Before escaping for a few months from Finland I have to take a moment to appraise my absolutely amazing homeland – or the north part of it, generally known as Lapland. It’s a place that hooks me up. Land for the one that loves and seeks for peace, nature and outdoor sports. You can visit anytime, there is always something to see and do in its beautiful seasons.
Summer in Lapland is beautiful for hiking and fishing. Autumn you have the same things with great colours. During the deep winter is the darkness, coldness and snow, stars and northern lights, fireplaces, reindeer safaris – so Christmas would be quite an experience. In fact my dream is to spend one Christmas there in the Iglu hotel (Google it!)! Of course you know that Santa Claus is from Lapland of Finland? Yes. Isn’t it funny that such a tight-fisted Finn hands out so many gifts… Spring is already light in Lapland but there is still a lot snow. Great timing to do some skiing!
I went there now with my family to do my annual snowboarding duty. My principle has been that I gotta go riding at least once a year. To my surprise I have also started to enjoy cross-country skiing quite a lot! Why it’s a surprise, is because quite many of us got too much of it when we were little school kids. In the sports lecture we were always made to ski many kilometres no matter if it was almost twenty minus degrees. If I remember correct -18 degrees was the limit. If it was more than that, we did some indoor ball games or what ever much nicer. That’s why it’s funny now that I’m two decades older henna and I’m skiing a smiley facemask on – not the whining one like back then. But of course it’s a free will now and I can ski only when the sun is shining and warming me up if I decide so. But yeah a lot of skiing this spring! It’s in fact a very great form of sport! Affects every muscle. Nice counterbalance to my usual gym.
It was a great weather in Lapland. One day I really managed to ski around the Pyhätunturi mountain, 20 kilometres! And it wasn’t even easy because there were quite a lot of uphill too. I was proud of myself but really tired after that and thought that’s it for this spring. After that I only concentrated on snowboarding. Which was of course so much fun! Exactly at the same time a year ago I was snowboarding in the Alps of Italy, the perfect long hills. But Pyhätunturi had nice hills too, quite long for a Finnish ski resort! In Finland there are not that high mountains. I think the highest is only something like 1300 m… But yep, Pyhä was great. And the good part was that the season started to be over and sometimes I had the hill myself and could ride as fast as possible. Of course the bit boring part is to go up in the lift, but totally cool if the sun is shining!
I love the cottage life. Beside the sports it’s so nice to be warm inside and read books and go to wooden sauna. Small big things in life, and so important for a Finn – and especially since I’m not here always, I was totally enjoying it. Didn’t want to leave! But a traveller gotta do whatta a traveller gotta do! Keep moving. Till next time Lapland!
PS. On a way back from north, I was thinking how beautiful it is everywhere. And then I started to wonder if people notice this. What do you think? Do you pay enough attention and notice all the small things. I was literally staring at one bright star and the darkening night with all amazing colours in the sky. And I thought that I want to live all this – but not on or through different screens, that I sometimes have to notice myself about! And I know that’s with so many of you. That might be the thing that our generation will regret someday in the rocking chair – that we didn’t live in the moment. Old people by far have regret what they didn’t do. I think our generation is doing things but are we actually living them? Just smt to think about…
