Trip to Koli so Koldi: Part should have finished this entry weeks ago

First let me say that this is a blog I've had going for a few weeks now. In the first paragraph I'm actually referring to the blog I posted with all the videos on it  when I said "last blog"

Helloooo again people

Well I decided to go ahead and start updating this guy again since the last entry was, while full of good, practical, applicable information, maybe a slight cop out to a real blog entry.  So here we are, we arrive once again to a real blog entry you can smell taste and touch. Yeah.

So this past Friday(feb 18) me and the gang(the gang being >50 exchange students) all loaded up in the mystery machine(the mystery machine being a charter bus) and went to solve a mystery(turns out Finland was behind the f***ing cold all along, who knew).  All necessary metaphors aside, we went to a place called Koli and it was very cold and beautiful. It was interesting taking the bus out of the great city of Joensuu, because I really got to see some of the country side, which also allowed some nice photo opportunities. Well, not nearly as good as the ones when I got out the bus. Either way, when I took the train to Joensuu it was dark, and I really didn't get a good idea what it was all like.

Turns out it was like they all said it was like. You know I'm learning something more and more the longer I'm in another country: what they told you in school is generally correct. How about that, they weren't all lying to complete some elaborate hoax that was so big no one knew exactly what that hoax was. I've thought wrong all these years. Anyways, so Finland is country of endless forests. We went driving around, and by gosh, we were just driving through a forest the whole time. I mean, you'd think, oh back home you have mountains and aren't you driving through forest there? Nope. I mean I guess you are, technically. But here so far in my experience it seems like none of the roads are broad and open. Surely the further you go South, where everyone actually lives in Finland, you would see more big roads that are open and reveal the landscape. As We were driving around outside of the city, really there were trees on one side, and tress on the other side. Didn't really see any rivers, fields, lakes, etc.


 Although here in winter a lake = a field here. When you look, there's almost no way to tell for sure if what you're looking at is a lake or a field without actually trekking on the damn thing. Counter intuitively, usually there is a layer of water between the snow and the lake ice, so you know once you've you've gotten your foot wet and very cold and pissed off. I guess there is one way to tell from far away, and that's if the dang thing is freaking huge. Fields in Joensuu at least don't seem to be so big, the forest likes this place too much for that. But lakes love to compete with the forest, locked in a never ending battle. Point is, if you come here in the winter and you see a big field, it's a lake. 

So here in this past week it's gotten a bit colder, generally with temperatures between -15 and -22 degrees Fahrenheit. You always know it's cold here when you go over the bridge to Joensuu city center and the river under the bridge is literally steaming. That's right steaming. You know it's below -10 or -15 when it does that. Why does it steam? My gosh I'm not really sure. I'll take a stab and go on a tangent explanation, if you hate/don't believe in science, skip the following paragraph.

So water generally steams more when it is much warmer than the air, right? Pour the hot water out of your sink and you might get some steam. Well water can only get so cold. It reaches 32 degrees Fahrenheit and then freezes unless, for instance, it's in constant motion. This is why lakes freeze and rivers have a much more difficult time freezing like the one in Joensuu that flows constantly without ice in some places. Well while the water is always around 32 degrees, the air temperature can still drop considerably. Once the air temperature gets down to something like -15, the temperature difference between air and water is very close to the one you may have had when you were pouring 120 degree water out of the faucet in your 72 degree room. This creates similar conditions to the ones that created steam before, so there ya go. That wasn't terribly scientific but it's all I got or care to have haha. CJ you can rip me a new one if this is all just dumb and wrong. Either way here's a picture of what I'm talking about: 

Alright so yeah, it was really freaking cold on this day we went to Koli. Koli is a place where you can go skiing and snowboarding or just sight seeing. It's the closest thing in the area that has any sort of a "mountain." It's funny because whenever you think of Finland you think oooh snowboarding skiing and stuff yeaahh. But no, I mean sorta. They do that stuff, but really I hear and notice that Finland is a bit of a flat country. You got your hills here and there, but nothing that could make for the best and most extreme places to ski and snowboard. They do have cross country skiing here though, which is just like flat ground skiing, with a slight hill or two here and there. People actually do it all the time here as a means of transportation(or something like that), but that's for another blog entry.


