggested we go for a boat ride on the river. DAS (the uni accomodation company) hires one out for free, which is nice of them. After figuring out which boat we were supposed to be taking, we had a really fun row along the river, looking at all the beautiful riverside houses and trying not to turn the boat in circles. It was very classy, we dropped anchor in the middle of the river for a while and had a picnic snack of beer, crackers with brie, and dried apricots.

Giorgia and Paul in our little rowboat.

This cottage is on its own little island, they even have sheep! We were trying to suss out whether anyone was there and whether they'd mind if we dropped in to say hi.

The sky was really pretty!

Giorgia and I chillaxing.

And that's all I have to report for now! Evelyn arrives on Thursday, and leaves on the day dad gets here, so the rest of the month is going to be very busy! I've signed up to take a Finnish for Foreigners course at uni, even though I'm probably going to fail due to not being able to attend 80% of classes when I'm travelling with papa. Oh well! Really looking forward to it anyway.