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…
Oh noooo! I tried so hard to hide that fact from my family! Hope they never stumble across your blog. (Just for the record: I HAVE been much further north, even though I haven’t seen the Nordkapp yet! 😉 )