#2.2 Napapiiri ja Joulupukki (the Arctic circle and Santa Clause)

After 2 short weeks of Autumn, all the leaves were completely bare, leaving the trees exposed to what everyone told me would be a very cold winter. The seasons change so fast! The days started getting shorter. When i first got here it didn't get dark until 9 or so, but all of a sudden it was getting dark before my Finnish class was over at 5:30. Every one told me that this was the most miserable time of the year, it was dark and bare, they said that once they finally got some snow things would brighten up.

The sky here seams like its always has an impenetrable layer of clouds. Cloudless days are few and far between. Some times we have a dense fog that covers everything, i love it! We will be driving across one of 2 bridges into the city, but you wont be able to see the watter below, or even whats on the other side of the bridge, so your driving on a bridge into nothingness! Or we'll be driving along the river bank, and it feels like your looking at the end of the world, because you will just see the bank, and then nothingness, not even the water. All this time as its
getting darker its also getting colder. It went from the meager teens when i first got here to single digits celsius. The first frost wasn't that far off, and the first snow was always just around the corner.

The First 'jakso' or 'period' of school came to a close during their test week. Each day there is a test for a different class. You have to be at school at around 9 and then you can leave once your done with the test. If you don't have a test one day then you don't have to come to school. I only took 3 tests, one in chemistry one in english and one in geography.

The chemistry one was hard because half the test was about naming molecules, like dihydrogen oxide and stuff like that, but in Finnish. They don't even have the same names for most of the elements! So it was crazy to try and learn what 2-metyyli-2-propanoli meant in English,
and then i had to draw them out, crazy. Part of the geography test was vocabulary words, there was a word, and i had to explain what it meant. Well the teacher hardly speaks any English so she could only translate half of the words, and she couldn't explain what they meant to me with out giving away the answers. Needless to say i didn't do to well on either of those tests.

So i had several days off while everyone else had their tests. I got an email from one of the Italian boys from Oulu saying that he wanted to come up and visit because his host family was going to a funeral. I also talked to the other Turkish girl who was living in Ranua (80km south) and she decided to come up also. I talked to my dad and made a plan for that Saturday. We would go up to the Arctic circle (napapiiri) and meet Santa Clause (Joulupukki literally 'the
Christmas goat" in Finnish)!

We picked Filippo up at the train station and ye§im up from the train station. my host dad told me that Tarja Mari and some of Mari's friends were already there and we were going to meet them, in Finnish, and i had to translate for Filippo and Ye§im, they were impressed with my Finnish :) There is a collection of really touristy kind of shops on the arctic circle and there is a line down middle of the complex that is the arctic circle. If you didn't already know, let me remind you again, Santa clause LIVES here NOT in the north pole like everyone else has told you. They even have Santa clause's official post office where all the millions of letters children write come to. During the Christmas season, the city of Rovaniemi gets about 50,000 tourists,
which is pretty much the same as it's population. Every one is crazy about Santa here. Buildings in town say Santa's official this and Santa's official that. We even have the worlds most northern McDonald's, and yes its is Santa's 'Official' McDonald's.

So we walked around the different stores that all sold the same kinda of kitchy souvenirs that any local would be ashamed of buying. We all bought a few things,and we took some pictues alond the arctic circle.

Then we went to Santa's building or house, or whatever you call it. A nice elf let us in, greeting us in Finnish, then English then Italian. You have to go through this like arctic themed almost like haunted house type of thing, across an ice bridge and up the stairs through the gears of a giant compass/clock thing. Then you have to wait outside there big doors until the real Santa is ready to see you. Outside his doors there is a wall covered in photos of famous people meeting Santa. Some of them were pretty funny. There were a few Finnish politicians, and a few Finnish metal bands as well as the the Dudesons (like a Finnish version of the show jackass) and few other famous people.

The guard elf beckoned to us then. It was time for us to meet him! He was sitting on a huge armchair surrounded by old world kitch, it felt like his study or something, the effect was really cozy, but it was spoiled be the fact that the whole opposite wall was covered with high tech cameras and a board looking elf behind them.

"Where are you all from" Santa said in deep rumbling Finnish. My host dad told him, and he switched into flawless English addressing me first. "Welcome welcome. Where in America are you from?" "Denver Colorado" "Ah yes, the Rockey mountains". Wow I was impressed by this guys geography, wait that's right he's Santa...he just knows.... Then he switched into Italian for Filippo, they talked about soccer or something. He talked to the Turkish girl in English though
haha, but he knew exactly where she was from when she told him, he even had a little story about it. Crazy. He asked why and for how long we would be in Finland and we told him that we were all exchange students. Then he talked to all the Finnish people in Finnish, i think asking where they were all from and stuff like that. then we all gathered around him and got our picture taken. All in All i was very impressed by this Santa fellow.We left saying goodbye and thank you in several different languages.

We went downstairs to the place where the elves were trying to sell us the pictures with
Santa for way to much money. by host dad bought a big one for 30€ and i split 5 little pictures with the other exchange students for a mere 25€. It was for a good cause i told by self, it would go towards presents for little kids or to feed Santa's reindeer or something... speaking of which i have seen like 5 different heards of reindeer since Ive been here. Just wandering around the forests! they are supper cool!

We had lunch at a touristy buffet. they served reindeer! Filippo and Yesim tried it, but i stuck to potatoes. Afterwards My dad dropped us off in town, and i played tour guide for my friends. We called the other Turkish girl and she came also. we were laughing and joking in the center of town, we were probably the loudest thing to be there in a while, Finnish people are soo quiet! we went to a coffee place and i decided to call some of my Finnish friends to see if they wanted to meet everyone. Two of them came by and we all had a pretty good conversation. we had lost track of time Filippo's train was supposed to leave in 10 minutes, so one of my Finnish friends gave him a ride to the station.

The rest of us got a ride from my other friend to the Tivoli, this bar/ concert theater where bands would come and play. We met up with my sister and her friends. The band we were going to see is pretty big in Finland, a little rock band called Negative that i really like. The show was fantastic! It was so cool to see these guys that i had heard about in the US. The only thing was Finnish people don't jump around or shout half as much as we do in the U.S, but besides that it was fantastic. I caught the bass players sweaty towel and i bought an autographed CD from the merch table.

After the show Yesim came and spent the night at my place. She showed me a lot of cool Turkish stuff on the Internet, and we took turns showing each other our homes on google earth. soo cool. We stayed up late just talking which was cool because its hard to have a really good conversation with Finns because all the ones at my school are so shy. When she left we gave each other hugs! I can always count on the Turkish girls for some good hugs!