Ho, ho, ho! It's time to get jolly on your naughty asses! -- Robot Santa

Well this was actually even more boring than I thought it would be. Here we see Santa’s village photographed from his gas station. He charges three cent more than any other surrounding business.

On the other side is Santa’s own military training ground where his fighter pilots train low altitude flying & maneuvering. I’m no expert on this but from where the plane was, where the sound came from and the pain level in my ear I would guess Santa has clearance for supersonic flying as well.

The village itself is just as expected. Gift shops everywhere, a PA system polluting the air with Christmas Music, tourists and last but not least “the” arctic circle. A line drawn on the ground. Tourists taking pictures while they are stepping over, balancing on or cartwheeling over it.

66something degrees?! That’s an odd number for a fixed line you might wonder? Weeell… Yes! The arctic circle is basically drawn where the sun doesn’t set for 24h on midsummer. Since the orbit of the earth around the sun is changing every year the arctic circle is moving as well (look up “ecliptic” if you want to know more). Last year it was at 66 33′ 44″ for example. That’s just a couple of minutes of DRIVING away from this line… Some countries just post a sign every year so that you can see the line moving but since nobody wants to move the tourist trap every year they just lie to the tourists. So if you encounter a “I was standing on the arctic circle” picture on the next family event please be jackass enough to ruin the moment. Especially if your folks went up from rovaniemi and directly south again because then they haven’t been in the arctic region at all. Haha…

The real artic circle. Not even a parking spot. Sorry for the crappy pic, I was concentrating on driving…

Anyways, I found Santas Office but he was out for lunch or whatever. I was thinking too much about robot santa after seeing the fighter plane so I guessed that I don’t take the chance that he exists and wants to chastise me. I have been a bad boy…

Odo: 285448
Location: Haparanda / Sweden

"Brace yourself, winter is coming." -- The words of house Stark

A hardshell, waterproof trousers and trekking boots. 5390 smackers… Scandinavia is expensive…

Luckily it’s swedish crones, so it comes down to “only” 616€ but still quite a sum. Again my mistake was leaving germany without thinking too much and taking longer than expected. I thought I would be here in summer. But actually it’s more or less autumn right now. There was rain for sure (got soaked once on this trip), there will be more and the temperatures gotta be around twelve during the day and at least above zero at night. But still locals told me that it’s the best time to visit because of the leaves turning colorful, the mosquitos turning dead and the tourists (re)turning home. So there’s no use in whining, I just had to step up my game gearvise. Since everything over here seems to be very expensive, getting a good deal is not too easy. At the Haglöfs Factory Outlet the prices were more or less in the same range as German mailorder prices. Considering the 25% VAT in Sweden that’s cheap! Now I’m proudly owning Haglöfs Grym Trekking Boots, and an Endo Jacket plus the matching trousers. If they keep the promise of being top shelf outdoor gear I did quite good. So far the only experience I had was that the boots look clunky as hell but are as light as the ads suppose and that I can actually drive the van wearing them. (I should have started breaking them in weeks ago so I just put them on in front of the shop…)

I remember being in Christians flat in Gießen sipping beer and watching clips from the world air guitar champignonships and thinking how awesome it would be to go there. That was about ten years ago and we never went to this weird place far up north where they take place once a year. Just after arriving somebody told me that the place is Oulu and the time is now!

Sorry for the crappy pic. Just check the official Homepage for more.

It’s really a fun event, Dan “Björn Töroque” Crane did a hell of a job hosting the show and the contenders were awesome! There is a message behind it as well.

The purpose of the Air Guitar World Championships is to promote world peace. According to the ideology of the Air Guitar, wars would end, climate change stop and all bad things disappear, if all the people in the world played the Air Guitar. This is why the whole universe is invited to play the Air Guitar for the world peace at the end of the competition.

A clear sign to the Russian gouvernment to stop repressing people.

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An article about Eric “Mean” Malin, the winner of the contest