Dilara The Explorer

With the Friendship Program, I met an amazing Finnish family! So, what happened was, I was invited for some very Finnish food tasting to their house! It was so cool! First, we went to Prisma to get some food and it was a good thing for me since I also learnt a lot about other products in English since I never could figure out what they were, than we went to Kaarina where they live and started on doing a three meal course.First we had breakfast which had oats with blueberry and butter and we had the Karelian Pasty with a butter that had eggs inside! That was so tasty! I'm going back to get some more! Later, for lunch and dinner (we combined both courses), we had some blood sausage, tiny bread from Lapland, spinach pancakes, homemade mustard that tasted amazing, Sininen Lenkki sausage, Liver of different animals mixed together, some Finnish cheese and to top it all up, some jam and milk! It was interesting to drink milk but it was actually kind of refreshing too! Also we did have rye...

Today, we visited the Abo Svenska Theater which was amazing! First of all, I just loved the design inside as we went inside and were sitting down at the audience places because looking up to the ceiling, you could see some very amazing artwork and the chandelier was just so beautiful! It was amazing to hear about how old the building was and the balcony of the emperor, how the poor people would sit upstairs and how the stage was smaller. Also sitting there, you could definitely feel the old vibe.These were amazing until we got to get up on stage and looking down from there...that is my dream and I imagined the audience sitting down there and watching me. I also believe that it would look very nice to do ballet there! It was quite interesting to learn that the stage floor could move and to see the ropes for different sets which also showed that it was an old building. I also loved the backstage where the actors would wait and was surprised to learn about the stables. Also the dog ...

On day four,which sadly was our last day in Lapland, I was very upset to go but before our trip was officialy over, we had one more place to go which I had been longing for weeks and weeks : Husky Farm. Now as people know me, I love animals so I was pretty excited to go to the farm and see the huskies and I only thought that I would see the huskies…I was wrong. First of all, we were given a brief information before entering the farm and directly were seated in the husky ride, and off we took for the great adventure. I did not think that the huskies would go that fast and we would be mostly flying up in the air and it was so fun to just feel that wind and watch the huskies run like it was their passion. I don’t know how the ride ended but it was like heaven and I didn’t want it to end at all. After the ride, as other people were riding we had some amazing time with the reindeers! The lovely lady working there gave us gingerbread cookies and we could kiss the reindeers by handing the...

Although I was dying of sickness, I was pretty excited for day 3 for one and only reason…snowmobile safari! I’ve always wanted to go on those mobiles and I thought why not do that in Lapland? I knew that it would be fun and, come on it is the best view in Lapland. So we went into to place and got our big suits and gear on as we were informed about the safari we would do which would take around 2 hours and what we should and should not do. After that and some horror stories, we were given a briefing of how to ride the snowmobile and not crash, which was kind of scary. I mean, I was worried since I didn’t want to pay around 800 euros so…you get what I mean. That quickly went away as we started moving because it was the most beautiful thing ever! We were going around the forrest tracks and it was so beautiful, every tree covered in snow and the nature! Also it was fun to wave to other people around and what I noticed was the fact that everyone was so kind, we would give ways and stop so...

Now, that was our second night in Lapland and me and my friends were just getting cosy in the cottage that was extremely traditional and cool. We were just eating,chatting and having fun but I had just one thing on my mind : Northern Lights. I had to see them so I had installed this app that would notify us but it was getting very late and it showed around %10 chance. I was frustrated but had my camera out waiting for the lights. As we were chatting, I got a notification saying %40 and I must tell you, I don’t even know how I got on my coat and just ran out with my camera as my friends followed. I looked up at the sky and there was this grey thing but it looked like a cloud or was this the ‘’magic’’? I was dissapointed and was thinking ‘’If this is the lights like…people are photoshopping them?’’ but all of a sudden it just turned so green I screamed. We were screaming so everyone got out of their cottages and we were all going like ‘’wowwwww’’ and just watching these amazing ligthts...

On the second day of our trip to Lapland, we visited Santa Claus Village! Now I must say that I was pretty excited for this place since I had done research months and months ago, so I had an idea of what was coming up. I also was so ready to take some amazing photos! We got off the bus and went straight into Santa’s Post Office where we could buy souveniours alongside sending some postcards to family and friends. I personally loved it since there were very cute prodcuts and the people working there were dressed up as elfs. They looked amazing and were so kind! Other than that, there were a lot of building over there so we decided to go in all of them with my friends and mainly figured out that they were just other mini shops! I also must say that I loved Santa’s Salmon Restaurant since it had a very different design and looked extremely cool! Me and my friends were kind of all over the place so we decided to meet up at the Arctic Circle and took a bunch of fun photos, boomerangs and ...