A holiday in Lapland - December 2006

In 2006, me my Mum and Dad visited Lapland to see Santa and have a week of fun packed seasonal activities. It was absolutely freezing, I remember having to get off the plane and all be shipped immediately into a large warehouse type thing, where we were given snow outfits and boots to be worn at all times when outside. However, it was magical. We went just at the right time when Santa was at the heart of my Christmas. I met him and brought letters to him from all my class mates. I also got to ride my own snow mobile, but the best bit was when I went on the back of my dad's. We went so fast and my mum shouted at him afterwards! I also met real husky's and went on a sledge pulled by reindeers, and play hide and seek with Elves in the forest, until we found Santa's cabin. We also got to go to an Ice Hotel - it looked like a massive iglu from the outside, but inside it was a fully working hotel, with ice beds, ice furniture, tables chairs and even a bar made from ice. This baffled me (it still does) because the hotel was made from ice so needed to remain cold, but the seats and beds and air inside the hotel were warm. The sculpting of the ice in the hotel was just amazing. Each block was its own perfect rectangle and the centre piece for the bar was what everyone was amazed by, everyone was talking about it. The piece was definitely an amazing sculpture, it has been cleverly designed to give structure but was also not melting... It is so cool - here is a photo.

This is one of the first realisation was that I was a creative person. I was so attracted to and amazed by how the sculpture looked and by how the hotel was still standing. I also remember being obsessed with a HUGE slide that was made from ice outside the hotel. It looked like one of these bouncy slides with the stairs built into it, but it was made from ice. I loved that too.

Here are some more photos from the holiday.