Finland in 4 days ¦ BEST TRIP EVER ¦ santa claus village

We made it to Lapland, Finland and we are so excited to be here. We're at the cutest Airbnb I think I've ever booked. It has a house and then it has a sauna separate. We're on this frozen lake and it goes for miles and miles and there's no one to be seen and it's the perfect place to see the northern lights so we're hoping we get lucky enough to see them. So cold though so we are going and I almost hit Rudolph. So I just went and grabbed Blake because I was going to the bathroom in the outhouse out here because I heard something and I look over here and look what it is. It's a reindeer. Can you see it? Try to be quiet with your shoes. This is the squeakiest Wow I'm literally so close to this reindeer. I don't think they're gonna let us get any closer because they're wild ones. We're headed to Santa Claus' to do a reindeer sleigh ride. It feels very Christmassy here and the vibes are magic. It's very magical. About to go cross into the arctic circle real quick. Let's go. If you can see your breath it's so cold. How cool it's negative nine. Now we're gonna go and ride some reindeer. Yeah. We are in the sleigh waiting to go on our reindeer ride. I'm very excited. I want to pet the reindeer but you're not. And hug it. And hug it and kiss it. Yeah it is. Close to me. It does look. I'm really scared. It looks like you have antlers. Can you see them? If there's a reindeer right behind us it's not gonna headbutt us right? Look I look like I have antlers. Huge snowman right now. I had to put on my earmuffs because I was getting way too cold. I started the hot hands in my gloves and now we're gonna go to Waffle Cafe and get something warm because I'm cold. We're sitting in a random spot because there's no seating it's so busy. I just got a basic hot chocolate and Blake got let me show you Glühwein. Glühwein? Yeah. It's good though. You tried it already? It's sweet. It's good though. Sending our cards off to our mom. Got our card. Our parents a letter and then us a letter for next Christmas. We just made it back from Santa Claus Village. If you come to Finland you definitely have to go to Santa Claus Village. It's very touristy but it had so much to do. I actually wanted to say a couple background things about this Airbnb. The pictures that were posted on Airbnb of this were like three photos. I didn't think it was going to be like an amazing Airbnb like it is. It's actually really cool. It's named Astella. Yep. Which means bear and the host met us out here in the middle of the night. We arrived really late and he talked about why he named it Astella. It was a pretty cool story. He said that back in the day there were some hunters and they shot a mother bear who actually had cubs and they felt bad for the cubs so every night they bring the cubs food and now it's a beer a Finnish beer and the name of this Airbnb. So it's like local folktale. And this cute little cabinet has touches of Astella all around it. A little bear painting, a bear tapestry, a cute bear clock that I honestly want. Yeah me too. And I think it's really cool because our dog's name is Baron and we nicknamed him Bear Bear so I might start calling him Astella Astella when we get home. Can you go start the sauna now please? I can go start the sauna. Blake's Okay in the true Finnish fashion rolling the snow. I don't like this. I don't think it's warm enough to have done that. Oh it's freezing. What did you think? It was cold man. Are you glad you did it though? Yeah. We're making s'mores. We're outside by the fire warming up. We're waiting on the northern lights. We're hoping we'll get lucky because it's only 8 15 so we have plenty of time. It feels so much later than that. I know. Can't wait. Oh yeah I caught mine on fire. See and also it's a burnt marshmallow. I do not like burnt marshmallows. See I burned the crap out of mine. I like mine golden brown like a normal person. Oh oh snap. There you go. Look at that. One thing about making s'mores in the arctic circle you can warm up you can burn your marshmallow but your chocolate will be frozen hard. Good morning. We didn't see the northern lights last night unfortunately. I'm kind of bummed about that but it's our last day here in this Airbnb cabin so I think what we're going to do is make the best out of it and go play in the snow because we missed the snow from the states. There's literally no one for miles and miles on this frozen lake. It is insane. Look at this sunrise at 11 o'clock. I do not like that. There you go and then you can see what you're working with. That is sketchy. I guess the finish way to check if how deep it is the ice you stick your hand in and then you put your finger up to the ice line that's how deep it is. Oh yeah. Oh it's not too deep. Yeah I definitely would not want to like be in that for a long time. This is some weird snow. It literally won't stick together. Really? So I think we're gonna have a hard time building a snowman. Our angels are gonna hit each other. Dang I'm sad. I'm sad. I'm actually really sad. Just left our Airbnb. We're really sad about it honestly. That Airbnb was such a cool stay and now we're headed to the husky park. I think we are going to ride a sleigh with the huskies. Oh he needs his mom. At first I was bummed that they didn't have the longest ride but I'm so glad we didn't do the longest ride. I'm frozen. It would have been fun. It hurts. My lips purple like they hurt. They're fine. I'm so cold. We just made it to our second Airbnb. We just checked in and it's actually a little room connected to someone's house but it's really cool because it's not like a shared accommodation. It is the room, the door, the one and only door we have the key to and then it's just basically this open room with a little kitchenette area where we have a microwave, a fridge, and a kettle. Just the necessities. Obviously a bed to sleep and this ginormous window to hopefully see the northern lights through and then we also have this really cool bathroom. I'll show you. This is the best part of booking the whole day and here's the bathroom. It's really cool. The shower's right here and the best part is this sauna right here which is attached to the bathroom and it just looks so nice in here. Oh it's already warming up and the view out the window is so nice. We actually spent a majority of the night looking out this back window right here trying to see the northern lights. We stayed up and we went outside. We took a picture. We did see a little bit of green but then the clouds kind of rolled in and we didn't see anything else for the rest of the night so I think tonight we're definitely gonna have to drive around and try and go see them. Yeah hopefully. The last time I planned to. I don't wanna. I just tried to do a very long walk and I was like this is still way too long but it's like yeah it's way too long so we headed back. We thought we saw it. Turns out on the way back we took a long turn. We went on one that said have winter spikes. We don't got no winter spikes and I think we found it because I think I can see it. Yeah I'll take you there. Oops. That camera is literally not doing it justice. It is so cold. Oh yeah. And Blake is so frozen. Look at you. Look at mine. I'm sure I'm frozen too. Okay let's go back. I'm cold. Show your mustache. Frozen. There's my eyelashes. I have a lot of snot right now. Okay hood down. Oh my scarf. Is it gonna be ruined? No. Oh crap it's cold. I'm sweating though. I have literally not stopped sweating since we started. Will you shake that out? Yep. Holy crap. Long day hiking. That took like four hours in total. Honestly an hour drive there too so like more like six hours. So now we're finally back. We are going to Tromso Norway tomorrow and I'm so excited but the only thing is we have not seen the northern lights on this trip so hopefully tonight we see them. If not we're gonna drive around and try to like find clear skies and stuff since we didn't book a tour or anything. But before we go we've got to pack our stuff up. The airbnb is kind of a mess so we gotta clean up all our stuff.