inari

hey. i'm Inari village now, population 500. Inari is the largest province in Finland and has the largest lake, too. I hitchiked 225 km here in two segments, from Torvinen to Ivalo, and from Ivalo to Inari. Right now I'm at the home of Suvi and her partner and child, and they're having a bit of a time getting the kid to go to sleep as the sun is shining brightly even though it's past 9pm...

anyway, this hitchhiking thing is really working out so far...for example my rides today:

1. after waiting for 30 minutes, I got a lift from an economics guy, Jusi, father of three in his forties, from Rovaniemi on his way to go fishing with his dad. Apparently I was the first hitchhiker he had ever given a ride to, and ended up inviting me back to his dad's place where they fed me awesome Finnish food including dill potatoes, Russian bread, beet salad, raspberry pudding with cream, donuts and coffee! He and his dad were very excited to show me all their family pictures and were generally amazing and a friendly.

2. Jusi drops me off at the side of the main road across from the church in Ivalo. 15 minutes later, I get a lift from a guy named Matti, who turns out to be a reindeer herder living in Inari. He owns some tourist businesses in Ivalo and Inari, where they sell handicrafts and such. He was also super nice and insisted I come by the store in a few days to meet his kids who'll be home from university then.

now, I'm eating a sandwich and drinking tea and having a bit of an earache. when i last saw Philippe in Torvinen, he had caught a nasty bug and had gone to Sodankylä to get checked out...i hope i haven't caught anything. tomorrow i'm going with Suvi's friend Mari to the Sami handicraft school here, where they both were students. more on that later i guess...