Adventures with Sarah!

Dinner in Turku

Walking home past the Cathedral

We did a 4 hour Bike tour of Paris

     Rialto Bridge in Venice

     Amazing Positano

So after the Arctic Circle adventure we came back for awhile, then off to Joensuu (near the Russian border) for M to teach a bit more, then a weekend in Helsinki where we found SARAH!!

It was most wonderful to have our beloved friend here for a few days, exploring Turku castle, riding bikes around nearby islands and touring the best coffee in town. Gold. Then she and I were off for some more adventures- we conquered Paris, Venice, Florence, Positano and Rome in 14 days!! Was an amazing trip with many hilarious moments.

Warming up here finally, the snow is all thawed and grass and tulips are popping up everywhere. It's also getting dark later all the time, the sun set at 10:30pm tonight. Very weird but my nocturnal husband seems to like it.

That's all for now! xo

Artic Circle

Hello bloggees,

Well, long time between posts - apparently I was meant to do this while Lauren was away but maybe I forgot. So expect some exciting posts of wondrous adventures and the more mundane day to day life in the coming weeks.

OK so pics below from our time in Rovaniemi and then 250km further north into the Artic circle. I taught at the Uni of Lapland, strained, toiled and engaged in intellectual rigour - Lauren snowboarded. Good times :)

But before that we went up to a place called Kakslauttanen for 2 days of wild Artic RnR. This included a reindeer safari, where Lauren had a mangy little dude who liked to nuzzle her ear - enough said! 

Two different forms of accommodation; one a very sensible log cabin with the now famous one-match fire (I'm happy to expound details of my technique in this regard over several hours for interested parties. For more on this see www.markcanlightafirewithabrickandtwoclumpsofsnow.com). The other was a snow igloo, -5 degrees. Cold! fun?! but Cold! The morning sauna was most welcome!

My first time ever on skis resulted in extreme downhill sections on suspiciously flat bridges like the one pictured. I did have an excellent teacher, although details on how to stop were never forthcoming.

The final pic - my fav - is the high level of security required in this part of the world. I mean, you never know who is trying to steal your sleigh. This is, after all, the official home of Santa so one can't be too careful.