Alone at Christmas. Again. This was the dreaded reality I faced when at 37, I found myself painfully single as the holidays rolled around .
I had two options. Use my two weeks vacation to rot in bed and make the obligatory three day pilgrimage to my grandparents retirement home, OR, use the credit card rewards that were burning a hole in my digital pocket to book an epic adventure.
I chose the later, and am SO GLAD I did.
When I logged into my Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal, I felt like I was opening a menu at the Cheesecake Factory. There were so many options, each offering a completely different nation and flavor.
A thumbnail caught my eye - I'd seen it before, but I couldn't remember where. I clicked on the image of a cozy igloo in a beautiful snowscape. It revealed Wilderness Hotel Nellim & Igloos, a moderately luxe resort in Finnish Lapland. If you were to google "Winter Wonderland Storybook" this place is what would come up. The pictures of snowy covered cabins, and dog sleds, and REAL REINDEER tickled my imagination and I truly could not believe a place like this existed.
That's when I remembered that I had pinned this very image to my Pinterest board years ago, with the dream of some day seeing the Northern Lights under a glass dome! I took that as the ultimate sign from the universe and before I knew it, I had booked three nights in the Aurora Bubble using nothing but credit cards points.
*I highly recommend the Chase Sapphire card. I've booked so much travel using points from this card. Use my link to get some bonus points for signing up!
Maybe you knew this, but I did not - when you're that close to the Arctic Circle, you get what's called Polar Night. This is basically where the sun does not rise for a few months resulting In darkness for nearly 24 hours of the day. Perfect conditions for seeing the Aurora Borealis, I figured.
When I arrived at the property, they outfitted me with a full snowsuit, which I thought was overkill since I had packed all my warmest thermals and winter gear. Boy was I wrong. I needed every layer and then some. We're talking about the Arctic Circle here. Any time my fingers were exposed to snap a photo, I had about 50 seconds before it was painful to be outside of my gloves.
When I saw the bubble with my own eyes, it was even better than anything my Pinterest board could capture. Something about the polar night, and the warm light coming from inside the dome filled my heart with a joy I can hardly explain.
Upon entering the cabin, I was humbly reminded of my single status. A fur blanket sprawled across the bed, accompanied by two champagne glasses, two mini bottles of brut, and two dainty chocolates. Don't for one second think I didn't eat and drink both of those all by myself!
The first activity I had signed up for was a "Meet the Reindeer" experience. Can you tell I'm really into reindeer? The group was picked up by snowmobile-pulled sleighs. We were pulled through a winter wonderland on our way out to where the reindeer lived. I'm usually a little leery about animal tourism, so I was delighted to find that a jolly man, complete with rosy cheeks and a red hat, was the reindeer keeper. It was very obvious how much he cared for these animals, and how much they respected him in return. He told us a bit about the history of reindeer herding, and then treated us to a sleigh ride pulled by his trusty team.
And yes, we got to boop the snoots.
Blissed out from my fairytale encounter with magical creatures (yes, I now understand they're real animals, but let me have this, will ya?) I couldn't wait to head back to my glass dome and wait for the Aurora Borealis to treat me to the light show I came to see.
After a few hours of wistfully waiting, the Northern Lights never made an appearance.
No complaints here though; my snow-chilled champagne lulled me off to sleep while visions of eligible bachelors danced in my head.
My dreams were laced with the sounds of wolves howling at the moon, or so I thought. It turns out it the midnight sonata came courtesy of the dog sledding organization down the road.
I think you know what comes next, but the next day, I found myself meeting up with a group of travelers to go dog sledding - an experience so foreign to me that I had not even thought to add it to my bucket list. Dog sledding is one activity that is significantly more challenging as a single person. After a very brief tutorial in broken english, I found myself hanging on for dear life as five, very strong Siberian Huskies pulled me across the Arctic Tundra.
See, when you have a partner: 1) they sit up front and weigh down the carriage - preventing it from literally catching air, as mine did. And 2) Partners switched driving half way through the experience. Trust me, after an hour of death-gripping a wooden sleigh, you too, would be ready for a break.
While the Northern Lights never came out, my trip to Lapland had given me more than enough to feel complete with my time there. With sore legs and a happy heart, I bid a grateful goodbye to Arctic Circle, and set out for the next leg of my trip - Tallin, Estonia.
That trip deserves it's own post, which is up next!
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