The Finland trip

Everything started on 2nd of September at about 22:50. I started in Brunswiek heading to the tram station. It was a silent slightly cool, even peaceful night.

[pic] Bs tram

The direct train to Bremen was on time and so I arrived there at about 1:40. Due to plenty of time to kill till check in I had decided to walk to the airport. I experienced an empty Bremen oldtown, beautiful light scenes and a with fresh air enriched one hour night walk.

[pic]Bremen night

The following three hour passed bye quite fast. I even got some sleep, and I wasn’t the only one. The airport seemed like a hostel. The first scheduled flights were from 6am on. Flights by Lufthansa, AirBerlin and TuiFly.

[Pic] plane

The low cost carrier I was travelling with, Ryanair, had some later time slots, most probably coz they would be cheaper.

So at 5.45 the Terminal E was quite crowded as there were three flights scheduled at 6:30, one of them mine to Tampere. Queing was ok, and my luggage within weight limit, which was checked previously.

So after buying a present in duty-free for Steve and refilling my bottle, I was ready to take off.

Flight was 2h, plus 1h time difference to Finland.

From the airport I took Bus to Tampere, and started to discover the city.

[pic] tampere

Tampere the 2^nd biggest city in Finland with about 200K people, note that Finland has about 5mil inhabitants. I wanders bit around, bought some food and drink, moreover I decided to take quite an early train to Jyväskäla. Weather was nice by the way.

So I arrived at about 7pm

Thursday 3^rd:

After arriving at Philipps student accommodation we went straight so Sauna. To have a Saune in Finland must be as common as having a shower in Germany. And the student accommodations had Saunas as well, gender separated and 1h time slot a day. We would have gone to Sauna three times during my stay there. Sauna was for about 4-6 ppl, 80°C and always full.

In the evening there should be a big student party in some club. So the night program was set. Before should be some “pre-drinking” of some ERASMUS students in some other building. It was devastating, some Spanish had prepared a drinking game, and one Spanish girl had made some mint-berry-vodka drink. It was actually quite ok, yet a sip was more then enough. Anyway, I definitely wanted to play a stupid drinking game. I m old enough to decide when and how …… oh my English is really getting worse, your right XY… to drink. And I felt quite old that moment, guess those people where about 4 years younger, at least 3.

So we went then walking downtown to the club. While queing in the front of the entrance. I had to discover that there are “Flaschensammler” as well in Finland. These are people who collect empty pant bottles from bins or streets, many in places where people gather.

The club was full, and cool. Prices surprisingly low .. 3EUR for 0.4beer. It got really cool when at an later time a finish band started to play. Thus it was loud, and I wasn’t entirely able to distinguish weather they were singing English or finish, the music they where playing was cool!!!!

The next day should be a raining day, there was always one day with good and then one day with bad weather.

While leaving the club we thought of walking back, after a few meter there was slightly rain. Really slightly, so we passed confident the taxis. After being away enough from the taxis the rain suddenly became heavy…..hopefully we manage to get a cab.

Friday 4^th:

Steve was already gone due to lecture, later we were supposed to met at his University.

Today was the day of Bowling and climbing. I was quite supprised as Matrin was greeting me by name. I had absolutely no memory of him. Bowling was ok, Martin, Steve, a dutch guy and me were playing one lane. Guess the problem was there were no light ones with big enough hole. And so the dutch guy one tine hardly could get his finger out of the bowl. Occording to this he was either making 10 or 0. In the end the we three, Dutch one Matrin and me were quite close and hardly fighting about the new place 1, which was actually place 2. Steve would have enve gotten first place with a 100 point penalty. In the last round Martin blow a save second place and I managed to win by 2 points.

[pic]bowling

I skipped the wall climbing as my head was still turning around yesterday.

[pic]wal climbing

After the Student programm we walked through the city, had some food and got back to the student accommodation. There we went to Sauna.

Saturday 5^th:

Today there was good weather again, and so we went of hiking. During that, as well as other occasions I was realizing that I am really out of shape.

Here some hiking pictures:

[pic]hiking pic

In the evening, guess what…Sauna. Later we had some beer with George, Phils greek flatmate, and two of Georges Finish friends Eppu and Tuulia. Later we went to Bar tour with them. I was a really great evening with 4 different bars. Also met Martin and some other ERASMUSs. George had a car so we had no problem getting back.

[pic] party

Sunday 6^th

Sleeping long, rainy weather, last visit to downtown.

Monday 7^th:

The-way-back-home

Getting up 4:50 local time (3:50 CEST). The first bus to the train station was 5:20 and my train 6:30, as it wasn’t raining I decided to walk. It was good to do some fitness, save the 2,90EUR for the bus, but best to kill some time, keep awake and get a fresh head.

I arrived 6:15 after about 45min walk, train was scheduled 6:30, delayed to 6:33 yet it arrived on time in Tampere 7:50. But nearly 30EUR for that trip, I was really thinking how lucky we can be in Germany. Die Bahn might sometimes seems expensive, but it’s a good one.

8:10 should be the Ryanair Bus to the Airport. I had been a bit afraid that it would maybe to full to get in, but was no problem. Funny thing is that I spend as much money on the Ryanair Bus as on the flights. After going to security, were I had the experience to met an not friendly person. I was in the waiting hall. Ah btw @ Stephan, while arriving at TMP airport I had an dejavu about the Göteborg city airport.

The flight was scheduled to depart 9:55 with turnaround time 25min, it should arrive 9:30. Or maybe earlier, as during my flight to Tampere we arrived 20min earlier due to wind conditions. While waiting I saw some pl who came there with me in the same flight. Anyhow, on 9:30 there was an announcement…. First in finish, while it was in English the finish speaking ppl were already moaning and going back to sit down. I got that that flight is delayed until further notice in half an hour. Also I could gather that the flight had to land in Sweden to fix sth.

Before I had read about some Ryanair flight which had been cancelled and about passenders hanging around on airports. I also read a sign thar R only provides point-to-point connections….

The airport was crappy, so I was hoping the best. I was knowing that R always has some spare airplanes, guess one stationed in Dublin, Stansted and Hahn. At about 10am there was the announcement, that the estimated time of arrival was now 11:15. Note estimated, which means… maybe…maybe not. SO I got me coffee and some chocolate…..

While waiting there were some fighter jets starting as well as some other commercial and privat planes.

thinking of an interesting flight back. The 737-800 landed safely at about 11:10 and everything went usual from that time on.

Landing in Bremen was good timing, got of, refilling my bottle. Up to tram station, to the trainstation. Getting 99er from BK, dropping Steves vote into the post box. And waiting for the train. Up till then every transportation was delayed and so was the train to Hannover. Yet only some minutes, and as I only lost 1h in the end I arrived in BS about 16 o’clock.

At 18 o’clock I was ill, still recovering and hoping for the best.