Smoked!

The best food I’ve had while in Finland (apart from the new Baltic opening dinner) is smoked salmon. There is a smoke house about 10 minutes drive out of Pietarsaari that does the best smoked fish, of which the salmon is the best. I’ve had it from there a few times in different ways and I think theirs is the best. Buying it elsewhere just hasn’t been as good. If you order it at a restaurant then you generally get it with some potatoes and a sort of creamy dill sauce. I bought it one afternoon direct from the smoke house and took it home and made a more typical Finnish meal (I think).

I scream, about the cost of ice cream

A while back I wanted some ice cream to have with some fruit. I was rushing through the store and on quick inspection could only find one tub of standard vanilla ice cream.




This 1 litre tub I found cost me almost €6.

The next time I went to the shops I looked a bit harder and found I could get a 1 box for about €1.50, in my opinion the stuff out of the box tasted better than the stuff in the tub too.



The Finn’s love the ice cream and it surprised me that something could be so expensive. They have a huge ice cream section at the shops, but it’s mostly heavily flavoured stuff. The ice cream isle is the same one as the candy most of the time. So I guess in effect it’s just a sweet tooth isle.

Second time – not so lucky

I’ve just spent another weekend sailing to Sweden and back. This time on a Finn Flyer 31. So I’m now Tired and Sore. We were a last minute entry and only had 3 (Dan, Doris and myself) on board which actually worked pretty well. The short crew and changeable weather conditions made it a much more interesting race (ah, sail I should probably say) than last year where I didn’t have much to do.



We started at 1800 on Friday in very little wind and that quickly faded to nothing and we proceeded to drift for some time. Finally at midnight we exited the channel and started to pick up the little wind that was out in the open water. The leading boats picked this up earlier and it only took them three hours. Once making steady progress we put into effect a loosely defined 2 hour watch 1 on 2 off which lasted till the morning.






When I got up at 0600 we were roughly half way across the gulf of Bothnia. We finally made it to the first rounding lighthouse at about 1400 and that was cause for celebration. After the wind dropped out it had progressively built overnight and so had out boat speed with our average speed going from 0 to 5 knots by the time we made the mark.

After some short debate about how to operate the chart plotter we worked out the next heading and I proceeded to instruct a lesson on how to fly a spinnaker. As I said when I started ‘Flying the spinnaker is easy, the tricky part is getting it in the air and back down’. Putting it up went fairly smoothly and even gibing was pretty good considering Dan and Doris had limited experience with a spinnaker. However getting it down to round the second lighthouse was not as slick as I would have liked. No one went overboard and apart from foolishly giving myself some rope burn, everyone was fine, we did broach though and put a small hole in the Jib.

Once setting a new course back to the harbour we changed helms a couple of times before I did a long stint to get us back to the channel. Although very different from the boats I would usually be sailing by myself there was still something very exciting about sailing a 31 foot boat in 1m waves at between 5-8 knots. I eventually found a good grove and was managing to keep out average speed at nearly 6 knots, surfing at up to 8 at times.

`

We re-entered the channel about 0130 on Sunday morning, unfortunately one (maybe a pair) of channel marker lights were out and after sailing a bit wide of one obstruction we sailed straight into some fishing nets. With the wind from behind us we did not manage to find a position for the sails to get us out, after loosing our paddle overboard trying to pick up the net to drag ourselves out we reverted to starting the engine to pull ourselves off. We’d already used all of the battery power and had earlier hijacked the remaining starter battery as a power source for the Navigation lights. What ever we’d done the engine didn’t like and it would not turn Thus making it look like we might spend the night in a fishing net. Shortly after this realisation there was a freak 150 degree wind shift and reacting quickly we were able to sail back out.

`

Dan then spent half an hour playing with the electrical circuit to try and get power back and avoid having to dock with the sails. I steered us back while Doris spotted the path from the bow. After checking the engine would run again Dan sailed the last half an hour and we crossed the finish line at 0305 (we later found out the leaders finished about 2230).

`

We shared some celebratory beers with the leftovers of the fleet and crashed well after the sun had risen. Today we tidied the boat, got cleaned up and had a late lunch in dispersed with large periods of laziness. It turns out that although last across the line by a couple of hours we finished 10th on Handicap, had we been 4 minutes quicker we would have been 9th (too bad about the fishing net). It’s not second like the boat I was on last year, but we were quite pleased.

Back again, again.

Well, that should be the last time I say that. I’ll be putting an ultimatum on the table tomorrow. So I should be leaving and coming home within the month, I want to get flights booked this week, but we’ll see how that all works out.

