Hotelli Liera Tampere

I was happy to get the opportunity to go to the Finnish countryside and to visit Veli's parents and his family home. We were in a small village near to Pälkäne, which lies between Lahti and Tampere. It is still quite flat with farms, lakes, and fields of wheat, oats, barley and a nearby strawberry farm. In the summer, the joys of Finnish life seem to be picking berries, eating fresh fish and hunting for mushrooms. I got to do all these. I had never seen black currents growing ...

... in the airport and then flying to Croatia.
As always with Ryanair you have to go to a middle-of-no-where airport, in return we only had to pay the taxes for our flights. So we caught a bus from Helsinki to Tampere. Tampere is about 2.5 hours north of Helsinki, about halfway between Helsinki and Jyvaskyla actually. Tampere is considered a pretty big city for the Finns, about ...

... he sure could carry a conversation. =) And I think he is like me, not the wild party Italian who heads down to Ibiza but someone who wants to explore and charter new grounds and to feel alive.
Then our room mate came in who is a Finnish who was staying to meet his wife. Reserved, he was more reticent but soon we had a good conversation among us and were poking fun and laughing at one another. I don't know but it was sure a ...

... attempting to defect to the other side. We then went and climbed a very impressive observation tower with 98 steps and a sensational view over Vesijarvi (water lake). The tower was completed, but yet to be re-opened, after being burnt down by arson. We then headed home to our hosts. My host Auni took me on a walk through the woods along a snow (and ice) covered track that is used by logging trucks in the summer. The walk and scenery were ...

... once the Tampere-Amuri Rotary Club meeting finished at 9am, we then set off to Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. An interesting presentation about how this 120 year old company that initially started out with cold medicine being its main product to growing into a company that now specializes in the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of ophthalmic and anti-rheumatic pharmaceuticals to protect and improve ...

... of Tampere, snug and warm away from the 2 degree temperature and eerie fog outside. The girls braved the cool temperatures, squeezing in an hour's shopping to unwind towards the end of a hectic week (and the walk home was welcomed by those who overindulged in Finnish delicacies!). The night was topped off by watching a sound check of an up-and-coming Finnish band, whom Mike dubbed "The second best band in Finland" (after Eppu Normaali of course).

... ei suinkaan. Eli huomenna kello 16.07 hyppään junaan ja kohti Venäjää. Otan rinkkani selkääni ja rentoudun. Ei tarvitse ajatella työasioita tai stressata mistään. Voin mennä minne haluan ja tehdä mitä huvittaa, täysin vapaasti. Tällä kertaa kukaan muu ei päätä elämästäni. Ei työnantaja, ei koululaitos, ei puolustusvoimat eikä kukaan muukaan. Vapauden tunne on mieletön. Aion kirjoitella tänne pari kertaa viikossa ja mahdollisuuksien mukaan enemmänkin. Joten seuratkaa keitä kiinnostaa.

... not much actually happened yesterday, I played Nanny to Slade yet again. I took him, Jasper and Lotus downstairs to the play area, to leave Lauree and Jason some quite time to finish watching Underbelly. Yes they got through the entire season. After we took Jason to the airport, we did some grocery shopping, which is very fun and very hard. Do you have any idea what it is like trying to work out what the meat is without reading Finnish, or ...

... Southwest, RyanAir makes no pretense of being anything but a cheap airline. The seats are vinyl and cheap plastic, colored primary blue and yellow. There are adverts on the overhead bins. There is no seat pocket (less to clean). The one thing I appreciated was that the flight attendant admonished the two women sitting next to me for talking through the safety briefing: "This is for YOU!" I will be taking two other low-fare airlines (BlueOne and AirBerlin) later in the trip ...

... The thing about Finish nightclubs and bars is, you always have to pay in order to enter the place. In Finland alcohol is so expensive, people just get drunk before leaving their homes and entering bars. So almost everyone on the street is in a bad shape. This doesn't mean it gets violent, we didn't observe any fights at all. It just is a very different nightlife culture. Since no one drinks in the bars anymore, naturally the ...