Mango Hotel Tampere

... to admit that it took some persuading (I think a chocolate bribe was needed, actually) to get me to jump in.
Being a suburban American type, I find freshwater lakes a little creepy but think nothing of jumping into a chlorinated cement square - go figure. Nicole, Veli and I continued our 'tradition' of game playing long into the night.

After being together for 10 days and not seeming to be fed up with each other yet, Nicole and Veli delivered me to a local bus that ...

... 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 ...

... me of Alaska, cold streets and dreary buildings and when the wind blew, it was really cold. Isn't this summer ? It felt like Alaska in September and I could not imagine the summer.

Food-hunting was rather difficult here too because I was trying to avoid the kebab and so I ended up in Macs again but eating the unique offers that are absent in Singapore like pear milkshake,&morzella sticks.


But while the ...

... The person ahead slipped into the trees with Lu close behind. Underneath, the ground was covered with dead leaves and twigs which crackled as he stepped on them. Afraid of giving himself away, he slowed down. Just then, the moon broke through the clouds and a shaft of clear light shone down through the branches, covering the earth with jumbled ghostly shadows. In the distance he saw the flash of a yellow gown, and his quarry moved out of the forest.

... of snow the next. We visited the Keuruu Health Center, met some of their physiotherapists who kindly let us try out all their exercise equipment. There were a few new ideas for Julie and Catherine to take home. Next we went to Lehtiniemi where the Head of Eldery Care Tuija Koivista and her team educated us about the acre available. We had the pleasure of meeting the oldest resident (age 102) who wanted to demonstrate her walking ...

... amazed to see a real ambulance in one of the rooms! We also toured the facility where people can come and try out aids for communication, vision and rehabilitation before purchasing the aids for themselves. The most interesting of these was a height adjustable kitchen sink, including cupboards above the sink. By pressing a button the entire ensemble can move up or down, and both sections can move independently of the other. There ...

... frescoes, painted all over the walls & vaulted ceiling. We weren't sure if we'd be able to see inside because the info only gave dates up to August, but here we had another of our fortuitous experiences. A film crew was preparing to make a feature film there, so the church was open, but the crew were just having an early lunch, so were not inside - so we could be. Really really beautiful & astonishing history. 14th century carvings of saints - some we recognised & some we couldn't ...

I did it. I actually drove the car here in Finland and man was that an experience. Thank goodness it was only a short drive from the shops to home, and the road was a divided road the entire way back, otherwise I would have been in trouble. I mean I kept going to change gears with my left hand anyway and driving on the right hand side of the road was interesting. MMM Maybe I should get Lauree to let me drive ...

... than what it is like at -30°. I don't really understand it too much, but that is the jist that I got from Lauree. She said the she has gone a over t a couple of times, same with Lotus, who never seems to do anything else but run from place to place. She has compared it to the humidity that we get on the Gold Coast, I guess where we have an extremely hot day we hate it, preferring the bearable days with low humidity. Here they prefer the ...

... was harder to say goodbye. I've never been sad to be leaving England before, it's a new and rather unsettling experience. Not quite sure where that one crept up from. I'm all good now though! So, Tampere again... I've been here a couple of times before with Davey, and it feels rather odd here without him. Walking past all these places that we'd hang out in - the pub with the mahjong games, the bookshops we have no intention of ...