Sweden to Finland

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Got to Ulemea in the morning and it was something of a rude awakening. The conductor guy didnt speak any english at all but he i knew what he was trying to say. Get the hell up your getting off. I think it was around 730am. Got off and wanted to try and find a connection to Finland. Nothing was quite open yet though. Went to the bus station close to the train station thankfully. They had a few buses to Finland but I had to go to Kemi and switch if I wanted to go farther north to Rovaneimi. It didnt leave for another 40 mins so I went around town to find something for breakfast. Nothing was open at all. It was depressing felt like I was constantly battling the opening hours of shops or having to pay the ridiculous cost of train food.
Anyways I turned back towards the station and ended up eating at the convience store place attached. They had not a bad deal for a breakfast bun a coffee a juice and a paper for like 30kr. I asked the girl about trains to Finland and she said oh well Im from there. No there isnt any trains just buses. So jumped on the bus and did a bit of catching up writing my bloggies. Also read a bit about where the hell I was going on the computer which I had to save with no internet access on the bus.
Took awhile maybe 2hrs to get to this other station I cant remember what the next town was called but there was a huge IKEA. First i had seen the whole time in Sweden!!! Got a bus to Kemi. I told them I wanted to go to Rovaneimi and they just said oh stay at that stop. Charged up the computer inside the station for abit.
Out comes this green eye sore bus. Short little bus driver. Everyone got on before me. All I had to do was show him the cover of my pass and he was like ahhhhh come on come on. We made it to Kemi in no time. Ended up meeting another Kiwi couple who told me about their travels on the train I wanted to take on the Inlandsbadan scenic route! They said it was pretty touristy but it was kind of nice not really that scenic. We got to talking about Rovaneimi and that they wanted to check out Santas village there. This wasnt my intentions, thinking its a bit too touristy but would kind of be cool to see. They told me to come stay with them in Austria before they had to go back to New Zealand. Maybe I could even stay with them there.
Said goodbye and then headed for the library. Kind of cool place it had a bit of a nip in the air. I made it to the ARCTIC CIRCLE!!! It felt like I accomplished something. Made it to the library and did some research about the place. I wanted to take the long way to Helsinki through the lakes. Finland is known to have thousands and thousands of lakes. Looked into the santa station and it was 8kms out of town. There was a bus that went by, but I wouldnt make it back in time to take that train. The other thing was that it was summer and I didnt want to sit on Santas lap especially for no reason!!
Got back to the station around 6 and there was a train due for Helsinki. I was thinking about it and I thought ahhh what the hell. I jumped on and found my seat. I didnt know that it was gonna be 13 hrs though!!!
Big country!!! It was not that bad though I had a spot to plug in the lap top when I needed to and there were these sweet little girls beside me. They were dressed up in the same clothes. A bit noisy but they were really cute. I asked the dad if I could take a picture of them and he said ok just one. Thought that was kind of odd like he thought I was a some creeper or something. The time actually went by pretty quick. Had some dinner on the train, Pasta and Meatballs which was pretty tasty and got myself a big beer. There was quite a few millitary guys on board all drinking. I got some solid sleep around 1. The sun still hadnt gone down.
Wrapped my jacket around my legs and had the blanket from the Bergen night train I kept. I woke up and was really nervous about something that startled me. Think it might of just been a bad dream maybe. Woke up a few times. Almost in Helsinki.
Night night

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