Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Greetings from Lapland

This past week I've been having a blast with my family, it's holiday time here and we went to Lapland to enjoy the christmas time. Lapland is truly a wonderful place and I wanted to share with you 10 pictures I took there. You will notice there is not much sunshine and the images are blue, that is because the sun does not come up from the horizon for many hours during this time of the year near the arctic circle. It makes the place even more magical to me.

The darkness does also get to your mood though, days seem to never start and then they have already ended. By lunchtime it's dark again. I never understood how people cope up there in those loooong winters! At least the snow makes it white and creates more light. If the skies are clear at night the moon reflects from the snow and it's actually surprisingly light and easy to navigate outside. The air is so crisp and fresh,although it was mostly -5C daily, this doesn't feel too cold when you're appropriately dressed.

Here we are going for a walk, my niece is pulling my daughter behind her in the sleigh. Kids love to play in the snow and never did complain of cold! In fact the adults have to watch that they don't get frost bites because children won't tell you they feel too cold in fear they will have to go back inside!

This is what the locals traditionally wear, a reindeer fur coat and the typical Lapland style hat.

I love to look at all the different kind of shapes small trees take when they get covered with snow. This one is pretty clear to me, but what do you see sitting on the top?

The place we went to also has a ski resort but this time we didn't have much time for skiing.

Icicles on the edge of the cabin roof.

We went for a husky sleigh ride, it was fun and all the kids sat in the sleigh! My daughter was not scared at all even though the dogs were barking really loud. That's my girl!

A snow lantern I built outside the cabin, I put an electrical candle inside to prevent it from melting.

We saw lots of reindeer, these were on a farm and were quite tame but still very shy.

Christmas lights on a log cabin.

And finally, in this picture you will see how tough it is to push baby strollers in the snow, but nevertheless we Finns LOVE to walk outside and we always take the babies with us. They sleep so much better outside in the fresh air!

29 comments:

Noor said...

I love your pictures mashAllah it reminds me of home so much. We live in the country and got snowed in a lot. We do not have reindeer but we have deer :)

Anonymous said...

I can only imagine what the 22nd of December (the shortest day of the year) is like in Lapland! cold, dark, but I have to agree, magical looking!
Thank you for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Just fabulous Layah.
Ann

Petra said...

İ love your pics and miss Finland during this season! Lapland is so beautiful. Here in Turkey people think it's crazy to sleep babies in cold weather, oh well me and my baby girl are doing things our way even here :) Greetings from Turkey, your blog is great!

Layla said...

Noor-Thanks! Where was this? did you guys used to eat deer lots, we like reindeer its very tasty!

Layla said...

Stephi-yes its really gloomy but also if theres a starlit sky you have a better chance of seeing the aurora borealis up there!

Layla said...

Ann-thank you :)

Layla said...

Petra-thanks for your comment and so nice to hear from Finns around the world, we like to keep our crazy habits I guess! But hey did you hear abut the study that PROVED children sleep much better outdoors? So we have known all along ;)

Anonymous said...

Love love love your blog and your photos. I wish I could share it to my FB page. The only downside is, they always make me homesick for my country.

Anonymous said...

Incredible photos, thank you for bringing Lapland in to my little room all the way on the other side of the world (Australia).

Best wishes

Layla said...

Thanks anonymous, I just noticed that the share to facebook button was missing for some reason but I added it now so you should be able to do it easily :)

Layla said...

Thanks anon from Australia!

Layla said...

Actually the share buttons did not show up! Does anyone have any idea how to fix it?

Ms Rosenstare said...

Wow lot´s of snow, nice! The last one is extra nice. These winter pictures must be very exotic for your Saudi friends and relatives. I am also impressed by your enormous energy of travelling around! By the way, are you connected to Spotify in SA?

Sefie said...

Wonderful views. Daughter grows, that is from she it lady .

Jenny said...

Beautiful photos! I love the snow lanterns and I think that tree looks like it has a rabbit on the top. You have a gift for photography and do capture a magical feeling with those photos of a winter wonderland.

Unknown said...

Absolutely enchanting. I wish that I could go there as well and just soak in the incredible magic that is in a place like that. What an amazing world that God made.

Sandy said...

That is sooo unbelievably beautiful! And magical! I wish I handled cold better I might try to go! Thank you so much for sharing these. I've never seen anything like it.

Layla said...

Sofija-thank you, yes she grows so fast!

Layla said...

Jenny-yes it looks like a bunny on top doesn't it!I'm glad someone else saw it too so I don't feel like I'm a little bit cuckoo for seeing that! LOL

Layla said...

Proud Muslimah-enchanting is a very good word to describe the place!

Layla said...

Sandy-thank you! The cold is really not that bad when you're properly dressed I swear :)But anything under -15c starts to be unbearable, though Finns will go out even in -30c! (not me)

Anonymous said...

mashaallah your pictures are so well done... pretty. No snow here in west germany, well maybe this month...

Lavender © said...

These pictures look so magical Laylah! When do you get back! You're missed <3

Unknown said...

The picture of the man in the traditional cap is my favorite. He looks like someone out of a storybook. Such beauty, Laylah. Thank you for sharing with us your world. I wish I had access to such a lovely place.

Those pictures make winter look its best too ;) Usually I groan at winter, but these scenes are why winter has a beauty of its own.

Layla said...

hind-thanks! There's not much snow in southern Finland either, I guess it's the global warming!

Layla said...

Om Lujain-I have to change our flights because we can't fly tomorrow with the baby still being very sick :( So next week.

Layla said...

Proud Muslimah-thank you! Winter time can be really nice, but as long as there is enough snow :)

Jean said...

I agree that fluffy clean snow is just nice but not when it's melting, etc.

We just pulled through last few days here of -30 degrees C (with wind chill of -43 degrees C) with snow. Thankfully dry prairie air sucks up the melting snow fast. We were able to bike around last few days @ -14 degrees C.

I love your Lapland photos. Yes, the land of the midnight sun is also in the Canadian Arctic. There's a photo when I was in Nuvavut on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic:
http://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/29/hello-world/ It was twilight blue at 1:00 in the afternoon.