After talking about going for a few weeks and seeing our friends amazing pictures of Lofoten, Norway, Katie, Lucy, Eilidh, Louisa and I packed ourselves into a little clio and began our long long drive (about 13 hours) to our little fishing lodge for the weekend.
I'd been really excited to go to Norway since my arrival in Finland. My friend, Joe, has been to Norway a few times for his university work and had shown me a few photos and told me about the scenery. I was buzzing. I was also a bit nervous because along with Eilidh and Louisa, I'd been named on the car when we'd hired it so we could share driving. I've been able to drive for a few years now, but before Norway, I'd never driven on the right. It took a bit of getting used to but once I got into the flow it wasn't bad at all and because I was so used to driving back home it was quite easy to slip in to.
The scenery on the way to Lofoten was absolutely beautiful, we stopped a few times along the way to take photos and stretch our legs. It was exciting to drive through Sweden and see some of the scenery so close to us. I drove over the boarder between Sweden and Norway which I very much enjoyed.
The weekend was a delightful one. The first proper day we were there it rained quite heavily and it was misty. We attempted to go on a hike which for some reason I was absolutely petrified of. I'm normally fine with hiking and climbing, as a child I thrived off it but for whatever reason a horrible fear overcame me that I was going to slip and fall and I don't know why. We didn't get to finish the hike as we got to the top and couldn't see a thing so we decided to go back down and back to our lodge. We waited for the rain to pass and went on a walk in the evening to take some photos and take in where we were.
The second day was better weather and because it was still early October, autumn was in full swing in the Northern hemisphere but it wasn't too cold. We went on another hike and the views at the top were amazing and in that moment my thirst to travel and have more adventures with my friends intensified. The world is so big and I'm so small, I need to make the most of it. After our hike we went to Raine, after it had been recommended to us by a few friends. We had a little walk around and took some photos before going back to our lodge. We were heading back to Kuntotie the next day, which felt quite bittersweet. The weekend had been a cute getaway from Lapland life, a break where I felt like I didn't need to worry about uni for a few days. But in a way I was excited to get back to the familiarity of my little Finnish room.
