Trip to Lapland

Going to Lapland is one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ trips, especially through the eyes of our 5 year old Dylan. A day package excursion flying from Norwich airport on Sunday 13^th December.

We kept the trip a secret from Dylan until arriving at the airport, aiming to give him a lovely surprise but more so to save our sanity avoiding all of Dylan’s incessant questioning of “WHY…” Milo decided he was too old for the trip – big mistake he would have loved it too! He stayed at home enjoying his space.

At the airport the whole process of check in, boarding the plane and flight was made fun as the plane full of passengers were all going to Pajala for the same reason. The memorable moments for me were,

• Dylan’s opinion of another passenger, who was not for Lapland but more likely off to work as a rough tough rigger worker, with his long pony-tail and t-shirt of a bearded skull and cross bones – Dylan’s assumption was “…he is a pirate, mummy, his cutlass must be in his bag…”
•  When the plane was visible to the passengers with ‘InterAir’ on the side there was a wave of amused uncertainty as nobody had heard of the airline, being a bit late leaving the vibe was how hard do we flap. The reality being the Polish owned airline was employed for its expertise to manage frozen conditions, perfect!

Pajala is in Sweden only 20kms from Finland being 100kms inside the Arctic Circle and only needed a further car journey for a day to be at the North Pole. When we disembarked from the plane it was into a really bright fresh minus 21 degrees which dropped to minus 25 degrees by the end of the day. The most noticeable sensation in such an extreme temperature was the manner in which the inside of your nose iced up as warm breath hit the coldness, this took a bit of time to get used to. The snow was pretty icy as fresh snow had not fallen for a view days but was expected in the coming week.

We were greeted by Laplanders dressed in traditional costume to embark a bus to Santa’s village where we were all togged up in thermal wear from head to feet, with lots of assistance to make the process really easy. We were told to keep warm by making the most of the different fires and tee-pees with refreshment, then ready to play.

Playing started with,

• Sleigh rides pulled by the reindeer, a really lovely gentle ride through the snow filled fir forests, sitting on fur hides.
• Tobogganing from the top of a reasonable slop on trays with little control. Dylan was good at this and kept going up over and over, I had a go and it was really good squealing fun.
• Star Angels, snow ball fighting and snow man building if you could find soft snow – we did some of these.
•  Sleigh rides pulled by huskie dogs, a really energetic ride. Dylan’s description of this experience was it was like riding the ‘Jolly Roger’, as the speed we were travelling over the ice ruts meant we felt we were airborne going up and landing back down, definitely hanging on to the sleigh and each other as tightly as possible. And yes we experienced huskie dog’s pooing whilst running fortunately no dogging was required! It was by far an exhilarating experience enhanced by the huge crying noise made by the huskies when waiting to run impacted by the dogs silence when running.
• The finale was to follow the long enchanted magic trail to visit Santa in his warm abode, with letter in hand Dylan was able to post and have a chat with the big man himself. Santa was very authentic and engaged with Dylan well. Conversation since has been associated with his Santa chat, telling us what Santa and his reindeer wanted for their Christmas Eve supper. The sleigh ride back to the meeting room at minus 25 degrees was perishing on my face with a definite need to warm up.

The journey home was much as we experienced coming in reverse to our waiting plane being as our flight was the only flight of the day in to Pajala. So it was interesting to watch the process of de-icing the plane as we waited on the runway ready for the three hour journey home with many sleeping children.

An absolutely fabulous trip which I believe I have captured in my pics and video below, it’s only a couple of minutes long accompanied by the music of ‘Lapland’.