Traveling Fool

 I like lists, lists of books, countries, counties and geographical markers, like 0 degrees longitude (Greenwich), Land's End and the freshly crossed off the list - The Arctic Circle. Apparently, I am not the only person with that idea based on the throngs of people visiting at the same time as me. It wasn't as hard to get to as one might imagine, in fact, once there, I was kicking myself for not trying to work out the details and avoid traveling with an annoying tour group. But let's not dwell on that.  We arrived at Santa's Christmas Village around 9 or 10 in the morning and were given an orientation and then left to our own devices. I went to Santa's Post Office which seemed like pure chaos to me, but I was determined to send a Santa postcard to my friend in Australia who has worked as a Santa for over twenty years, and then get out of there. I really just meandered around, looking for some good photo ops, maybe a souvenir or two, although my suitcase was too sma...

After almost 24 hours of traveling, I finally landed at my destination of Oulu, Finland. Yes, that would be Finland in December. You know me, when other people plan a Florida or Caribbean vacation, I look for the coldest place I can find, but with a unique twist. The main driver was going above the Arctic Circle, via a country I have never visited, with the vague promise of see Aurora Borealis. Well, two out of three isn’t bad. I’m taking an organized tour for the five days and then going back to my anti-social ways for a few more days in Helsinki and Tallinn. We’ll save my thoughts on the organized tour for later. We’ll get through the first three full days of touring and sightseeing first. On day one, the big highlight was going to Hailuoto, and island in the Bothnian Bay; relatively new in geological terms. We took a ferry out and one of the neatest things was watching the ice break and get churned up as we pushed through. We had a little tour of the island and learned about the his...