A Week of Goodbyes

This past week I had to say goodbye to two of my best friends out here. Veera, the team's best cheerleader, moved to Paris for school, and Tehane, my fellow American, went back home to Hawaii because she will be having her baby girl soon! It was so sad saying goodbye to them. We kept putting it off and making plans to see each other up until they left. And to make matters worse, Rusty had away games this weekend :( But I survived! And I am just grateful to have met such great friends here.

Sending Veera and Tehane off and on to their next adventure made me feel like the short time we have left here is just ticking away; part of me wishes I could slow it down. I started to think about how sad I will be to not only say goodbye to all of the great people we have met, but to our life here in Finland. 

I have always hated goodbyes. I am not good at them- I can hardly say a goodbye without tears. I used to think I would grow accustomed to it and that I would be able to go from place to place without a second thought, but now I doubt that will ever be true, and I'm okay with that because as sad as goodbyes are, they also mean you've had a great experience and now you're moving on to a new chapter in your life!

Lucky for me, we still have a couple more months here, so enough of the sappiness ;) I am excited for spring to come and I am excited for the playoffs to start! The sun has come back so quickly! We went from having about four hours of daylight to about ten in just a couple months. It has been exciting to see every single day get more sunlight! Rusty's last regular season match is March 10th and then the first round of playoffs start! Each round is best of seven, so there will be lots of games! Lastly, I am excited to visit Veera and Tehane sometime soon! I mean, Paris and Hawaii are not bad places to visit ;)

 

Sunday "Sledging"

Last Sunday, Etta had a team activity- Sledding! Or as some people here say, "Sledging" :) I had been wanting to go, so it was perfect!

We went to a park about 25 minutes from Oulu. Rusty and I rode with the team manager and his two kids, who were the cutest kids ever. Kids speaking Finnish is adorable! I just wish I could understand it! Especially since they were chatting with me the whole way. I did understand a few English words- dog, Mickey Mouse, and six! haha

The park was bigger than I expected. It had hills for sledding and for ski jumping. We grilled sausages over a fire while watching kids sled. There were crazy ones getting air off of a short, steep hill, resilient ones who would get hit by an incoming sledder, but wouldn't let that stop them, and ones who reminded me of Randy off of A Christmas Story, "I can't put my arms down!" My siblings and I would have had a hay day at this park in our younger years. Growing up, my family would drive north, towards Tahoe, until we found snow so that we could go sledding each winter. One year, my sisters and I even got a huge sled for Christmas, which made for a very exciting Christmas morning...well that and my gigantic Eeyore stuffed animal. But anyways, back to the team activity. We enjoyed our sausages and then finally felt brave enough to do some sledding of our own ;)

 

 

Ollie's cute baby girl was sleeping in there! How adorable is that?
He pulled her around on the sled til she fell asleep. Rusty referred to her as a "baby hot pocket".

 

Rovaniemi: Santa's Village

Rusty and I got up early the morning after our husky ride to go meet Santa! I made some of my family in Utah stay up so they could watch us online- there is a live feed (if you're ever bored go to santaclauslive.com to watch a bunch of tourists meet Santa haha). We made sure to be there when they opened at 10am, since that was already 2am in Utah! We were the only ones there, so we got to meet with Santa for 10 minutes. We were told by an elf that that was a record because visits usually last 3-4 minutes. During our time with him, we introduced ourselves, talked about Rudolph and Utah, Rusty sang him Jingle Bells, we chatted about volleyball, and Facetimed my sisters Kirsten and Kendall so they could talk to him as well...we were pretty excited no one was in line to meet him so we could just keep chatting...but maybe Santa wasn't as excited?... ;) 

Next on our Santa's Village to-do list: The reindeer! I get so excited just seeing them, and they take me right back to my childhood days watching Prancer...Anyways, Rusty and I recently bought a reindeer pelt. After hearing "Awe that's so sad" from each one of my family members, I began to feel guilty/sad for the reindeer. But, my guilt was relieved after talking to a lady who worked with the reindeer. She informed me that they're usually only killed for food (reindeer meat is pretty popular here) and then they take the fur. Phew!

Rusty and I got stamps in our passports, so we can officially say we've been to the Arctic Circle! The lady who stamped them chose the page that has a bear fishing in the river with the sun in the background because she said it could be Finland at 1am since the sun doesn't go down in the summer.

We also paid a visit to the huskies, including four husky puppies (insert heart eye emoji), shared a "Santa Burger", saw the world's largest snowmen, and visited Santa's post office, which is where kids' letters to Santa actually get mailed. They have bins full of letters, and a huge case to organize them by country- there were letters from everywhere. Jamaica, Honduras, Turkmenistan, even places I hadn't even heard of!

Thanks to Rovaniemi- we made a major dent in our winter bucket list. Finland is still managing to pleasantly surprise me. I'm becoming more of a winter person each day and I am so grateful for the once in a lifetime experiences I have had out here so far.

Our trip made it feel like Christmas all over again!

 

 

I got so nervous meeting Santa, I forgot where we lived haha...

 

 

 

 

 

You can't really see it, but there is a sign pointing straight down that says
"Center of the Earth 6370km". I really felt like we were at the North Pole!

 

Rusty refused to take a picture with this elf...but I had to because it was so Finnish