R&R

Time feels as if it has flown these last few days. We left Norway's Nordland and the most northern point in Europe and are once again at the Arctic Circle, this time in Rovaniemi, Finland. The big attraction here is Santa's Post Office. Next to it is Santa's Village and, down the road, Santa's traditional home and workshop. Along the highway leading to Rovaniemi are souvenir stands with hundreds of Santa dolls decked form head to toe in reindeer fur. (I wonder if the REAL Santa would appreciate that.) Santa's Post Office is probably the most touristy thing in all of Finland, but the lure of postcards canceled with an authentic Santa postmark has overcome our resistance!

In winter I'm sure the post office is bustling with activity, with elves and Santa helpers. A tree probably twinkles with lights. Now in the summer, the bank of desktop computers sit idle - not a creature is stirring not even a mouse - the fireplace is empty and Santa is not rocking in his giant chair or signing letters behind his official Santa desk. There is mail though, lots of it. bags and baskets filled to the brim with postcards and hand made cards from children all over the world. The stagering statistic of mail received here - over 470,000 pieces a year. The address is simple: Santa Claus, Arctic Circle, Finland; or Santa, North Pole, Finland; or Father Christmas, Rovaniemi, Finland; or just Santa, Finland. It doesn't matter; it all gets here and it is all sorted and cataloged by computer knowledgeable elves.

The fact that it isn't snowing now doesn't seem to have detured the tourists. And it hasn't stopped Santa from making an appearance. Right now he's in his quaint wooden house next to the post office and children are lined up waiting to sit on his knee.

Outside of Headquarters, life in Rovaniemi appears normal. No one is walking around in a Santa hats and, other than the names of a few places like Santa Claus Sailing Club, you would never know this is where he'd set up home base. We've set up home base too, at the city's Lapland University Library where there is an Internet connection. We'll be doing some relaxing here. And since R&R is so very important on long trips, the movie theater is our next stop. There is nothing like an action-packed, violent, Hollywood, adventure movie to help curb any hints of homesickness. ("That's what it's like in America, and we want to go home to that?")

Ready - Set - Action

We had a bit of Hollywood adventure off screen this evening. It started because when we didn't follow everyone out of the theater at the end of the movie. (Hasn't anyone in Finland heard of running for the ladies room at the end of the flick?). By time I returned the crowds had gone. We stepped out the theater side exit and were met by a maze of dark corridors and self-locking doors. I held one door and John ran to the next. "This one is self-locking too," he called back. But we'd run out of door-propping bodies. "I can use my back pack to hold it open." But if any door should close accidentally we'd be spending our night in a barren, isolated hallway.

"Better not, " I said. "I think the troops should retreat." We retraced our steps through the theater and back to the bathrooms. Then we did what any lost tourist might do in a foreign, non-English speaking country when faced with a similar situation - we yelled for help.

Our rescuer was the man in the projector room. "Come on up," he called. "I'll be done in a minute." When he'd rewound the movie reels, we followed him; lost puppies finally on the trail home. He led us through five doors ( none that we would have likely tried ourselves) and then a final one in a small enclosed foyer with a door on every wall. It was the final choice: door number one, door number two or door number three. I looked back as that last door, a heavy metal cargo door, closed behind us. Not the door I would have chosen. Bob Barker would have shook his head as the buzzer went off. "Oh, I'm sorry. But you still get the booby prize - a dark night in the theater basement."