Wow, is it me, or has it got a bit chilly over here? Maybe it’s because we’re in LAPLAND.
(although, to be fair, it's always cold in England. Shut up Mel? OK)
(although, to be fair, it's always cold in England. Shut up Mel? OK)
Aye, that’s right, it’s that time that I’m talking about what it’s really like to be a holiday rep. And this time I’m talking about my favourite season, my time in the beautiful, magical, Lapland.
It’s a bit more difficult for me to talk about my time there, as every day truly was different, we had some 3 day durations, some 4 and some 5. I’m going to focus on the three day durations here, as they included everything that the 4 & 5 did, just squashed-er.
Day 1: Airport Day
Ah we’re back at the airport again. Now as I said in my previous Lapland post, I was working from Kitilla, which is in Finland. Kittila is the airport, but it didn’t only house my holiday company, it also held at least 2 other English holiday companies, some crazy French ones and a couple of others, as well as independent travellers and people that actually live there (lucky so and so’s). It is not a big airport. The staff there also think that peak of season, when everybody is there trying to check in is a great time to train new staff. Hmmmmm. But to be honest, the airport in Lapland was nowhere near as stressful as in Corfu. We had two arrivals, which arrived about half an hour to an hour after we’d waved goodbye to our departures (this could often get super teary as well). It was a lot easier to keep people happy in the airport as we had mascots, singing and all round happiness. Once we’d got the arrivals on their coaches, we hopped on our respective coach, introduced ourselves and headed over to our hotels. We then had about an hour to get ourself ready for our welcome meeting. These welcome meetings were so different from the ones in Corfu - as in people turned up. We would normally get 100% turn up. It included the similar things though with sales, getting people excited and telling them what they’d be up to. As I said the holidays in Lapland are a lot more hands on, we get to know customers and they get to know us, so this is where it all starts really. Then we get to eat - chips, chips, chips and more chips. (I used to joke with the customers that if the childrens buffet was empty they should come over and see if it’s all on my plate. I actually had kids coming up to me making sure I ate all my vegetables, which I wasn’t). Don't get me wrong - they had a great range of food, and the kids definitely ate better than me. I miss chips.
Day 2: Activity Day
I think this was probably my favourite day. Spending lots of time with the people on your bus was great fun, taking them around to go on the activities was also great. The trouble with this was that a lot of the time there was a bit of standing around - waiting for people to finish on huskies, reindeers etc, - and standing around in -20 isn't great. We used to do fun games with all the kids, to keep them moving. I used to get the children to see if they could race me across to a tree and back. Seems simple enough but I used to know where the snow got suddenly deep, and it caught people out everytime. It was great fun though because I used to get stuck in it as well, and we'd all have to pull each other out. After this it was people going out on trips that they'd brought before, and we'd make sure everybody got on them ok etc. Then it was getting stuff organised for the next day, before a quiz night that night which was always a laugh.
Day 3: Exploring DayOf course, you can't have a trip to Lapland - the magical home of Santa without searching for Santa, can ya? I won't go into too much detail about what happens here, but this is a really cute and friendly day. It always used to dip in the middle for me though with a high pressure snowball fight, that I always lost and ended up bruised and cold. As this is the last day for our group, we had a party that night. This was a hard night as I normally only got to eat cold chips and half a slice of cake (think of my poor belly, used to three portions of chips a night..) but it was so much fun. We did all of the dances, all of the games, used to have children dancing with us, asking for songs, it was just so much fun. Once we'd done our bit, and most people had gone off to bed/to pack, we'd often sit down and have a glass of wine and spend time with the families. Such a great night, and it was here that it would start to get a bit sad about people leaving - I get on really well with kids and I find it easy to make bonds with them. Once we'd cleared everything up from the party and indulged on a packet of Pringles (probably just me) we got to go to bed before taking off back to the airport tomorrow.
Overall:
This is not at all exhaustive. There's a lot of other bits and bobs that we had to get up to, none of which are particularly exciting. What I will say is that Lapland was really hard work. But it was TOTALLY worth it. I love being round children. Seeing the excitement and the wonderment on their faces - and the adults too - was the best.
No, I didn't get days off. And no, I didn't get much, if any, free time. But I would do it again in a second.
8 comments
This sounds like so much fun! Have you written a post about how you got the job? I'd love to read it. Very jealous, but I don't know how I would deal with a snowball fight every day. Sounds a bit chilly!
ReplyDeleteLisa | farawaylisamae.com
It was SO much fun! No I haven't really thought about it to be honest, it was just a pretty normal interview to get the job in total. Though I touched on getting the Lapland placement VERY briefly here: http://www.melberryy.com/2016/03/mels-adventures-2-finnish-lapland.html (If you want to know more though feel free to tweet/email me! :))
DeleteIt really didn't feel that cold at all, I was ready to feel awful as I don't deal well with being cold but I think I really only felt cold once, when I was stuck in a snow drift because I can't ski... And the snowball fights were a bit of an extra rivalry between me and a friend, was a right laugh haha!
Thanks for the comment! :) xx
Ooh wow Lapland sounds like so much fun! I've always wanted to go. I'm so jealous of your job! Beautiful photos.
ReplyDeleteKate x
www.kateiscoveting.wordpress.com
It was SO much fun! I would definitely recommend to everybody! I wish it was still my job a lot of the time :(
DeleteThanks for the comment! xxx
This sounds amazing and your photos are all so beautiful!!
ReplyDeleteJess xo | The Indigo Hours
via the #gbloggers chat :)
It was amaaaaazing, thank you, so glad I managed to take out my good camera and GoPro! Got some great videos of it all as well :)
DeleteThanks for the comment! :) xxx
O my goodness! look at that sow! Looks so cold, haha! I really do want to experience snow one day :)
ReplyDeleteJade xo
It was perfect snow! And it really didn't feel that cold, even though it did get down to -28, apparently that was quite warm in comparison to previous years...
DeleteThanks for the comment :) xxx