I set out from Rovaniemi by bus to stay at the Ice Hotel in Kiruna, famous for its ice houses. The plan was to get off on the road to Jukkasjarvi and walk along the 7 km road, instead of going into the city and taking a taxi for the 19 km journey from there.

  When we were at the the crossroads heading towards Jukkasjarvi, I got off the buses and started to walk along a forest path between dense trees.

  I took one of the roads not visible in the navigation, which I thought might be a shortcut in the forest. After walking for a while, I found myself on a hill. The river and the bridge over which I had to cross to get to Jukkasjarvi seemed in the distance. Since there was no other bridge nearby, I could not shorten the distance I had to walk by taking a shortcut.

  Even though it was only 3 days since summer ended, I decided to wait there for the night, looking at the beautiful view in front of me, hoping that I might see the northern lights. While I was waiting, I set up the tripod and took photos, but due to my lack of experience and equipment at that time, the photos I took in the dark were not as good as the ones I took on my subsequent trips...

  As I started to feel cold during my time there, I took something from my suitcase and wore it, but it wasn't enough. Even though it was only the 3rd of September, my location was north of the Arctic circle... I continued to wait, regardless of the cold, the darkness that would set in after a while, and the fact that I still had a long and difficult road to go to the hotel.

  The weather was starting to get darker, and a strangely shaped white object that looked like a faint cloud right above me caught my attention. At first I thought it was a cloud, but then, although I doubted whether it could be the northern light, I thought it could be a cloud because it had no color.

 And I continued to wait, looking towards the river. It was now pitch dark, and after not being able to see it after a long wait,  I was about to give up hope of seeing it that day. I raised my head to look at the object above again and...

  While I was waiting, looking towards the river, a huge northern light was right behind me...

  Its shape was looking like an eye. While I was looking towards the river, it was like looking at me :) After a brief moment of surprise, I immediately started taking photos with great excitement, while new northern lights began to appear in different places. I was started to be surrounded by northern lights. They were slowly moving into different shapes in many parts of the sky.

  Just me and the northern lights in the forest... Even though it was strange, I felt like I had established a connection with them at that moment. As if they were living beings that gave me peace, not just light...

  This is how my passion, obsession, love, etc. for the Northern Lights began.

  It was the first time I saw the northern lights and they appeared at a time when they were said to be very difficult to see. It was an amazing feeling... I watched the northern lights around me from there for half an hour and then they disappeared.

  After the great happiness I experienced, it was time to return to the other realities of life.

  In that darkness, instead of going down the hill with my wheeled suitcase and backpack, I continued to follow the road overlooking the side of the hill to find a better way. After going a little further, while passing by a hut in the forest, a man wearing only his underwear came out of the hut and said something to me in his own language. I greeted him in English and said I was a tourist, and then he spoke to me in English and asked what I was doing in front of his house. I explained that I was looking for a way to cross the river, but he said there was no way from there.

  So I went back to the hill, and then, in the darkness with no other light source other than the stars and moonlight, I went down the hill with my suitcase and camera bag and headed towards the darkness in the trees. I didn't have a headlamp like I did on my later trips, and I didn't use my phone's light because my phone was almost going to run out of battery because of I looked at the navigation alot. Even though I tried to go straight in the direction I remembered when looking from above, among the trees, in the dark, I sometimes had minor deviations due to obstacles in my way. The places I stepped on were not roads, I was walking directly on the ground, the wheels of my wheeled suitcase were less effective there, it was like I was dragging the suitcase on the ground, and everytime heights came in front of me, I had to lifting the suitcase and this made me tired. After a while, I started to hear the sounds of passing cars and started to move according to those sounds, so I changed my direction maybe around 50-60 degrees. Even though I tried to go straight, my direction deviated slightly towards the opposite side of the river. Maybe I may have benefited from the ability to detect someone's location by listening to sounds, which I developed in computer games such as Counter-Strike, which I played during my adolescence. :D

  After a while, I was happy to hear the sound of a car passing near me. I was approaching the road. After walking a little further, I finally reached the street. Now I could walk with less effort... I walked towards the river and crossed the bridge. A few days ago, while I was walking towards the hotel in Rovaniemi, a woman saw me, stopped and took me to the hotel, even though I wasn't hitchhiking... That came to my mind and I decided to hitchhike since I still had kilometers to go. I hitchhiked on the first car that was passing by and it stopped... The young man who picked me up looked like an exciting, adventurous person, characteristic of the first to die in groups of friends in horror movies. He excitedly asked me what I was doing there at that hour and I told him. It seemed strange to him that I cared because he could see the northern lights all the time. Thanks him for saving me from walking for kilometers by dropping me off at the hotel.

  We arrived at the hotel and I got out of the car. From hotel, I was informed via e-mail that there would be no staff at the hotel after 19:00 due to the end of the summer season. When it became clear that I would be late after getting off the bus, I called the hotel and explained the situation, and the staff said that she would put the key of my room into the envelope and leave it in front of the main bulding.

  I went to the main building, took the envelope left in front of the door with my name on it, and looked at the number I would be staying in from the key inside. Because it was dark, I couldn't read what was written on the sign with a map of the Ice Hotel right across the entrance, so I learned the location of the hut I would be staying in by taking a photo of it and looking through the camera. Since I had been there before, I knew the place, and even though it was dark, it was not difficult to find my place to stay.

 I went into my room, lay on the bed and thought about what I experienced after getting off the bus. It was a great evening. Then, I slept peacefully as at the end of every tiring adventure.