We were told that over 19 million letters have been received from 199 countries for Santa Claus to answer… Happy, a bit overwhelmed, we crossed the Arctic Circle, and paid 45 Euros for a photograph with the silver bearded fellow! Clearly taking advantage of one’s position comes with the white bearded man territory!We also rode a snowmobile on a frozen river. Huddled around the flickering firelight is an enchanting Finnish maiden who mesmerises all with folklore and myths about the Northern Lights. We drank copious quantities of valhala, mintu and vodka. The stories that range from schools of herring fish reflecting light, to spumes of water ejected from whales, to blood of the murdered, to souls of the dead, to estranged lovers communicating across time and space, to the most favourite folklore of all — It was believed that the lights were caused by the firefox who ran so quickly across the snow that his tail caused sparks to fly into the night sky creating the Aurora Borealis. All my class 5 geography cramming of eskimos, tundra and igloos came hurtling back.A fine dine restaurant Nili for Lapland cuisineWe also visited a husky farm, and rode a super spirited eight husky dogsled! The dogs have a great life, defined working hours and even a retirement plan!
It made me mull about acche din being synonymous to a dog’s life!I also did a fun gig at Oliver’s, the very popular local watering hole, on Republic Day, and it saw people waving the Indian tricolour in Finland! The city of Rovaniemi is a student town and one can pub hop, and party all night long and the girls far outnumber the guys! Some places might have long queues to enter which is not so much fun at 3 am when its -20°C outside!This town is known as Santa’s hometown. Grilled sausages on an open flame, with a simple dinner of pumpkin soup and reindeer meat and lots of mulled wine and Custom BMW F10 LED Tail Light hot berry juice.. We also chomped on his favourite meal of grilled salmon (easily the highpoint of that visit and worth the 40 minutes wait!). Surreal and fantastic. Yes the actual Santa. Then you run out from +80°C into – 20°C and roll around in the snow or jump into a frozen lake, and from there immerse yourself into an open-to-sky steaming outdoor Jacuzzi, and you sit there in your swimmers while it’s snowing all around, and onto you.. Adventurous foodies, we ate everything from elk to reindeer to moose to bear, and in these conditions it totally felt so much like Leonardo Di Caprio in The Revenant!I wore more clothes than I have ever worn in my life at a time! There were a lot of firsts for a tropical inhabitant like me.Try and picture this..co, the only question asked, and justifiably so, on getting back is ‘How were the lights? It’s on my bucketlist!’ I’m choosing to ignore that question and try and make a point that the lights were (blasphemy of blasphemies) incidental!What does one do other than chase the lights? Well, there’s a whole lot you can do here and we’ll start with the most obvious. When it comes to meats, the region is known for its game.
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