Scandinavian Trip- Day 5 - Rovaniemi Santa Claus and Arktikum

Today was the most relaxing day of the trip, with only a very light and flexible itinerary. Everything goes slowly in winter in these parts - the water takes time to heat up, the car takes time to start and we also took our own sweet time to get ready today. After the high of yesterday, we didn't mind taking it at a more relaxed pace. 

We went outside to find a foggy atmosphere, beautiful white landscape with fresh snow all over the place creating that magical feel. The powdery white snow was so ripe for enjoying that we all smacked ourselves into piles of snow. My son enjoyed himself for a good 30 mins before we started our trip. I took the time to brush off all the snow in the car. I realised the difference between snow and ice starkly then, snow is lovely and wonderful, easy to brush off and it's fairly dry. Ice on the other hand molds itself to the surface and it's very difficult to scrub off. So today it was a lot easier getting the car ready to tee off. 

We first went to meet Santa Claus whom we had missed our previous 

day. We got there to be intrigued by two Santa Claus meeting places, the one fairly deserted one at the Christmas Tree House, touting the "Official Santa Claus" and the other extremely crowded one with a long waiting line right at the arctic circle. Like a true blue Singaporean preferring queueing up, we got a ticket for entry an hour later, and adjourned to the Santa's Buger and Pizza place for sumptuous lunch of vege burgers and fries and hot chocolate. It was bland so we tried out a few dips as well. While eating, we also learned about how the import of snowmobile from Bombardier transformed the life here. 

When our time came, the entrance to Santa was followed by a long wait in line of about another hour, only to get 30 seconds for a quick photo with "Santa" of the day, followed by a rude shock that the photo costs EUR 55! We thought for a second and said no thanks! The kids were not keen on meeting a mascot in the first place. The most interesting thing was ironically finding a photo of an Indian diplomat and Chinese president with Santa Claus, and a reminder that it was 11 days to Christmas. Now that I think of it, the place didn't even have any Christmas carols or background music to keep us entertained while waiting. The Scandinavians do value their quietness and find serenity in silence, even at the most commercialised place. 

After meeting Santa, we drove off to the Arktikum museum and science centre. We arrived there around 2.30pm in extremely foggy conditions. While I had got the culture pass to go to the two museums here, we decided to just spend the rest of the time at the Arktikum. It was a lovely cosy place dedicated to explaining about the arctic. 

The museum gave us a lot of insight into the arctic landscape, arctic seasons, animals and birds, flora, indigenous people and their lifestyle. It also had a wonderful exhibition about Rovaniemi, how it got caught up in Workd War 2 and the reconstruction post war. The Finns had a complicated  WW2 history, defending successfully against vastly outnumbered Russian forces, then aligning themselves with the Germans to prevent a second wave attack, launching an offensive themselves along with the Germans against Russia, then towards the end of the war, having a treaty with Russia to get rid of the remaining Germans. A lot of Finns also had to go as refugees to Sweden during the war and cede about 10% of their territory as a result, along with other reparations. I am sure I am oversimplifying but it gives us a feel of the harsh realities and complexities of a multi-pronged war fought by a smaller nation, and its consequences. But just the experience would have enhanced the famed resilience of the Finns which is still seen today. 

We had a nice break in between at the museum cafe and enjoyed the local pastries and drinks. Berries are the in-thing so I had a berry lemonade. My daughter was keen to stay until close to explore, so we left her to herself while we relaxed a bit in very comfortable chairs in the aisle. 

When we came out of the museum, ours was the only car parked there! Anyway we decided that we will go in for an Indian dinner for a change and went to Curry Masala near the city centre. There was a Rang Mahal nearby as well, but later it dawned on me that their primary business might be targeting Indian tour groups, so it makes sense to be located next to each other for convenience and in case of larger groups. The north Indian food amd rice was good to taste after a few days of wheat based diet. 

After dinner, we stocked up a bit in a 24 hour supermarket and called it an early night. It is so difficult to keep awake after 8pm here anyway, the joy of winter!