The Santa Clause Express - Seriously

We have a late train to Kemi. It's an overnight sleeper train called The Santa Claus Express.

It is a double decker train. Rooms on the lower floor share a community bathroom. Our group has rooms on the upper deck with ensuite bathrooms.

 Bathroom conversion to a shower is clever.

The room has bunk beds. Getting Carol into the upper bunk nearly kills the two us.

CJ gets a surprisingly good night's sleep, apparently at the cost of seeing the Northern Lights. We must be prepared to exit the train in Kemi at 0600.

Before breakfast we view indoor ice carvings.

After brekkie, we board the retired ice breaker, Sampo, the Official Icebreaker of Santa Claus.

There is a tour of the ship, a mini version of CJ's USS TR CHENG aerobics, and then we wait for a call to the ice or ice floating.

CJ takes a hike on the ice.

Note the bow out of the water. It's ready to crash down and break the next section of ice.

CJ gets a picture of Carol out on deck to photograph him.

Carol gets him walking on the sea ice.

A lot of our mob are ice floating.

Returning to port, the bus takes us to Rovaniemi. We are now near the Arctic Circle again.