My last week in Oulu was definitely one of my best. Maybe it was the Christmas spirit in the air or the fact that we all knew we would have to say our goodbyes shortly that made me cherish every moment during the week.
On Saturday I did a day trip to Rovaniemi to visit Santa Claus Village. It was a 3 hour bus ride each way to the city center of Rovaniemi and another half hour local bus to the village. Once there we visited Santa (who surprisingly speaks a lot of languages quite fluently), saw huskies and reindeer, and crossed the Arctic Circle at 66° 32’ 35”.
The next day after getting some work done in the morning I spent the entire afternoon into the evening helping my floormates cook Christmas dinner. It felt really festive because as you walked down the hall everyone’s apartment door was propped open and all the kitchens smelled insanely good. That plus the Christmas music playing in the background made it pretty perfect. The dinner menu included: pumpkin soup and bread sticks, salmon bonbons, queso fundido (with guacamole and tortillas), garlic bread, sgroppino, lemon/garlic/herb roast chicken (x2), pulled pork sliders, chili coleslaw, cucumber salad, apple moes, baklava, chocolate cake with ice cream and lingonberries, gingerbread cookies, and glögi. All the food was served on a really nicely decorated table complete with candle centerpieces and nameplaces with mini candy canes. Needless to say we were all in a pretty serious food coma by the end of the meal. I’m really thankful to have had such a fantastic group of people on my floor this term and grateful for such an amazing first “traditional” Christmas dinner.
Weeknights were full of spending time together in the lounge, late night snowball fights, and watching movies. Sadly by the following Friday we said our first goodbye.
I spent most of the week finishing up projects for school and planning my end of term trip. Tomorrow I’ll be leaving Oulu to go to Helsinki where I’ll be dropping off my luggage at a friend’s house prior to traveling through Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest for the next ten days. Then I’ll be heading back to Helsinki to go back home to Toronto! I still have a couple blog posts left so this isn’t goodbye yet!
As always thank you for reading!
-Pallavi