The fun continues in Rovaniemi! On Sunday we headed to Santa’s Village to visit the Husky Park. The girls were so excited! They have 108 huskies right now, and they are all so well behaved. They are very friendly and quiet. It was amazing to be walking among 100+ dogs and not hear a sound!

They had a neat display showing us how the team is laid out. They have between 6 and 12 dogs on the team at a team, adding more “team” dogs as necessary.

At some point a couple of the dogs were moved from one kennel to the other and every single dog started barking and jumping around. They were all hoping for a chance to run! But once they saw what was actually happening, they calmed down. They do offer rides in the summer but it has to be below 15 degrees C and it was too warm the day we were there. We were happy just petting and visiting!

At this point, everyone was super hungry so we headed over to Santa’ village. Most things were closed, either due to it being low season or Covid-19, but we did get to meet the real Santa and walked around a bit. It was nice that it was pretty empty because the girls got a lot of time to chat with Santa (and were thrilled to find out he speaks German and English, among many other languages). You’ll have to wait until our Christmas card (email?) to see the photo with Santa….

We ended Sunday with an hour or two at another fun playground in town.

On Monday we took a field trip! 🙂 I really wanted to take the girls to the Ranua Zoo but it was about an hour away from our campground, so I wasn’t sure how we could swing it with the 3 hours of homeschooling we usually do. Then I saw that Hannah’s class was taking a field trip one day last week, and I thought, “yes! that’s what we’ll do”. The girls were very happy for both the day off traditional learning and the chance to visit the zoo. And I do believe they learned a lot! It was a beautiful zoo with only Arctic animals in very large enclosures. And a very cool playground. We all had fun!

Then on Tuesday we took another field trip! This time to the Arktikum museum in town, a science center and museum that had a ton of info on life in the Arctic, the unique culture and animal life there as well as the impacts of climate change. The girls weren’t thrilled with it, but I think they learned a bit and did enjoy parts of it. I learned a lot!

Then we ended the day (and our week in Rovaniemi) with another dinner at the Mexican restaurant, Yuca. This time, Steffen and I sneaked in a date! We got the kids some pizza to go, set them up in the van, and then just the two of us ate in the restaurant. It was a nice break! And everyone was super happy.

We all really enjoyed Rovaniemi but on Wednesday it was time to move south. You can feel the weather getting colder overnight and the campgrounds are mostly empty. We are (slowly) making our way towards Helsinki, through the Eastern route.