So we drive to Koli and arrive at the foot of the hill-mountain. We unload out the bus and go into the ski lodge. While in the ski lodge we all decide to first take a quick walk-stroll down to see the lake we passed on the way in just before stopping. We traverse the parking lot and start down the very small sloping road. This road is stupidly slick, I mean I have no idea how Finns drive on this stuff people. The ice is so well packed down, you could basically ice skate on the road, I'm not kidding here. Let me show ya somethin(fire marshall bill anyone?)

This is a road in Joensuu outside my apartment that is really really slick, yet the bus just charges on through and picks people up like nothing is happening. I actually almost slipped and fell down in this video just a second after I say "readers." You can see the camera go crazy for a second when I almost slip on the road myself.

So as we're walking down to take pictures at the lake, people start slipping and falling down on the road haha. Check these pictures out:

How people drive on this when people can't even walk on it? The world may never know.

So then we went down to see the lake. It was pretty nice, kinda trippy really. I was just a huge huge clearing of snow. It's cool because apparently there was an ice road near us. During the winter the ice gets so thick that you can drive a car or even a bus on it. So here in Finland, a land of lakes, in the winter a bunch of new roads and shortcuts open up in the winter in the form of ice roads over said lakes. 

After this shot was taken the whole group was so cold after being outside for 15 minutes that everyone walked quickly then just started running ski lodge because no one could feel their toes. It was really cold. On peoples eyebrows and eyelashes had developed what the exchange students have come to call "Finnish make up." It's where the moisture from your breath glides over your face and freezes on your hair, eyebrows, and eye lashes so they turn completely white. We just threw open the door to the ski lounge, ditched our shoes, and began rubbing our toes for about 15-20 minutes. Here's a picture from that instance as well:

So we're all extremely cold and not going to ski at all because of the cold but quickly learn that Koli is a very beautiful place, completely worth just going to look around and take pictures. We begin ascending the "mountain in the ski lift, and the thing you really notice is the trees. It's crazy! You wouldn't think snow cover would greatly effect how the tree looks but my gosh, this place had snow cover like you would never imagine a place could have really. What was really weird is that the trees at the very top looked completely different than the trees at the bottom because of how much snow was on them. Luckily once we got up to the top it warmed up quite a bit. Well, it wasn't warm at all. But it might....might have been above 0 degrees F. No it wasn't nevermind. But it wasn't -20F! Some of the people were so traumatized by the cold at the bottom that once they got to the top they just hung out in the coffee shop haha. Now that's cold. They just told me to take their camera and be off, and so I was because my phone was starting to freak out from the cold. I went to the very top of the mountain.....the view was awesome!!!

Here's a few pictures to get your mind wrapped around the place:

Note the difference in the trees at the bottom and the trees near the top

This picture bares no relevance to the story at hand except that it's just a darn good picture of me. I like it!

This gives you an idea of the amazing view from where you get off the ski lift at Koli

This is a picture from near the top of the mountain. The trees almost look fake, covered in snow clay or something. It seems like you could just go up to one of the trees and shake off all the snow, but really this snow is super stuck on the trees. I went up to touch a few of them, and the snow is just hard and caked on the tree completely frozen to the branches. What winter wonderland though, never thought I'd see that much snow in my life. 

I posted the above photos, courtesy of a good friend of mine, to show the extreme contrast between summer and winter in Koli. Crazy, but both season yield quite beautiful views. 

Here are some pictures of me at the top of the mountain, that orange coat never fails to steal the eyes away from even the most breathtaking of views.

This is a picture of the inside of one of these dang trees. You kinda wonder how the snow got into some of the tree's most private areas.....

Find the thing in this picture that doesn't belong hahaha








THAT WAS A JOKE PEOPLE! I'M A PERSON NOT A THING GEEZ

These trees were kinda huge even though they didn't look like it at first.

Note that my attire completely gives away how freaking cold it was that day. The face mask totally completes the outfit.

The view from the top

I love the slumping over trees, they add some sort of almost eerie personality sometimes haha

  And after you're done why not go for some urban sledding in front of the coffee shop??

Alright guys, that's all I've got for now. Until next time, and Winter is a good thing!!! In moderation. Peace!