It was hard for me to sleep on the train, it was not that loud, but the sounds were not consistent as the train passed by rail switches. I was able to finally get some sleep, but it felt restless. Stephanie seemed to be sleeping well above me, I could tell by her breathing, but she can generally sleep anywhere. I wished I had found the earplugs we knew we had from the travel set they had given us on one of our flights, but that was about impossible without causing a ruckus, and if they were in the suitcases, that was just not an option. Of course, we were still both tired, some from last night, some from lack of sleep on the flights, and some from just being in a different time zone and not yet acclimated to it.
We had set the alarm for 6:00 AM, but it was not necessary. We knew from the schedule that the stop before Rovaniemi was in a town called Kami, and the conductor made an announcement as we were arriving there, and made sure to let people know the next stop was Rovaniemi, about an hour away. It was nice they also made the stop announcements in English, but nothing else was said in English the whole trip.
We got up and started to get ready. it was quite a struggle in the small space of the room. We had put our clothes out last night to make sure we had everything we needed this morning. Stephanie had decided last night that she would go ahead and wear her snow boots today, so she got hers out of the suitcase last night. I was planning on wearing my normal shoes today, but we had seen a lot more snow on the ground this morning as we passed by some of the towns with lights near the tracks, so I changed my mind. Of course, it was pitch black at this time of the morning, sunrise was not until around 10:00 AM today in this part of Finland, so we could only see what was illuminated by lights near the tracks. Now I had to get my boots out of my suitcase, and that required me to pull both of the suitcases out from under the lower bunk. It was a struggle, but I got the boots out and then put my other shoes in, which fit easily after taking out the giant boots. Getting the boots on was a different story, it was tough sitting on a low bunk bed.
Stephanie wanted to make sure we were out of the room early and waiting by the door by the time we arrived in Rovaniemi. It had been a struggle to get our suitcases up the stairs when we boarded last night, so we knew it was not going to be much easier today, and that everyone else would be trying to get of the train at the same time, most people were going to Rovaniemi. Then we had to deal with the tour group on the first floor.
We left the room about 15 minutes early and made it down partway to the door on level one. The tour group already had baggage out in the doorway area, so we could not even get all the way down the steps before we had to stop and try to get our bags off to the side so people could still get by, which ended up being mostly kids walking back and forth for some reason. The community bathroom for the first-floor guests was also in this area, so people needed to get to it.
It was extremely hot waiting on the stairs, the heat vents were in the backs of the steps, so it was hot, and there was no way to avoid it until the train stopped and we could open the doors.

The train finally arrived at the Rovaniemi Station, and we realized we needed to get out of the other side, so we would have to wait until the people moved the luggage I the area between the doors so we could get to the other side. We finally got off the train and were glad to have cooler air.

