Unfortunately, all things need to come to an end.
This project has been fantastic and everything we learnt and experienced together. We definitely grew as a group and individually and it has been amazing to get to know Finland, the village and the people. This place has become a second family and home where we know we will always be welcomed back.
These last few weeks still had so much to offer.
In the middle of November we took a weeklong trip to Finnish Lapland and Norway with the car. We got to see reindeers, a lot of snow, beautiful scenery with moutains, went hiking, spent many hours in the train, car and bus, experienced temperatures up to -20°C, very short days, met with other volunteers and most importantly, we saw northern lights! We had already given up hope since we were on our way back and we had not seen them in the places where we were sure we were going to. But we were lucky to have gone out one more time and then saw how they developped from a very small stripe to covering up the whole sky. They were changing their shapes, dancing and they were even pink at some point! (Unfortunately noone took pictures ^^’)
When we came back, it had also snowed in the village and it stayed like that until the end of the project. It was beautiful to have snow, since it doesn’t really snow where most of us live. So, we organised a snowball fight with the village and it was so much fun. Afterwards we came together to drink glögi and just hangout since it was our second last day.
We started our travel home on the 30th November very early in the morning at 5 o’clock and took the ferry to Stockholm since we decided not to take the plane and opt for a greener solution. We crossed Sweden, Danmark and Germany and it took us 3-4 days to get home by train and bus. Everyone went home except for Alessandro who will stay in Finland until the end of January since he was able to extend the period of the project.
We said goodbye with one smiling and one crying eye because we know this was not a goodbye but a see you again!