Arctic New Year

Wonderful beginning, horrid ending. The only unelegant way to describe this year's adventure to the North. We often get admirable nods from our surroundings when describing our traditional journey up North: two flights to Estonia, few days stay visiting the family, early departure to catch a 2h ferry ride over to Helsinki, short tram ride to the central train station followed by a 5,5h/6h train ride up North. This is one-way journey. And then there is the return. With four young kids it is an exhausting trip when following the plan, and this year we had the luck hiding taking our return trip to a whole new level. I conclude, today, every journey - short or long - involving air/train transport may become an ordeal. But not to jump events, I share the events as they unfolded in front of us. To stay within budget (or "to create family traditions at home" as presented to the kids), we had opted to stay home for Christmas and go greet out families up North only for the New Year. We flew to Tallinn via Riga and arrived to beautiful white Tallinn on time. Our appartment downtown was spacious and warm. As if ordered for children, it had snowed just a few days earlier. The kids got to enjoy sleigh rides with the grand-parents and us an adult-only dinner. Few days flew by quickly and it was time to say good buy to Estonia and take the ferry over to Helsinki followed by the longuish train journey up to the North. I had looked up the wheather forecast for our stay in Finland, but prayed it was only a forecast: we were going to experience a record cold wheather! After the springy +10 degrees celsius back home, we thought the first day felt already extreme as the temperature decended to - 15 C. I reminded wearing layers is of essence in these conditions. Fortunately, we jumped on the opportunity to ski and truly enjoyed the magic scenery of icy lake and snow covered forest. I had forgotten how beautiful the sun set here was - at 14h30 ! We whole heartidly enjoyed the loving welcome of the grand-parents. In the next days, records were beaten: -25 C, -32,5 C and on our day of departure --34,5 C. So what do you do to keep kids active indoors in those temperatures? We visited the new communal swimming pool, played board games, read, and watched cartoons. A 20-minute brisk walk to the lake ended in tears however, as even with "mom's layers" one cannot really protect from that extreme coldness. I am writing this entry on a plane in Oslo heading to Frankfurt with three unplanned hotel/air bnb/hotel nights behind. It is Saturday - we were supposed to be back home on Thursday evening. We had to change our train from the North (1st extra night in Helsinki), our first flight was postponed to Friday (2nd night in Helsinki, in a different place), and the connecting flight from Oslo was cancelled on Friday (3rd night in an airport hotel in Oslo). Oh, and did I tell, we have all been sick with the noro-virus during the return journey? Meditating on "landing home safe" has become part of my recent morning yoga routines. Perhaps we will arrive home by Monday? Did somebody dare say it is not about reaching the destination, but the journey?