Our Cozy Little Igloo and Husky Dog Sledding

By now, most people have seen the stunning photo: glowing igloos dotted through snow-covered landscape and trees set against a dark blue night sky. If you haven't, get out from under your rock and click here.

Well, that's where Aaron and I stayed last weekend! We got to experience life inside the glass igloo, and it was a really memorable and cool adventure : )

We flew from Helsinki up to an airport in northern Finland called Ivalo, then took a bus about 30 minutes to the igloo resort. It was in the middle of nowhere. One main road in, one main road out with the nearest town about 25 miles away.

The resort felt like a summer camp in the winter. When we drove in, immediately there was a lodge-style building where we checked in and ate meals. Downstairs there was also a small piano bar with games. From there, we gathered a sled (yes, wooden sled!) to maneuver our bags to our igloo. There are tons of paths on the property, so we passed cabins and ice-covered lake on our way led to the igloo village, which is where we were staying. It was three rows of about seven igloos in each row.

The igloo had a tiny door that even I had to duck under! There was a small bathroom on the right that had a nice toilet and sink; the glass was fogged over in this section thankfully : ) But the majority of the igloo was a bed that looked up to glass panels. The bed inclined up so that you could "look out at the sky from your igloo comfortably."

The igloo was cozy, comfy and mesmerizing. We unfortunately didn't see the Northern lights but it was so fun to stare up out at the snow falling from the sky sipping our hot cocoa in our igloo. We wandered around exploring in our snow gear, played countless games (backgammon!), saw "Santa's house", had long, delicious dinners and met some nice people from New Jersey. But the real highlight of our trip was:

HUSKY DOG SLEDDING!

We had the best team of dogs which we nicknamed:
Bringing up the rear was Macklemore (the ginger) and Felix (the workhorse)
In the middle row was Russell Wilson (the small one) and Jon Ryan (the albino)
Leading the pack was Griffey (the favorite) and Crazy Eyes (there was really no better name since he had one big brown eye and one small blue eye)
We definitely had the husky A Team!

There were nine sleds in total, and Aaron and I were the last ones. We would stop in the middle of the path and wait so the sled ahead would go far enough where they had a big lead. Our dogs were so good that we caught up too quickly to the rest of the group every time : )

One person sits on the sled and the other person stands behind and acts as the driver. The driver has a metal piece near their foot that is a brake when you step on it, and on hills, you have to 'help a doggie out' by getting off the sled and you push/run up with the dogs. For three hours, we cruised around with our A Team while it lightly snowed taking turns between being the driver and passenger. Each time we stopped, we also pet and played with the huskies.

Afterwards, we had a soup lunch in a teepee with the group before saying our goodbyes to the A Team. I almost took Griffey home with me because I was so in love.... almost : )

Hello Helsinki: Finland's Chilly Capital City

It was a quick stopover, but we made it to the capital of Finland: snow-covered, buzzing Helsinki.

Our ferry arrived on Saturday afternoon, and took the tram into the city. It was about a five minute walk from the tram stop to the hotel, which turns into 10 when you have to drag suitcases through the snowy sidewalks : ) Once we checked in, we headed out exploring.

First stop was the Old Market Hall with tons of stalls selling Finnish delicacies, fresh seafood, gamey meats like reindeer and small cafes. We had vegetable curry soup to warm up and then headed back into the cold to market square located on the edge of the waterfront.

We then headed to the Helsinki Cathedral, a Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church in the center of the city. It was originally built in the mid 1830s as a tribute to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. It sits above the city and is a distinct landmark because of it's huge green domes. The architecture style looked very Greek to me with the columns and statues. Outside it was very impressive, but inside it was very simple.

The rest of our evening consisted on stocking up on more winter clothing at a store (it was chilly!), grocery shopping to get hot cocoa and snacks for our next Finland stop-over, cocktails at a neat speakeasy-type bar called Liberty or Death and then craft beers nearby. We had dinner at an asian restaurant which may seem strange considering where we were, but it was so good and had lots of creative, flavorful dishes.

Then we retired for the night to rest up for our journey to north Finland in the morning. More to come!

