Lapland - Days 5&6 (March 7-8)

This was the second day where the poor doctors had to endure 3 hours of lectures. I went for a lovely walk with one of the women - across the bridge, along the river and then crossed back on the ice - frozen rivers are very useful! We also did some shopping, but there really isn't much to buy here.

At 11:30 we drove to the zoo - about an hour away. It's not a zoo in the normal sense of the word - it's a place where they collect the local animals and also some almost extinct species. It's mainly outside and I am not sure how they manage without hibernating, but most of the animals were wide awake and there were also quite a few birds. Was nice as far as zoos go.

We sat at dinner with some very nice and interesting people who were not from the doctors' group - made for a very nice change.

This morning we woke up at 4:15 for a quick breakfast and were on the road by 5:30 (non-trivial as getting dressed takes quite a while here). We drove for almost 2 hours to Kemi on the Baltic sea, enjoying a beautiful sunrise on the way (sidenote - the days are 45 minutes longer now than they were when we arrived 6 days ago!). We boarded the icebreaker at the harbor and started the best day of the trip.

The icebreaker was retired some years ago as it is too small to help the big boats on the water today, and was converted into a tourist attraction. Turns out icebreakers cannot operate without ice due to the egg-like shape of their hulls, so this one is used as a moored floating restaurant in the summer. But today it plowed bravely along, breaking the ice on the way. It was not terribly cold so I managed to spend close to an hour on deck and it was fascinating to see the thick sheet of ice just crumbling away.

Finally we docked in the middle of the frozen sea, and they lowered a gangplank for us to walk on the ice. This was exciting enough but the best part was the floating garments we could change into - they made us look like teletubbies but allowed us to step into the icy water and float on our backs - was amazing! Everybody seemed to enjoy looking ridiculous and paddling in icy water.

After a nice lunch in Kemi we continued to the ice palace. It's a huge structure which is rebuilt every winter. This year's theme was cartoons and it was fascinating to see what can be done with ice. The palace also has about 20 bedrooms and a honeymoon suite and it seems that quite a few people sleep there (they do provide furs and sleeping bags...), despite the cold and the steep prices...

So that's that. We'll probably hang out with some of our new friends tonight and tomorrow will check out and drive to the airport to catch our 1pm flight. It's definitely been a unique and lovely vacation!