Where have you been that you’ve come back from I think I can hear you say. Well, that’s a good question. Since the last post, I took a daytrip down to Jyväskylä for a day of climbing on walls that deserved using ropes. There was 3 of us in our climbing party Caj, Magnus and myself. I have usually been climbing in and around Pietarsaari with Caj, and Magnus came up from Helsinki. Although we didn’t do as much climbing as I would have liked, it was still nice to be outside on a warm day doing proper climbing. The climbs we were doing all seemed harder than they should have been according to their grade. But that just supports the idea that the Finns make things hard for themselves.

The following weekend I flew to Helsinki on Friday afternoon and spent the weekend there and stayed with Magnus which was great. He lives with his fiancé in a small student flat (even smaller than mine) a short bus ride from the centre of the city. We did some bouldering on Saturday which was really good and close to the city and right next to a small island that was quite nice to walk around. I saw a bunch of the old buildings in Helsinki and unfortunately didn’t get down to the Sumenlinna fortresses before flying to Heathrow on Sunday afternoon. But it was still a nice weekend.

The following two weeks I was in the UK office on the Isle of Wight again. While there I stayed at Kate’s place again, she was away on holiday for most of the time which meant half the time I had the place to myself. Whilst staying in Cowes I managed to go sailing four times and climbing once (at the gym at Calshot). The sailing was really good although in varying conditions. Twice I sailed on a Tuesday night on Katia and Matt’s 707 which is a 7m fixed keel sportsboat. On the Thursday nights I sailed on the Sonar’s from the Island sailing club where they run a sort of learn to sail race. The first week we finished 2nd out of 4 and the next week in very variable conditions which at one point saw us drop the spinnaker to go around the wing mark and then have to tack and sail hard upwind to get to the bottom mark as we sailed on the tide more than the wind. We ended up being given the win on a shortened course after 4 of the six boats that started had already given up and gone home.

The third week I was away I went to France. I spent the first half of the week in Nice which has one of the most beautiful waterfronts I have ever seen, possibly only second to lake Garda. I’m sure sailing there must be fantastic, the water is just such an amazing colour and is contrasted by the terracotta tiles on the roofs of all the buildings. There are some nice old buildings in Nice and some museums and stuff, but I spent most of my time just walking about, going to the beach and enjoying the view. The Nice Jazz festival was on while I was there and on my 3rd night there I walked past a band playing on the street (not as part of the festival) that I quite liked the sound of so I stayed and listened for a bit. It turns out they are from Melbourne and were on their way to a festival in Switzerland. It’s possible that I was bias’s by the Australian voices, but I did like the music and I bought one of their CD’s. They are called ‘The Wishing Well’, I think I was most impressed by the way in which the lead Violinist could bounce about in the street in the middle of a solo. Eric (a friend in Sydney who is from Nice) gave me the names of some friends of his who are climbers but unfortunately I didn’t quite manage to go climbing while I was there. I meet them in Monaco for Lunch on the Monday and we went to a concert together on Tuesday night in Antibes.

Monaco is pretty impressive, It’s quite obvious there is lots of money there. After lunch I walked up the hill and enjoyed the views out into the Mediterranean and saw Palace and walked through the public gardens. There was an aquarium that I wanted to go inside but I ended up running out of time for the train I needed catch, which I missed as I was on the wrong platform, that meant I missed a bus so I didn’t get to the mountains at all (I should have looked in the aquarium).

On Wednesday I got the train from Nice to Paris. I caught up with my friend Gaby who I meet here in Pietarsaari on both Wednesday night and Saturday which was nice, she was able to suggest some things to go and see and also suggested a hostel to stay in. I didn’t find it but I found one in the same area which was still reasonably priced. I did a whole bunch of touristy things in Paris, and there was still so many more things I could have done. Paris is a really nice city, so much to see and do and quite easy to get around as long as you have a decent map of the Metro.

I did a guided walking tour on Thrusday and then went out for a guided pub crawl the same evening (run by the same group) both of which were entreating. In between the two tours I climbed the Eiffel Tower. I found it hard to believe that people would que for so long to get the lift up. It cost more and the line looked like it was at least 3 times the length back from the sign that said 25 minute wait from this point. Whereas the line to walk up to the second platform was virtually non-existent I pretty much walked straight up without even stopping. I didn’t go right to the top as that cost extra again and the line for that was nearly as big as the line at the bottom, but the view from there was pretty amazing anyway. It’s a very impressive structure to look at close up (especially for someone who designs structures).

On Friday I saw the Norta Dame and then went to the Louvre where I spent 6 hours walking around, mostly looking at the ancient Egyptian artefacts (of which the mummy on display was the most interesting). But I did also go and see the Mona Lisa (which was not overly impressive) and spent some time wandering through the paintings looking at what ever caught my eye.

