Valeria

It is cool being able to meet so many people on my travels; other travelers and guides, and people you just bump into. My favourite guide here in Finland is Valeria. She is 23, and is from Murmansk in the northwest of Russia, but she’s been working and living in Finland for 7 years. Valeria talks non-stop, and you can only nod and make agreeing noises as she drives you around, and stare at her as she seamlessly moves from one story to another and another without seeming to pause for breath. Her English is excellent and she is pretty fluent in Finnish as well. She has worked in office jobs, and at Santa’s village (she’s tiny and they made her dress as an elf so she left that job 🙂 ); but she keeps returning to guiding because she loves meeting people, and being outdoors. And talking. I think guiding is the perfect job for her. “Well, you are lucky today is very warm” (it is -6 degrees and she is in a hoody). I ask her what temperature she thinks is cold, “well, -20 is starting to get chilly, but today it is nice”. I think the temperatures in Murmansk are regularly in the minus so she is quite at home here 🙂 The people she takes us to meet love her so much because she has learned to speak Finnish, she respects what they are doing, she is very smart, and also because she is one of the kindest and funniest people you will ever meet. At the reindeer farm she gets on her knees and the family dog comes sprinting to her for cuddles. And when I hug her goodbye after an awesome day of adventures, she hugs back with all her strength before saying, “oh my god, you have so many layers it is like hugging polar bear, but you are nicer, they smell disgusting”. She doesn’t like cooking barbecue for her customers because afterwards she smells of smoke (“it’s so disgusting”), but she is very good at it. As she sets the salmon soup on the grill and checks the lid of the kettle is on, she waves the smoke from her face and says, “It is a good thing you do not wear make up, some of my customers come for the barbecue with a lot of make up on and after all the smoke they look like pandas. I laugh at them so much.” The conversation on the drive home goes something like, “Oh my god look at that yellow house, yuck it’s disgusting. I love to eat reindeer but yuck when you cook it, it smells disgusting like poop. Much better to cook chicken. I hope we don’t meet a reindeer on the road today, that would be terrible. You know, I broke my ribs one time when I fell off my bike after a car hit me. Actually, I am glad I don’t have to bike to work anymore, sometimes I had to bike 60kms and when I get home I am called back to help a customer. I love meeting people all day but honestly sometimes they give me the shits”. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