I headed into what I thought was the station, but once we got up the several steps and went inside, it was just a restaurant, and there was no access to the station, itself, which was apparently next door, oops. Back outside, we headed to the next set of doors and entered the station, and headed to the rental car desk. It was a really small station, and there was a Sixt Rental Car desk inside, and a much smaller desk that just said “Rental Cars”, and had almost every other rental company you could think of listed in from the other single counter with one representative.
There were already two people in line ahead of us, but the first couple was almost finished. The couple in front of us had no reservation and asked about car availability. The agent looked on the computer and said a car was available for their two days of rental, but it was going to cost between Euro 555 and Euro 600 to rent the car for their two days. They could not believe the cost, so they said no to the rental while they tired to figure out something else off to the side.
We were next and the rental was in the system and everything went smoothly after I presented our Driver’s Licenses and a credit card for the deposit. The rental itself was prepaid. We asked about turning in the car early since we had changed our departing flight to an earlier time. I was told I needed to either email or call the company to request a reduction in the cost. With the earlier flight, we no longer needed the 3-4 hours of additional time on the departure day, just so we did not have to turn the car back in at the same time we were renting today.
We headed outside and had to go down some more steps and walk about 100 t to the rental car lot. It was icy on the parking lot so we had to be careful. I tried to use the key fob to unlock the doors to see which car was ours, of course, it was still dark at 8:30 AM. Nothing happened, but we used the license plate number on the key chain and our cr was right out front. It was a Pugeot Wagon, which was the same type of car we had reserved, which was a VW Golf Wagon, mainly for more luggage room in the back with the hatchback.
The rear around the car was extremely icy, and we were very careful loading the luggage in the back. I headed to the driver’s side door and as I was trying to get into the car, I started to slip on the ice. It was a slo-mo fall of sorts, I was \using the door for support, but neither foot was getting any traction. I slid down to the ground, more embarrassed than hurt, I just was sore under my arm from having to catch myself with the top of the door.
I got up, thankful for not having been hurt, but it was a good lesson.
We got everything in the car and started it up. We were glad it had seat heaters, which we turned on immediately. It is a nice var, but very difficult to see out of, and it had no back-up camera, and that was disappointing. It does have a sensor for front and rear obstacles, so it will warn you when backing up of anything behind you, just no camera.
The car was backed into the spot, so all we had to do was put it in drive and go forward, but first we had to figure out the automatic parking brake that did not seem to want to release automatically. With that done, we headed out. It was hard to push on the gas pedal with my large snow boots, so we pulled over into the parking lot to see how I could use the gas without also hitting the close by brake pedal. I thought I had it figured out, so we put the location of the nearby grocery store into Google Maps on Stephanie’s phone and started that way.
It was not far, but I missed the first turn, there was someone behind me beeping, I guess we were going too slow, and there was snow and ice everywhere, and it was dark. Let’s just add a bit of tiredness to the equation, and that about sums out how we were doing. Once the impatient driver passed, we turned around and found the correct road the the grocery store. The parking lot on the side we came to was small but we backed onto a spot so we could see the entrance.
We knew it did not open until 9:00 AM, so we still had about 40 minutes to wait in their parking lot. We kept the car running most of the time to stay warm and used that time to figure out more about how things in the car worked.
By the time the grocery store opened, we had figured out how to also add Stephanie’s phone to the car and use Android Auto so we could use the phone for directions on the car screen. It was just starting to have a glow in the morning sly when the grocery had opened. It was probably darker than normal because it was cloudy with a forecast of snow showers for 10:00 AM.
We headed into the grocery and bought several items, one of which was some breakfast items, fresh pastries (Chuck) and some meat pies (Stephanie). We also picked up some sandwich items, Diet Coke, and some snacks. We did not get much, but it took some time, nothing in the store was in English, so we had to walk down almost every aisle just to find where things were.
We checked out and by the time we got to the car, it was much more light outside. That was going to make driving easier. It was surprising how ice and snow on the roads make driving so much more difficult, especially in a foreign country.
It was not far to drive to the Apukka Resort where we were staying, only about 12 km. The speed limit was generally 80 kph until we passed the Santa’s Village exit, a popular tourist area which we will go to sometime on this trip. After that, the speed limit was 100 kph and that was a little fast for driving on the partially snow-covered roads at first, but I was able to gain confidence as we went. However, that did not stop other cars from passing me along the way, we knew locals drive fast here, and prey on tourist drivers, which is unfortunate.
We turned into the Apukka Resort Driveway and parked near the reception area, but it was not a real parking area so I sent Stepanie in to see if we could check in early. It was not long before she came back out and they had told her we needed to park and come in with our passports so they could look up our room to see if it was ready.
We parked and headed back to the reception. We did all of the paperwork, but our cabin was not ready, their checkout time is 112;00 PM, so it might not be ready until 4:00 PM the normal check-in time.
They did have a luggage storage area, so we brought all of our bags inside and checked them into storage. First, we had to get some more clothing items out, it was cold and now misting here, and ice was forming on the cars.

