I woke up to an arctic sunrise again, this time to send Mel off on her early flight back at 7:30am; she had to return a day before the rest of us. After she left, I cooked the last of what was left in the fridge at the Airbnb and saw the rest of the group off as they scrambled to make it in time for their 10am booking at the Arctic Circle Snowmobile Park (the same place where Mel and I had done our reindeer excursion yesterday) for a 6-hour combo tour of reindeer, huskies, and snowmobiles. They bounced so fast Shirley just left her pink thermos on the table.
And I stayed behind. Within minutes Melissa had returned, letting me know when they called ahead at the beginning of their drive to let them know they would be a bit late, they received a reply to not bother coming at all. However, I insisted there had been so much waiting around when Mel and I checked in the day before, that the group should still get there and not take no for an answer when they arrive. If they’re only 10-15 minutes late while everyone else in the group is still busy registering their drivers’ licenses and fitting in their jumpsuits for the snowmobiles, and ultimately aren’t hurting anyone by joining a 6 hour tour that they already paid for, what’s their reason for denying them? And just as I expected: it worked and they got on the tour despite being 15 minutes late!
What followed was a solo morning of house cleaning, camp checks, and retrieving left-behind items scattered across two chalets’ worth of group travel. I was on track to check out on time until two things happened simultaneously: my Facebook Ads account got hacked, sending me into a full security lockdown spiral on my phone, and while sorting that out, I accidentally discovered I had booked my return flight off by one day. So now I’m on hold with the airline while also changing passwords while also confirming I haven’t been charged for ads I didn’t run while also trying to pack. The cleaning staff arrived at around 1pm and kindly worked the house around me as I sat at the kitchen table triaging crises on my laptop. I had fittingly become the late-checkout person…the same kind of person who had made us check in late 2 days earlier.
By 3pm it was finally done; my facebook and meta accounts re-secured and all the payments made on it rescinded. I then hailed a Bolt to take me from the Airbnb to Rovaniemi train station, where I stored my luggage in the lockers. Then I called our car rental company to confirm the car drop-off instructions at the station and set out on foot.
Walking 10 minutes through the peaceful white snow on my own two legs with no car, group, or an agenda, I made my way 8 minutes over to Santa’s Gym, which had just opened at 4pm.
I caught up on 2 workouts there before walking over to Leima in the Postmaster Hotel, right by the station, for a massive ribs dinner. 1kg of pork ribs? 30-35 ribs total? No problem.
Before:
After:
The Santa Claus Express
By 6pm the group had been done with their snowmobile tour and headed to a petting zoo afterwards in Santa Claus village. By 7:30pm they had already filled up the gas tank, dropped off the rental car per my instructions on the group chat, and we reunited at Rovaniemi train station catching up on our respective days. And Shirley was reunited with her pink thermos.
The next highlight: our 9pm overnight sleeper train to Helsinki.
VR, Finland’s national railway, operates what’s nicknamed the Santa Claus Express: A double-decker night train that runs direct from Rovaniemi to Helsinki in about 12 hours. It’s like the PG version of Mauritrania’s Iron Ore train, as in one of those off the beaten path travel experiences where the mode of transportation itself is the experience rather than just a way to get somewhere.
Every one of us paid a little extra for the upstairs lie-flat cabins, which come with en-suite toilets, showers, two bunk beds with proper bedding and towels, free WiFi, and, the reason we splurged, upper floor windows for aurora viewing if the northern lights decided to make an appearance while we slept.
But we already got quite a good show 2 days ago:
… so at this point we didn’t expect anything. Instead we congregated at Sampson’s and Shirley’s room for some late night chit chat before Sampson started to fall asleep.
And that’s when I learned everyone’s favorite color on this trip is green: Hence how 4 random strangers decided to sign up for a monsoon that would feature peak aurora borealis viewing.
We then said good night through the thin cabin walls, settled in, and let the gentle rocking of the train put us to sleep somewhere above the Arctic Circle.
Helsinki: Full Circle
What I woke up to 9 hours later:
The rest of the group woke up to their pre-ordered breakfast through VR’s website during booking, which was delivered directly to their cabins in the morning at around 8am. By 9:15am we pulled into Helsinki Central Station, a full 12 hours and one full night’s sleep after departing Rovaniemi.
I really can’t shake off the impression of how Helsinki’s art deco, gotham-city inspired architecture at its train station made on me:
We then headed downstairs to store our luggage in the station lockers and said our goodbyes to Melissa. After she got into an Uber to the airport, and Sampson and Shirley got into a separate Uber to their hotel, Yuhan and I set out on a mission to retrieve my headphones from Hobo Helsinki, the ones I’d left behind 5 days earlier.
After a 10 minute walk through town, we sauntered in, asked at the front desk, and they pulled them right out of the back room. Problem solved before it was even a problem: just as promised. Success! Yuhan and I then got our first of the day’s coffee at Robert’s Coffee Jugend as Sampson and Shirley checked into their hotel, and then the 4 of us reunited right back across from Hobo Helsinki for breakfast at Fazer, the same place where some of our monsooners got together for brunch 9 years ago when we were last here:
Afterward, we walked around Senate Square.
And then saying goodbye to Sampson and Shirley from their hotel room, Yuhan and I walked back to the train station to retrieve our luggage and took an Uber to the airport for our flights home.
- At time of posting in somewhere in between Lapland and the rest of Finland, it was -6 °C - Humidity: 83% | Wind Speed: 4km/hr | Cloud Cover: cold as F...inlandia
