Rantasipi Aulanko Haemeenlinna

... me to Helsinki. A few things had to be decided while with them. One, I decided to mail my laptop back home as there was something wrong with the connection of the cord and I couldn't seem to fix it cheaply. It is just too heavy to carry if it doesn't work. The second was that I decided to come home about 5 weeks earlier than previously planned. 5 months is seeming kind of long. I can save a bit of money and also get started in earning again by returning in early ...

Went to bed after midnight, woke up at 4.00 am, on the road at 4.30am, on the plane at 7.00am, arrived Tampere at noon local time, took the bus to the train station, managed to get on the 13.07 train with a little bit of a rush, kicked back on the train, coffee and orange juice all round. Marie, Antti, Harry, Tommi and Freddi met us at the station and we've been relaxing at their house since! Sun shining, kids out swimming, rowing, BBQ on and wine flowing!

... versus Sweden for the bronze medal. The Finnish fans were ready for this game as Finland's big rival in anything but particularly hockey is Sweden. Everyone sitting around me was Finnish and we cheered together. While I may have some Swedish in my background and could be disowned by any Swedish relatives, you have to understand that I was surrounded by Finnish people, I was in Finland and I wanted them to all cheer for Canada during the gold medal game. I didn't ...

It wasn't quite the time for me yet to settle down, have a proper job and start building my house with a garden. Being unemployed, it was almost too easy to have all the options open and I did wanna go back abroad still, so after a 3-months battle on the job hunt I finally got a call from someone wanting to hire me and was offered a position in Wroclaw, South-Western Poland. My new adventure had begun!<br><br>Next day I ran to the ...

... to know the answer). We went back to sleep. Around 6 David got up for a shower. I considered dozing on but decided that once David was back he'd want the laptop, and I'd thought of several things in the night that were only on the laptop that we could have copied onto eg a memory stick for backup. So if there was to be any ongoing doubt about Jack... Anyway Jack was behaving itself &amp; so I also looked through the photos I'd taken to prune some - no ...

... unfortunate enough to lose my camera and all the photos with it, without Reijo's assistance I would not have been able to insert so many photos, all photos marked with a double asterix are from Reijo. Departure time is looming, it is a balmy -2deg Celsius in Helsinki. What a thrill, we have been waiting for this holiday for 9 months, after the hard work of the previous year, it is great to be getting away for a while. Boarding ...

... great breakfast of chicken, rice and fish. Then we prayed together and all drove to the Kemi train station no more than 5-7 minutes from their home. The InterCity express headed to Helsinki came right on time at 8:51 am for the nine hour journey to Helsinki. What an impressive train! Some of it was double decker with business class on top. We are second class, though. It is clean, modern and fast reaching speeds of 155 ...

Now, we've been throughout lots of Finland. I loved it so far; beautiful countryside; magical lakes, lots of green and clear skies. Friendly people and interesting facts. But then nothing; and I mean nothing so far can compare to the white cathedral of Helsinki. I saw it before; on photos, in books, TV...yet nothing can picture it as beautifully as it presented ...

... such day but it can also be too exciting experience to get back to airport in time. I never visited Paris before so I am enthusiastic to see it, even shortly like this. And football fever there can be really thrilling to see. Crazy. Sunday 9th is also Vera's birthday and what could be better than celebrating it in Paris with hundreds of thousands of people cheering for her.

... hospitality exchange organization called Hospitality Club for a bit longer than two years now and we have been hosting travelers and we have been guests in six countries so far. It has always been better than one can expect, truelly amazing hospitality still exist on this planet and we have made life long friedships I think. We have really enjoyed this way of living and traveling and this trip won't an exception. Our aim is to meet local ...