Hotelli Rantakalla 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.

So all you get here is a picture taken at 3AM or so, almost as bright as day.

... be closed by the time I got there and boarded onto the train to Oulu instead. A 5-hr train.

The area near the train station is actually quite dreary but if you starting walking towards the center or waterfront, you will find it more lively (than Tampere I felt). And I liked having a waterfront, to be able to see flowing water and islands. It calmed me down and provided space for thoughts. But lodging was scarce and expensive here. The cheaper ...

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!!

... Superior Double Room. Initially the reservation was for 10 nights but we later decided to shorten the planned stay by a couple of nights just to give us more room to plan the rest of the trip (we can always book extra nights in Seoul should we decide to stay there longer). (to be continued if I'm happy with this travel blog service...)

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 

... further away from the smoking room and the door that slammed at every stop. I would have got up and moved, but I was tired and didn't feel like carting my heavy suitcase around to find something better. Now I'm safely in Oulu, in the comfort of my cousin's apartment. I'm just about to head out to explore the city a bit. I was hoping the weather would clear up, but so far no such luck. at least it's not raining at the moment!

... of salmon, smaller whole fish, and kebabs. From what we've seen, Scandinavia seems to be big on kebabs, and their take on Greek salad is pretty unusual to me. I tried one in Stockholm and got a surprise to see it included a hefty layer of peas and corn. After walking from vendor to vendor, we settled down with a beverage and a good opportunity to people watch. I had an iced café latte, and Kyle had a Coke, of course. We spotted lots of babies in strollers with sun ...

this year, the big field trip for our program was to participate in the northern research forum, an open meeting aimed at encouraging greater dialogue among various stakeholders on pressing northern issues, to share ideas and research, and to promote innovative thinking. the first day started with meeting Conan O'Brian! kidding... kind of. For those who don't watch conan, check out http ...

... at her friend appartment looking at the warm weather that still reminded me of Indian summer back home. I used the computer to scan some travel idea.... andNorway started getting in my mind but I cant see why or I dont know if I would still. Later by the end of the afternoon we walked downtown to have a peek of Oulu and to shop some things (a black marker for me). As we were horribly hungry and looking for something we stopped by Subway and ...

... snow making snow angels, throwing snow balls and basically acting like we were 10 again! It was great, we found the humour in missing the trip and had a great afternoon, in my opinion the best yet. I can't adequately describe the fun of this afternoon, but pictures tell a thousand words so please take a look at the photo album. Today turned out to be 'not such a bad day after all', in fact it was great. I recommend everyone to just play like children, you'll never have so many laughs!