Today we helped Jarno and after that went skiing. If to be honest, I have never liked wintersport but to get true Lapland experience, I was ready to try it. Maili in the other hand is a very good skier. We decided to take the easy road through the forest. It was so cool and we enjoyed it a lot. Especially the part when we slide down the hill. Lapland made me to eat my own words. I love skiing now and I would do it again.

    sunny, funny ski day

After lunch break we vist Muonio cosmopolitan city. We had such a hard time to find parking place! Okey, okey it is a local joke. Actually it is a small town where you can get only basics things for the living. We did some food shopping and for our surprise the prices were not so different from the Estonian ones. Maybe only water, but that is a kinda stupid to buy it because Lapland has one of the world clearest water.

Every night when we go out and watch the sky, it takes our breath away. Even without the Northern lights the sky offers you so much beauty. You can see millions of bright stars and sometimes it almost looks like they are falling down. It is hard to describe, you have to see it yourself. Trust me, it is an unreal experience.

Today we had to clean sauna and enjoy the sunny day. Well, we tried to take the second command very seriously and huskyfarm visit was perfect for that. It was fun to see and play with the husky puppies. They where so energetic and just wanted to drag and chew our clothing.

    husky puppies

We also met a friendly huskyfarm volunteer Batrisha who told us lots of interestings stories about the dogs and her life in Lapland. Because of her, we also had a great opportunity to take a part from sled-dog training and dog's poop cleaning.

    sled-dog training

All of the sudden all dogs start howling. It was so loud that we could not even hear our own thoughts. Later they explain us, it was because of the leader dog. When he makes the sound all the other dogs follow him and when he stops, everbody will as well. Why so, nobody knows. Today's biggest surprise was the husky's eye color. We have always thought they have only bright blue eyes, but we learned that they can be brown or green together as well.

   huskys can have different eye color

In the evening we went out and enjoyed Northern Lights together with a hot tea and sweet cookies. The beauty of the sky made us realize how lucky we are to be here and enjoy this so peaceful Nordic land.

Green sky party was over and it was time to face the reality. Today we had to clean 3 lappish kotas, 2 larger and one smaller. They are catering buildings where touristgroups can eat after a long safari day. From outside they look like gingerbread houses but inside smells like a smoke sauna. Well, there is no suprise, kotas have bonfire in the middle of the room.

    lappish kotas

Our job was to clean all the tables, chairs and floors from the firedust. Also beat carpets and break the front door ice. At first we thought it is going to be easy day but after five hours we were exhausted. Not only because of the work but we also had to carry all the equipments and watertank one palce to another. And that was just not it! The cherry of the cake was the heavy snowstorm. Large snowflakes flew our eyes, mouth, and everywhere you can imagine. 

    snowy work day

When we got back home we looked like giant snowmans, sorry snowladies. Bad weather was also the reason why we decided to stay home for the rest of the evening and just drink tea and eat chocolate.

    our house in a snowstorm

Our long trip to Lapland started with a bus drive from Tartu to Tallinn. Continued by a late night ferry to Helsinki, a sleepless night in the airport, early morning flight to Rovaniemi, four hour bus drive to Muonio and then a car ride to Torrasieppi. Sounds long? It was and quite exhausting to be honest. We wanted to sleep so bad but just couldn't close our eyes. The views what we saw from the bus windows were just breathtaking. There was so much snow, big mountains and frozen lakes where people were skiing and ice fishing on. Everything just looked liked a perfect winter wonderland. We truly felt we had arrived a different world, a word of arctic circle. 

In Torraseieppi we met Sanna who were our destination manager and also our host. She gave us a short overview of what we had to do and could do there. First evening she let us settle in and just rest. We couldn't appreciate it more. For living she gave us a house near the reindeers farm. It was cosy, small attic. At night we decided to go outside, hoping to see the Northern Lights. Everything was perfect for that: clear sky, full moon and millions of stars, one brigter than the other. Even the planet Jupiter was there. BUT it wasn't what we really had wished to see. One moment we just gave up and went to sleep instead. Just seconds later when Maili switched off the lights, she screamed: " Look, Kadri... !" and she even couldn't finish her sentence when I had already jumped out of the bed. Almost killing myself. And there it really was, pure magic- Northern Lights.

I have always wanted to visit Lapland. See the Northern Lights, meet the reindeers and be a part of the magical northern atmosphere. There is just one problem. Finland is a very expensive country for just traveling around, especially the northen part of it. So it got me thinking of how could i still go and spend as little as possible. I decided to write a couple of emails to reindeer farms and ask them for work in exchange for accommodation. Although, I didn't really feel of going alone. I told the idea to my friend Maili and she was happy to join me. We sent 11 emails and got back 4.There was three N0´s and one YES. The place where we got the positive answer was from Torassieppi (www.torasieppi.fi). It is a small village close to the Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park and town called Muonio. We were so happy. Sometimes dreams really can come true!

  Hopeless situations inspire awesome solutions.