Cumulus Hotel Oulu

Introduced to downtown with a drunk guy urinating in the middle of main street at 4PM alongside his patient friends....with the unsurprised locals passing by. Had a good time being shoved all over the place on a Saturday night in the chilly city with great nightlife. <br><br>So all you get here is a picture taken at 3AM or so, almost as bright as day.<br>

A short trip to Finland to visit two of the universities there, one in Tampere and the other in Oulu.<br><br>17Jun - Woke up early and was hoping to take a pic with Alberto but he was still in bed when I left the hostel. Can't blame him if he only had 4 hours of sleep the night before. <br><br>A visit to the Uni of Tampere gave me a clearer picture of what its course is about and how it does not fit into my whole scheme of things despite a carrot in the ...

Today we took a cruise through an archipelago of twenty thousand islands to Aland Finland. It was an early start so we had a huge buffet breakfast on board followed by another as much as you can eat lunch. The scenery is magnificent as well! There is free internet connection on board , handy, as we cannot access it out in the woods!!

Four days until the trip starts. We have flight tickets purchased from Helsinki directly to Seoul and the hotel has been reserved in Seoul for the first 7 nights. We chose Hotel Shilla Seoul mainly based on the good reviews it has received on sites such as TripAdvisor (#2 of 200 hotels in Seoul). We got a great deal from Hotels.com for ...

1. Weaving the Incantation 2. A Servant 3. Born From Fire 4. Towards and Against 5. The Smoke 6. Better Unborn 7. Veil of Sin (Ei ennen soitettu, ikinä) 8. Silver Bride 9. Two Moon 10. Cares 11. In the Beginning 12. Silent Waters 13. Alone ----- 14. The Way 15. House of Sleep 16. Black Winter Day 

... through the maze that is London Heathrow airport. The Finnair flight was excellent - better food, roomier seat, and a much friendlier flight crew. it was also a shorter flight and there was no movie, but I managed get in a quick snooze. When I got into Helsinki it was dark and rainy. booo.... I waited for the very punctual bus to take me to the train station and hopped on board. If only I could have read the street signs, or ...

... the winding aisles, admiring everything but purchasing nothing. Thank goodness America is blessed with these posh super stores because it was hard to leave empty handed! Before leaving the store, we ate at the IKEA café, I had yummy vegetarian ratatouille and Kyle had a big plate of Swedish meatballs. Very tasty and fresh, also the cheapest meal we've had at about $6 a plate. We got back on the highway and headed toward Oulu, Finland. Oulu turned out to be a cute city ...

... youtube.com/watch?v=e98PEx6b aiA. you see, conan bears an uncanny resemblance to the president of finland, Tarja Halonen, who spoke at the forum. it was actually pretty cool to hear the leader of the country speak, it was the first time i had been in the same room as a world leader (okay, so finland isn't exactly a world power, but still, it was great that she came!) - unfortunately she ...

... and tried to ask but nobody again and Laura was losing patience and saying we would never make it but it was only the end of the afternoon. It's more that she wanted to meet friends that were leaving tomorrow morning. Anyway, I told her to go ask certain people which she did and one of guy even if reluctant at first took us over all the way to Oulu which is still nearly 300km. So after a café we hit the road and Laura talked to him on the way while I ...

Well today we were meant to be venturing out of Oulu to Rantsila to a nature reserve place. it was a trip organised for international students so it was really cheap and there were loads of activities planned: cross country skiing, ice hole fishing, snow shoeing, ice hole dipping (!), sauna and general fun stuff! Great...until we missed the bus! We never got there. We were waiting for the bus in the wrong place and we watched it drive off without us as we ran down the road to try and ...