Good News Travels to Estonia

As I write this blog, Aaron and I are on a ferry crossing the Baltic Sea headed from Estonia to Finland. The snow is swirling gently past the huge windows as we cruise through the very chilly, open waters. I feel like we're in a snow globe : )

It's hard to believe that in a month and a half, this will all be a distant memory of places we travelled, things that we saw and adventures we had. But enough of that for now because right now, I want to tell you about Estonia.

We hadn't originally planned this trip to go there, but it became an add on to our Finland itinerary. Tallinn is only 2.5 hours by ferry to Helsinki, so we thought, why not?!

We almost didn't make it to Tallinn yesterday because we were so close to missing our plane. When we arrived at Gatwick and made it past security, the board said "Gate Closed" for our flight. We began sprinting to what might be the farthest away gate imaginable as they paged over the loudspeaker that they were looking for two other remaining passengers and the Whams. I really thought we'd missed it. And it's not like there are many flights to Tallinn each day. But miraculously, we arrived to a stern gate counter woman who said, "we've been waiting for you." Whoops! This was the first bit of good luck and news that day : )

Tallinn was another fairytale city that gave off little hints of other European places we've been to. Bruges, Kraków, Copenhagen - lots of similarities but also very unique. There was one cathedral in particular that looked very Russian (you'll see in photos below). We found out the architect was from Saint Petersburg so that explains why!

We explored the city by foot, walking through the winding, snow-covered, cobblestone roads. We ducked into a cave-like place for lunch and had delicious meat and salmon dumplings with sour cream. Afterwards, we headed to the Tallinn history museum and then went ice skating on an empty rink in the middle of the town.

My favorite thing we did was go to this little pub under the town hall. It was a step back in time: rock walls, candlelight, wooden tables, clay pots and jugs that you drank beer out of. They even had a huge barrel with free pickles that you had to scoop out with a skewer. The food was simple but delicious and the atmosphere was so fun! It was here that we learned I got a job in Seattle- wahoo!! Another piece of good news : ) Then we went to a German beer hall for a night of music and dancing. We got some more great news about our house hunt but I'll share that in another post.

And now we are on our way to another place we have yet to explore: Finland!

A Quick Welsh Weekend Away in Cardiff

Now that we have an official end date, Aaron and I are cramming a lot of trips into these last few weeks. We hadn't made it to Wales yet, so two weekends ago we did a quick overnight trip to the largest city in Wales... Cardiff.

It's only 3 hours by train, so we headed out on Saturday mid-morning. We arrived in the afternoon and checked into our hostel. Yes, there was an s in that word. Since Aaron has never stayed in a hostel before, I had to introduce him to the young, penny-pinching traveling backpacker life. "But we're old," he says. We haven't even hit 30 yet! : )

It was a nice hostel though. We had a private room on the top floor overlooking the castle. Once we checked in, we immediately headed to the castle which is what I was most excited to see.

We've now seen our fair share of castles. And while they usually have a lot of similarities, they are all different. Cardiff castle had stately apartments inside it which is where the kings and queens used to live. There was an exhibition below the visitors center about the Wales infantry, and we saw one of the only American flags to be captured (which happened during the War of 1812 by the Royal Welch). In the middle of the castle was the motte and shell keep, so we climbed all the way to the top for a view over the city. It started raining pretty hard at that point, so we hurried down and ducked into the WWII bunkers. During the war, Cardiff Castle was used as a shelter for the locals during bombing.

Next we headed to afternoon tea. Scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam accompanied by tea are my favorite British food and beverage - YUM! The tea shop was located in one of the many arcades that are in Wales (no, not the kinds with Cruisin USA video games). These arcades are covered streets with little shops lining the sides. It's like a small, vintage shopping mall if you can imagine that. We perused around a few of the arcades and then headed to have a few pints before dinner at a Tapas restaurant. Brew Dog was our favorite pub that we went to although we checked out a few: Cardiff has a whole area called The Brewery Quarter devoted to just that- breweries and pubs!