Once that was done, we checked the bags and then drove over to Santa’s Village to walk around. We parked and the entire parking area was really icy. People were slipping everywhere. It must have been made worse by the freezing mist falling,

We walked over to the main area where there is a Santa’s Village webcam. Stephanie wanted to see us in it online on her phone, so we did that. Then we walked through a store area which had a small restaurant for to-go ordering to sit at their tables inside. We were hungry and ordered two cheeseburgers with fries, which were really good. Once we were done with lunch, we headed back to the car, we had gotten a WhatsApp test from Apukka that our room was ready, so we were heading back to finish our check-in.
When we arrived back at Apukka, we got our room key and then had the luggage check attendants load up our luggage to take it to our cabin. They do not allow any cars in the cabin areas so this was a free service they provided instead.

We unloaded some of our luggage and then headed back outside to walk around and take some photos. It was no longer snowing or misting, and the skies seemed to be clearing up. We ran into an Apukka staff person at the outdoor saunas and we had a good talk, most of which was centered around Finland’s affinity for saunas, it is part of their culture and life for most.

We walked out onto the frozen lake, it is quite large and was so different and a little spooky to be out on, neither of us had even been out on a frozen lake before.
Then we walked back to the cabin to warm up and have a glass of wine. We were tired and needed a break, mostly needing some time out of the heavy clothing. The weather was getting clearer all along, and by the time the sun set at around 3:05 PM it was mostly clear outside and we could start to see some stars in the sky.
We were hoping that since it was clear, we might see the Aurora Borealis tonight, we had our fingers crossed. It is not always out, but it certainly can’t be seen well, if at all if it is really cloudy and snowing.

We had some wine and then we both lay on the bed looking out of our glass igloo ceiling at the stars. Before we knew it, we were both asleep and napped for about an hour. When we finally woke up, we were too tired to go anywhere to eat, so we just had some of our crackers and ham and cheese, with a glass or two of wine. We took showers and that made us feel a lot better and much more energetic.

Shortly after the showers, the Apukka Resort Aurora Alarm went off indicating the Aurora was visible. We had seen something out of our window for several minutes, but it more looked like a band of fog on the horizon, but sure enough, that was the beginning of the Aurora.
We bundled up and headed out with our phone cameras. We had done some research on the proper settings to use on the phone cameras. We were worried the Aurora might not last that long so we wanted to try a few quick photos with just our phones. Most importantly, we really wanted to just see it and any pictures we were able to take were a bonus.

As it ended up, the Aurora just kept getting better and better. We got lots of photos with the phones and then we headed back to the cabin so I could get my Nikon Z8 camera and tripod. We thought the photos were good with the phone, but they were so much better with the larger camera and more steady tripod.
We ended up taking a lot more photos and then went back inside to enjoy the view from our igloo, our bed is right below the end with the windows, so we could just lay on the bed and enjoy the Aurora from there.
It got so much better, I had to go back outside with the Nikon camera again, I only had to go as far as the road outside our igloo, which was nice. It was sort of mesmerizing, I almost could not stop taking photos, the Aurora kept changing and when I thought I had taken the best photo yet, it changed into something even better.
After a while, I just had to stop, at times it would almost seem to vanish and then reappear even stronger.

We went inside and had a glass of wine to toast our Aurora experience, which was the main reason for this trip in the first place. It was nice that we were able to see it this soon in the trip, and not have to worry about being able to see it as the days of the trip passed by and the opportunities faded.
We continued to watch the Aurora from our bed for at least an hour more, but we needed to get some sleep, we have a tour tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM to ride in reindeer sleighs and need to get up early to go to the included breakfast and then to get ready with all of the clothes we will need to wear. Tomorrow’s high is forecast to be 13 degrees F, so we will need to bundle up with a lot of layers.
Even after we went to sleep, we could still see the Aurora, I woke up a few times just to check. Eventually, the half-moon rose and made the Aurora hard to see. It was a great first day in Rovaniemi.
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