After coming home for Christmas to see all our family, we had to get back to Germany, as Matt had to fly the week after Christmas. Since we were back in Europe, we decided to spend our New Year's Eve in Finland. We flew from Frankfurt up to Helsinki and then caught another plane up to Oulu, a city that sits on the eastern side of the Baltic Sea. From Oulu, we caught a train up to Kemi, a city at the top of the Baltic Sea. We chose to go so far north because we wanted to venture up to the Arctic Circle and stay in an ice castle. 
As advertised, the castle was built of solid ice and packed snow and sat on the Baltic Sea. The castle, located west of Kemi, is only open from January until the beginning of March due to the weather and is one of the most phenomenal sights the two of us have ever seen. Since the construction of the castle is solid ice, we had to bring 'special' 
cold weather clothing and accessories to sleep in at night. The castle supplied us with sub zero sleeping bags, reindeer skins, and sheepskins for warmth, but we were 
only allowed to sleep in thermals, socks, gloves, and a hat so that we wouldn't overheat inside the sleeping bag and start to sweat (which would cause us to get hypothermic and freeze). I have NEVER been as cold as I was after getting undressed into just my thermals and jumping into the cold sleeping bag! Did I mention that our beds 
were made of ice too? Since I can be 'special' at times, Matt sealed me up into the sleeping bag nice and tight and then undressed and sealed himself up into his bag on his bed. Here's a picture of me all sealed up--Matt thought it was funny. The only problem with being sealed up in the bag is that if 
you had to go to the bathroom during the middle of the night, you would have to un-seal yourself, put on your cold clothes (we were instructed to put our clothes under our sleeping bag on top of 
the reindeer skins so that our body would keep them warm-ish), tie up your boots, and head outside in the cold to the bathroom. Luckily, I had dehydrated myself enough so that I didn't have to go through any of that 'trauma!' Anyhow, as we fell asleep that night, we were nicely comforted by the thought that if there happened to be a fire while we were there, we wouldn't be burned to death--because there was a fire extinguisher in the hall to fend off the flames...or was it the fact that we were surrounded by ice and snow that gave us the peace of mind?
For dinner that night, the castle provided us with a traditional Finnish dinner. As you can see, the dining room and our table were made of ice as well, so that's why we're fully clothed, gloves and all. Matt thought it was cool that his beer actually got colder as dinner progressed--something that wouldn't happen anywhere else. In honor of Matt's sister, Casey, we had to take this picture of the milk sitting on the dinner table (it's to the right of the wine glasses). It was there when we arrived 
and remained there throughout dinner and stayed there after we left. We deemed it an exception to 
the 'milk violation' rule because the temperature inside the dining room was colder than a fridge and the table it sat on was a 6" slab of ice. See, K, we found one place on earth where leaving milk out on the table is semi-okay! The dinner that we were served was REINDEER. Seriously. I had an incredibly hard time trying to eat 
Rudolph, but Matt had no problems, so he eventually ate mine too. I did take ONE bite for the photo op, so that's why this photo is posted-the bite wasn't in vain after all.Sleeping in the ice castle was one of the coolest things we have ever and probably will ever do. It was a one in a lifetime experience and we had a blast.
The following morning after our night in the ice castle, we headed to the
Baltic Sea to go ice diving. We boarded an ice-breaker ship called, 'The Sampo,' that took us out to the deep waters of the 
sea. Once there, we had to undress yet again and jump into ice diving suits. Looking like astronauts, we disembarked from the boat and took the plunge into the Baltic. The crew tried to find a 'smaller' suit for me but couldn't find one...so it took me about 20 minutes to go from the bottom of the boat (up a ton of stairs) to the ramp that we had to go down to get to the water in a suit that felt like it was custom 
made for Goliath. The suit weighed about 15 pounds and was made like footed 
pajamas, so I kept tripping on the front ends of the feet and ended up waddling like a penguin (each time I picked up my foot to take a step, the footie part would go flying in front of me and my real foot would land on about the calf section of the suit). Matt said watching me was like watching a horrible train wreck...he didn't want to look but just had to stare in amazement. Of course this process was really easy for him because he had a diving suit that fit! Since the water is so cold, the human body becomes buoyant. We could feel the coldness of the water through our suits but it felt cool, not freezing, like the water truly was. We thought the ice castle was cool, but the ice diving was exhilarating! There's nothing else like it in the world.
After our day of ice diving, we headed back to the ice castle to pack our bags and head back to Oulu. We stayed a night in Oulu before venturing back to Helsinki to catch our flight back home. While in Oulu, we found an amazing Indian restaurant (who woulda thought?) and enjoyed the sauna our hotel offered. The Finnish are HUGE sauna (pronounce saow-nah!) fans and sit in them every day. The only thing that we can figure is that it's because it's so cold! Initially, we weren't going to try them out, but the hotel kept nagging us about it--so we gave in. Needless to say, it was a warm and sweaty Finnish experience.
This trip was one of the coldest yet best trips we've ever taken and one that we'll always remember.
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