Here is Lauri calling!

Well, Hello You! 

It is my turn to introduce myself. I'm Lauri and I'm part of this great team from Finnish Lapland.. 

The red spot is Sastamala, 
but where is Rovaniemi?

Let's go 700 km to Southern Finland and find my home town, a place called Sastamala. Sastamala's population is about 25 000 people. We have there more entrepreneurs than any other city in Finland. That is quite cool! :)

Do you know this game?

I'm a 22-year-old second-year Tourism student in MTI (Multidimensional Tourism Institute) and I am studying with a Finnish group. I have got great experiences in participating in different competitions and events in my studies. In October me and Anna were at the Barents in Levi for one week. We were there hosting VIP guests from neighbouring countries. And now we are coming to Maastrich! I'm so exited!

To the top of the hill and over it!

But how did I get the idea to move to Lapland?

Well that is a good question... First it was an accident, but nowadays I would not change a single day being here. I have enjoyed my stay here near the Arctic Circle, Snow, Northern Lights and people. This all here is just so amazing, and nature, how pure it is... 

You can just imagine it...

Stay tuned, 

This all is just beginning... 

Pure Arctic Madness has landed

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Get to know Anni

Hello everyone! I have the honor to be the first team member to introduce myself. My name is Anni and I'm 21 years old girl from Finland, the only team member who has been born and raised in Lapland. My hometown Keminmaa is small village in Sea-Lapland. My family consists of me, my sister and our parents. My big sister is currently located in England and my parents live in Keminmaa.

Through several coincidences I ended up to study at Lapland University of Applied Sciences in Rovaniemi. I was supposed to study business, but instead I now study at Degree Programme in Tourism. And I could not be happier! Already during the first autumn I knew that this is what I want to study and this is where I belong to. I will write more about my studies later on, so stay tuned!

My work experience in tourism starts from my first summer job that I had when I was 15 years old. I worked in Hotel Pohjanranta which is located in my hometown. There I worked during five summers; I have had several different kind of tasks during the years for example cleaning, reception, breakfast and bar. During the first year of our studies, we did field work in SantaPark. For three weeks we worked at the home cavern of Santa Claus. There I got the first touch to the Christmas season in Rovaniemi.

After the first year I did my practical training in Germany in the summer 2014. I was working in Hotel Sonne's Bar VIA in a small town called Füssen. Although it was a small town, there were lot of tourist in the summer since the castle of Sleeping Beauty, Castle Neuschwanstein, is located 5 km from the city center. Going to Germany was one of the best decisions I've made by this far in my life. I grew so much, learned a lot, get to knew new language and culture, met so many nice people and got to see amazing places. I lost a piece of my heart to Füssen, and Bavaria in general, and hope to visit there soon!

After the training I went for an exchange to Austria. I studied one semester at Krems University of Applied Sciences in tourism and leisure management programme. The school was located in Krems an der Donau, which is approx. 70 km from Vienna. Krems is a small town in Lower Austria along the Danube. Being an exchange students was great. My roommates were great, the city was nice, the school and courses were interesting and of course got to knew new people around the world! If you ever have a change to go for an exchange, do it!

This autumn has been quite hectic; school, work, EMCup and tutoring new DPT students. But I'm not complaining! I have been busy, but at least I have been doing things I really enjoy. Last week I started my advanced training at Hotel Rantasipi Pohjanhovi. Pohjanhovi is a legendary hotel in Rovaniemi as it is the oldest hotel here. The first time Pohjanhovi was opened was in 1936, but it got destoyed in Lapland War. Pohjanhovi was build again and in 1947 the doors opened again. 

I think this is it for now! 

Like, comment, share and ask questions if you have any! :)

- Anni

Pure Arctic Madness visited Restaurant Day

Restaurant Day - International food carneval all over the world.
The first Restaurant Day was held on 21th May in 2011. On that day they had 45 different pop-up restaurants in Finland. Since the first day the food carneval has kept on growing. There are four Restaurant Days annually: on February, May, August and November. By now there have been 23 600 one-day restaurants with approximately 2,7 million customers in 73 different countries.

Pure Arctic Madness visited  Restaurant Day on 21th November in Rovaniemi. We visited culture restaurant Kajo where they served cuisine from Middle East. Falafel, hummus, couscous with chicken, tabbouleh, baklava and many more! Ah, it was delicious! Atmosphere there was warm and cozy and the whole family who ran it did it together.

Restaurant Day is a good opportunity to taste and enjoy different food, people and the atmosphere. It's a way to discover new people and delicacies and to get great experiences.

"We have a group of friends that are all passionate about cooking and food. Then we heard about Restaurant Day and we knew what to do. We decided a theme and prepared the menu. Now we have had our one-day bistro twice as a part of this carneval. We do something that we love and we do it together. We try different themes to challenge ourselves everytime to make it even better." - Anna

Restaurant Day is a great way to learn and discover more of the trends and culture in restaurant field. Definitely worth to visit and perhaps to make your own dreams come true!

For our team it was a way to get to know each other better and shared experiences are a way to give us more inspiration. Here we come EMCup 2016!

More about Restaurant Day

             

Pure Arctic Madness joining EMCup 2016

It is official! We are the team from Lapland University of Applied Sciences joining EMCup 2016!   EMCup is a a competition for the best European Hotel Management Schools held in Maastricht, Netherlands, in February. This is a big honor to all of us, since this is the first time our university has been invited to the competition. This year the theme is "Surfing the Silver Wave". The population is aging and tourism industry needs to respond to the needs of the new customer segmentation. 

Our team Pure Arctic Madness consists of four students: Lauri Laikko, Anna Pälä, Anni Honkanen and Linh To. We study in Rovaniemi where tourism is one of the biggest economic industries. Our school Multidimensional Tourism Institute (MTI) is a unique institute that combines three different schools together under one big umbrella. These three schools are Lapland UAS, University of Lapland and Lapland Tourism Collage. We all have a different background and work history, which makes us strong together as a team. 

We will start a story line of where we introduce each of us more in detail. 

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