My name is Jolanda, born in 1969 and raised in Groningen, the Netherlands.
When I was four years old and went to kindergarden I got a friend and her parents had the (now) Mercure Hotel in Groningen. Often when we had playdates we played hide and seek in the hotel and that was a wunderful time.
At the age of four I decided that I wanted to have my own hotel when I was grown up and it had to be in Switzerland. (don’t ask me why I just wanted mountains and snow)
So I chased my dream. After highschool I went to a specialist education of cooking and serving for 1 year before I went to the hotelschool Groningen. From the age of 15 I worked at the hotel of my friend’s parents every weekend and holiday and I did everything that was required like housekeeping, working in the kitchen and serving. And still I wanted my own hotel 😊.
For my internship in 1991 I went to Bad Brückenau Germany, at first for 5 months. Then I asked if I could stay another five months and then they offered me a full-time job and I sayed yes!!
I worked there another two years and then I expaned my horizon and position and moved to Würzburg Germany to a small family hotel. There I learned a lot which gave me enough confidence to apply for a higher position in management. So I became a general manager in Sonneberg Thüringen in a small hotel, it was not Switzerland but I was only 26 years young. It was hard – you had to work for many hours and had no social life, so after a while I thought………… is this my dream from kindergarten?
The answer was: ‘Yes’, but not in this way. So after 7 years in Germany I moved back to Groningen and started working for the brand Golden Tulip in Drachten at the Front Office, still in hospitality. We were sold to the van der Valk brand and I did not want to work for them and luckily for me the hotelschool in Leeuwarden was looking for staff with Front Office experience. I got the job in 2001 and was in my element to teach new students the beautiful insides of hospitality. After having worked for 10 years for this school I got another job as a schedule maker and in 2019 I started to get restless again……….
I had never worked for a boss that long and I really needed a change……… and quit in 2022.
It is not crowded here, I don’t live in the middle of nowhere but in a small village next to the 99 Norrskenvägen (the NortherLight route) and next to the Tornio river, the natural border to Finland.
To hike or go kayaking and stay under the clear sky at night. Seeing the Norther Lights for the first time it took my breath away so beautiful and magnificient.
I have a black labrador puppy called Olle and we make long hikes, he also loves the snow and goes on tourski’s and nordic skiing with me. Hopefully he likes to swim this summer.
That is how I ended up in Hedenäset Sweden, I wanted real winters again (snow and ice), something of my own, back in hospitality and a better quality of life 😊.
So I found this beautiful house, a former post office et voila, a new dream was born.
Why so high up north? Because it is not crowded here, I don’t live in the middle of nowhere but in a small village next to the 99 Norrskenvägen (the NortherLight route) and next to the Tornio river, the natural border to Finland. When you follow the 99 you will end up at the Northcape after 750 km, what an adventure.
Nature is so beautiful here, to hike or go kayaking and stay under the clear sky at night. Seeing the Norther Lights for the first time it took my breath away so beautiful and magnificient. During the summer it does not get dark but in the winter we still have some daylight between 10 am and 14 pm and we also have some light from the snow.
Since November we have snow here and it will last till May 😊 even after so much snowshuffling I still love it (it is my first winter, maybe after a couple of years I will hate it).
I have a black labrador puppy called Olle and we make long hikes, he also loves the snow and goes on tourski’s and nordic skiing with me. Hopefully he likes to swim this summer.
Every day is an adventure here, every day I learn something new but I am now so happy I moved even if that means that I miss the friends and family. But I only live 4.5 hours flying from Amsterdam 😉 and 3 days of driving by car through beautiful Sweden.
I hope I inspired you that you can chase your dream at every age and experience adventures to make yourself happy!
Jolanda and Olle
Ps by the way I am still friends with my kindergartenfriend, named Gabriëlle and we celebrate 50 years of friendship this year (2023). She also visited me from Canada (where she lives now) here in Hedenäset
It is often said that the “cradle of culture” in the Tornio Valley stood in Hietaniemi. Hietaniemi is the old name of the parish, parish and municipality. The parish is still called Hietaniemi Parish. The main town of Koivukylä, changed its name to Hedenäset in 1914 when the railway came to the village.
Hietaniemi became an annex parish to Övertorneĺ with its own comminister in 1637 . Hietaniemi became his own pastorate in 1878 and was given the first vicar Carl Michael Stenborg. Hietaniemi got its own municipal board from 1871. Hietaniemi was a separate municipality for almost 100 years before it merged with Övertorneĺ in 1969.
