Finland days 7-8

 These last two days were all about travel back home - not much to report.  On the 8th day we left Saariselka mid morning and headed out to do a little souvenier shopping on our way back to Rovaniemi where we would be catching our plane.  It is a beautiful drive - we passed a lot of reindeer, of course, and many lakes and quaint little shops and cafes.  We stopped for food, snacks, and shopping several times just to make a leisurely trip back to Rovaniemi.

Our flight out on day 8 would take us back to Helsinki.  We got to the airport and found that our flight was the only leaving the entire day!  It is the tiniest airport, and we were quite early in arriving for our flight and returning our rental car.  Nothing was open when we got there, so we just hung out until they opened security.  Unbelievably (but not really when traveling with Mat), or flight was slightly delayed due to weather in Helsinki.

It was a quick flight back to Helsinki and we settled into the Helsinki airport hotel for the night. This made getting up on our last morning in Finland very easy.  Our flight home was around 2pm, so we got up late, had breakfast and headed to the airport for our flight home.  It was a long day of traveling, but by 8:30pm Boston time, we were on the ground and home by 9:30pm.  We had a short layover in London and two smooth plane rides.

It was a wonderful trip.  Finley picked out everything we did and we all had a wonderful time.  We were happy to be able to make this 16th birthday wish trip happen for her and excited to see yet another 2 countries on our bucket list.

One of the many lakes we passed on our trip

Proof that even when you are the only plane flying, Mat can make it delayed

This was the wildest flight.  It was a propeller plane (my least favorite) and all of the checked baggage went into this really funny compartment between the cockpit and the passengers.  Then our carry on bags had to go UNDER our feet - even as big as they were.  Only tiny bags could go over our heads.  It was wild.

Just a picture for fun.  No matter where we went in Finland - we saw this hose attachement next to toilets.  It was in all of our hotels, but even in every public restroom, each stall in the airport, even the tiny water closets on roadside stands.  It is for rinsing your delicate bits after you use the bathroom.  Crazy