Visiting Rovaniemi and Chatting with Santa

So last weekend our journey took my friend Christin and me way up north, behind the vast forest lands and far away from proper civilization - until we even crossed the Arctic Circle and officially set foot on polar grounds. Though, it was not what you would expect - no icy desert with some reindeers and bears here and there (we were there in the middle of September after all, which meant that we just missed the first snow fall by being a couple of days too early)

The night we spent in Rovaniemi, capital city of Finnish Lapland, with two locals, close to the centre, meaning only about 15 minutes to walk. Even if Rovaniemi is considered a city, (the northernmost of Finland actually), there's no comparison to any other I've been visiting so far, excluding Vaasa.

So, even if we did not have any snow, there was sure some beautiful autumn landscape and trees in all kinds of warm colours. - like this:

Also, we could not catch a glimpse of the northern lights, since the sky was all filled with rainy clouds. Well, after all, we saw them at the Arktikum. There was a darkened cinema-like room inside the museum where you could lie down on pillows and look up to the ceiling and observe northern lights "secondhand". :P
They also showed to tales of how people explained the existance of this phenomenon. First and probably most well-known one says that it's a fox running across the sky, swining his tale and through that enlightening the sky. Another one claims that it's the dead playing football with the skull of a walrus. Watch it here:

We even met a German-Finnish guy who used to work at the Arktikum sometime and we ended up getting in for free, personal guide included ;D thanks, Philipp!

Last, but not least, we took a bus to Santa Claus Village, where we bought some postcards from the elves, enjoyed the strange feeling of listening to Christmas songs in September and met the one and only Santa Claus himself in his office, having some nice talk in German, though we did not end up sitting on his lap :P