4 September

Today I slept in again– well, a little later. I woke at 0605, but I rolled over and went back to sleep. Then I was up at 0700, checked the washing (nearly dry), so hung the still damp ones in the wardrobe and packed the others away, then showered, dressed and went down at 0745.
Breakfast was well and truly ready, with about fifty people already eating. I will be down at 0715 tomorrow and see if I can start then.
I had my normal breakfast and then went back up, finished there and finally left about 0945. It was raining and looked quite miserable, so I walked down the street in my wet-weather gear (which just means hood up and gloves on, but the same clothes). I went to look in the Sami shop, but is was still closed. I got my last Euro withdrawal from Otto (the ATM) and went to the Tour Centre. I told the girl on duty there that I would meet Anne’s husband at the SIIDA museum rather than in town, as I would look around first.
On the way back I checked the post office hours (9-17), which is inside the K supermarket. When I passed, the Sami shop was open so I looked inside. The material on sale was very colourful, although little of it is made in Finland. I resisted the temptation to buy anything.
By the time I got to the SIIDA, the weather looked as if it had really close in for the day. Viewing inside the museum seemed the best option, but once inside I found … the schoolchildren again! The teacher I had spoken to wasn’t there (I found out later the group was split and half were white-water rafting, so I suppose he was with them).
For a relatively small museum, it is information-rich. There were two peripheral displays, one on natural Sami food (which made me think of the things from the yard I ate when young, and the natural remedies we used to cure ourselves rather than show parents that we had injured ourselves) and one on Sami handicrafts. These took nearly an hour and a half to see, so I was at the front at just before noon to meet my newer guide, Anne’s husband. His accent is thicker than Anne’s so he was a little harder to understand (so I still don’t know his name) and he was an optometrist in Helsinki before entering this business more than fifteen years ago, but thinks the locals may now accept him.
He showed me the layout of the other exhibit rooms (one showing the history of the Sami people and the area, from the last ice age, with reference points of world events listed also, and the other showing the seasons and the way the Sami live within them) and then left me to go slowly through them. I finished just before 1400 and went down to the show on the Aurora Borealis. Rather than a series of different views of light displays, the show was a series of stills with music and singing behind it, lasting about ten minutes. I think I preferred the show with the fox’s tail creating the lights, as seen in the Rovaniemi museum.
After, I returned to the hotel, collected up what I was going to post home and then went to the post office. I sent four postcards (to those who aren’t on email) and my parcel ended up with a series of stamps, so if anyone wants Finnish stamps, they are available to the first person who asks, but are not available until after I return home.
I returned again to the hotel and met the couple who will be travelling with me tomorrow morning. They are from Sydney and have come here via London, Estonia, Latvia, Moscow, St Petersburg and Helsinki. We chatted for a time about world travels, then they left to walk (it may be clearing slightly) while I went up to process photos, post photos, write my blog and answer some emails. This time I really will try for an early night.
N.B. Some of the photos, shot without flash (museum conditions), may not be as clear as I would have liked, but they will “walk” you around the exhibits and displays.