Idries J. Abdur-Rahman, MD, FACOG
Obstetrician/Gynecologist
TwinDoctorsTV

After 22-hours, we were definitely ready to arrive at a snow-covered Ivalo, Finland. Thanks for the safe ride buddy!

In case you doubted me, here are the receipts. Welcome to Ivalo Airport!

99% of people coming to Ivalo are coming to see the Northern Lights, and we were no exception. God, were such tourists! Will we see them? Won’t we see them? We definitely came with high hopes!

I booked a 2-bedroom apartment at Apartments Kuukkeli, a complex in the center of Saariselka.

The process of getting the apartment keys after-hours was beyond frustrating! We had to find a random store (all stores were closed at this hour) and find a random box outside of that random store where the keys were in a random envelope. Okay, there was only one envelope so it wasn’t that random, but you get the point. The whole process was difficult and confusing. After our 30-minute scavenger hunt in the dark and cold of the Finnish night…

we finally got into an apartment that looked nothing like this inviting online pictures (shocking right?). I admit that I’m picky when it comes to where I lay my head, and I’ve been known to change course and finding alternate accommodations with the quickness.

And that’s what we did. A quick Kayak search cross-referenced with reviews from Trip Advisor and we were off to the Holiday Club Saariselka. A more traditional hotel with rooms that thankfully looked like what they advertised online.

Saariselka is covered in snow for seven months out of the year which means snowmobiles, huskies, and reindeers are the primary modes of transportation. I probably should have just stuck with my good ole rental car (or feet) but more on that later.

Saariselka has an uber-relaxed vibe. Everything is snow-covered and chill (yes, a bit of pun intended). Anne’s Garden Grill and Cafe was directly across the street from our hotel so it became our go-to dinner spot.

Yup, even in Finland, teenagers are going to teenage! There was no way my son could possibly put his phone down or take his headphones out even during dinner. We’d booked a Northern Lights chasing excursion for later that night, so the table was abuzz with pre-lights excitement!

Thumbs up! What could possibly go wrong? Our first time snowmobiling would be in the pitch black of the Finish Lapland on a windy night along a tree-lined, unlit course. Yeah, this sounds like a great idea.

Yeah, clearly my first time snowmobiling went really really well….Well, until I came yay close to running into a tree at 40 miles per hour it was going well. Pro-tip: If you run off course in a snow-mobile, just take your hands off of the accelerator!

Despite its adrenaline-filled nature, this is the serene spot where our journey ended. At a cool little Sami tent in the literal middle of nowhere. The location was perfect with its lack of light pollution and wide-open skies. The cons that night were a bright, full moon and the layer of haze that covered most of the night sky.

Doubting that the tent provided enough warmth in the frigid arctic cold? My daughter’s glasses are proof.

The upsides of our first full night hunting the lights: 1). Driving a snowmobile and NOT dying. 2). Hanging out in a Sami tent. 3). Using an arctic porta-potty with the help of a cellphone flashlight. The downsides of our first full night hunting the lights: 1). The Northern Lights just didn’t come out to play.

With only 400 permanent residents in Saariselka, tourists outnumber locals at any given time by probably 50:1.

We encountered tourists from every corner of the globe as we walked the streets and most of them had adapted quite well to arctic life with their Parka coats and sleds.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, sleds are very popular in the arctic. They are a great way of transporting kids, groceries, and basically anything else that you don’t want to carry through the snowy streets.

We stumbled across this lonely little church perched on a hill at the edge of town. The St. Paulus Chapel has the church market cornered in Saariselkä.

That’s not to say that we didn’t have fun though. Even without the Northern Lights, how many people get to enjoy a unique view like this?

Or a moment for solitude and reflection like this?

It’s not every day that you get to strike a pose with grandma in the arctic like this or…

get tired out by continuously sledding down the mountain with your cousins like this.

And why the heck were they so tired anyway? We were clearly doing all of the heavy lifting or in this case pulling!

we decided to pay a quick visit to Santa’s Office. I don’t know when Santa actually works because this place never seems to be open!

We even stumbled upon a lonely little snowman just hanging out under a light post.

Is that a stick in your pocket Mr. Snowman or are you just happy to see us?

Just because we didn’t see the lights in person that night didn’t mean that we couldn’t snap a shot with them on a postcard in the hotel gift shop. Right????

I’ll be back (in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice)! I won’t let the Northern Lights or you snowmobiles get the best of me!!!

As a Chicagoan, I’m used to snow and snow-covered bus stops but…

the months and months of snow piled up on this bus stop had any that I’ve ever seen in Chicago beat!

We had one last diner at Anne’s because…why not?…clearly were not that adventurous, and as the sunset, we made our way to Ivalo’s airport for our Norwegian Air Suttle flight back to Helsinki.

Our journey home was the reverse of our journey to Ivalo. We flew Norwegian Air Shuttle (operated by a SmartLynx A320) from Ivalo to Helsinki, overnighted in Helsinki, and then flew SAS from to Stockholm and finally sweet home Chicago.