The next morning, we woke and headed out to the National Museum Cardiff. It was actually a huge museum with so much to see. There was an exhibition that walked you through Earth's history - beginning with how the continents took shape to life being formed and then onto the dinosaur age (with dinosaur bones), the Ice Age (with a Wooly Mammoth recreation) and up until present day. There was another section that had all different forms of sea animals (whales, seashells, turtles, etc) and another with plants and land animals. It was very well set-up and actually really neat. Upstairs were paintings including some Monet's.

We headed back to London after that. Like I said, it was a quick trip, but we have to pack them all in now!

A Royal Day Out Visiting Kensington Palace

Last weekend, Will, Kate, George and Charlotte invited us over to their house. Okay, maybe not really, but we did take a tour of their royal residence, Kensington Palace.

Unfortunately, you can't see the portion that they live in, but the state rooms in the palace are open for visitors. It's divided into three sections: a view into William and Mary's lives in the Queen's State Apartments; the court of George I and II in the King's State Apartments; and a glimpse into the life of Queen Victoria in her most frequented rooms.

The best part about the tour was not visiting all the rooms, but listening to one of the tour guides give a brief but enthralling recap of the history of the British Monarchy. Some interesting facts we learned:

• William and Mary have been the only reigning diarchy (meaning two individuals are joint head of state). Mary's father reigned before them and during his reign he became Catholic. Parliament did not like this so they approached Mary, who was married to William and living in the Netherlands. They needed her blood line, but they also needed William who enlisted the Dutch army for help. Together, they overthrew her father and dually took up the position of King and Queen.
  
• Queen Victoria led a very interesting life. Her uncle (William IV) actually appointed her to be Queen before he died overstepping her mother from taking the throne. She inherited the throne at age 18 where she then went onto rule for 63 years and 7 months. She and her husband also had nine children, and after her husband died she went into public mourning, after which she only ever wore black.
  
• In 1917 the Royal family changed their name. The German-sounding Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was replaced by "House of Windsor" in the midst of WWI.
  
• Princess Diana lived in Kensington Palace even after her and Charles' divorce, and when she passed away the gates of Kensington Palace became a memorial with over one million bouquets.

A brief, small look into a long, complex history of the British royal family.

A Bad Episode of House Hunters

When we first moved to London, we had some difficulties finding a flat. We had neighborhoods in mind, but didn't really know what they would be like until we moved. We had ideas about what type of flat we were looking for, but it was hard to know what we would get for our budget having never lived in the city before. We had a list of must-have and can-live-without items, but it was difficult to judge what would really be important to us without starting our life there.

So moving back to Seattle should be easy, right? In theory it should because we know the neighborhoods, we know what we should be able to get for our budget, and we know what our life will be like when we return.

After putting six offers on houses in the Seattle area and not getting any of them, I can say that it is not easy. It is disheartening and discouraging. We see a house we like and our friends and family go look at it for us. We FaceTime them while they are there and ask questions, then Aaron and I go away and we do research on the commute, walkability, and specifics of the neighborhood. We fall in love, make an offer and get denied.

I should clarify that we are making good offers- often well above asking price with a strong down payment. We've written a few heart-warming letters and are well qualified candidates. But the competition is just too steep.

It's hard because we don't even know how close we were with our offer. We don't find out the amount the house goes for until after closing, typically 30+ days after, and it's not like the seller gives you feedback: "you were 1st runner up. Lost out to an all cash offer." At least then you might say, "I came so close! I'll offer more next time."

We don't learn details about why we weren't chosen, only how many offers a house typically has. The lowest that we've been in competition with has been two other offers; the highest has been 22 other offers. We now know that the one with 22 other offers went for 133K over the asking price and another one more recently was rumored to have gone for 150K over the asking price... YIKES!

This is a bad episode of house hunters with seemingly no good ending in sight. I keep thinking there's a reason we put an offer on every house and don't get it - whether it's that it made us see the value in a neighborhood or realize that we want the bedrooms on a different level, etc. And I keep trying to remind myself that the perfect house is out there (in between my wishing that Amazon would go on a hiring freeze).

I know that eventually we will find the perfect home for us in this crazy, unpredictable, disheartening Seattle market. And in the meantime, I just need to remind myself that we are blessed to be in the position where we are able to afford a nice house in a thriving area.

So here's to lucky number 7! Hopefully, it will all be worth the wait.