Saturday afternoon I trekked up to the highest point in Paris for a very nice view (if you could look through the houses that were all built up there and enjoying the view. I did a quick walk through the church that is built there in probably some of the most sought after real estate in Paris. I then took a quick trip past the Moulin Rouge, and went out to the edge (of the centre) of the city for an open air cinema.

Sunday I checked out of the hostel and dumped my baggage at the train station before going into the city to line up to watch La Tour De France go past. The bikes did 8 laps of the city when they finally arrived (after waiting a number of hours). I only stayed for 7 as I didn’t want to get stuck in a crush in the metro as I had a flight to catch. I found a bunch of Australians who had set up in a good spot and was talking to them most of the afternoon. The atmosphere of the crowd when the bikes go past is awesome, so many people are just lining the streets to get a glimpse of what has travelled around the whole country. The bikes are so close together that at speed they go past is hard to tell them apart and they get faster each lap. It was defiantly worth all the waiting around, intrusion of privacy and sunburn to experience it. I would have timed it all perfectly if my flight hadn’t been delayed for 2 hours, but it happens.

Last week I was back in the office on the Isle of Wight, and not too much happened. I stayed in Hambel (Southampton) with a colleague. We went climbing yesterday afternoon (at Calshot) and then went to the pub last night before I got up this morning at 0730 for my taxi to the airport and flights back to Helsinki and then Kokkola. It’s been nice to be back to somewhere that feels (more) like home, although I have a feeling that won’t last long as I’m really looking forward to getting home to Australia. It’s starting to get darker now, it’s been what I’d term dark for about an hour now (yes I should be in bed already) and although it was raining when I landed the sun came out and gave me a nice yellow glow for an hour or so while I had dinner. I was greeted with a Dark Grey Polo this time, it’s the same as the others but it has more k’s on it (probably good as I shouldn’t be too spoiled to go back to the Pug).
Photo’s to come!

The Real Finland

Midsummer is a time when the real Finland shines, I experienced midsummer last year on my, the 3 day weekend when the town of Pietarsaari (and most others in Finland) shuts down and everybody leaves to go to their summer houses. Last year it made for a lonely weekend because of that, but this year I was invited to join some friends at their summer house and it made for a much more enjoyable weekend.

So after finishing up at work on Friday relatively on time, I got home and packed some clothes quickly and we were off. Unlike most of the people at work who seem to have summer houses on the water just ten minutes drive from their regular house. We had five hours of driving ahead. After four and a half hours we turned off the main roads and drove for another half hour on narrowing ahh, roads (more like tracks by the time we reached the house).



The house was situated on one of Finland’s many lakes. There were no fences so I’m not sure how much of the property belonged to the one house, but there was enough land to support seven sizable structures. There was the house, outhouse, garage/shed, sauna, outside kitchen, a free standing single bedroom closer to the lake and boathouse and of course the boathouse itself. On top of this there was a Separate BBQ area, a bonfire area, and a small jetty/pontoon arrangement which was easily erected conveniently metres from the door to the sauna.




The house, as many houses in Finland was painted red on the outside but was mostly varnished pine on the inside, including the furniture, all very natural and modest. Interestingly most of the decorations inside were either local photos or souvenirs from Papua New Guinea. Although there was electricity it was only used for the lights (which didn’t need to be on very much) and a couple of luxury appliances, namely the coffee machine. The cooking was either done in the outdoor kitchen, the BBQ, the big old stove in the kitchen or the fireplace in the living room (all wood fired). There was a trapdoor in the kitchen which allowed entry to a cool room below the house which was easily working just as well as any fridge.




The weekend was filled manly with eating and drinking, relaxing in the sauna perhaps with a dip in the cool lake water. We played some cards, lazy Frisbee and threw sticks for Mano (the dog). Small breaks in the schedule were made do check out the sunset/sunrise if we were so lucky for it to be clear enough (as it rained some of the time) and we did briefly take out the boat to check the it didn’t leak (too much!).

It made for a very nice weekend, even when you include the 10 hours driving, and perhaps I understand the Finns a little better for it.

20 Euros

I worked out today that the refund you on many of the drink containers in Finland if you recycle them (at an appropriate place) works out to be about 10% of the purchase price of the drink (for cans and small bottles at least anyway). I hadn’t taken the recycling out for a while and that combined with the remnants from the weekend meant that I had a boot full of containers which came in at a bit over 20 Euros to spend, so I had to think a bit harder than just picking up the milk!

Big Boat Sailing

Yesterday afternoon I knocked up work a little early and went out on a quick test sail of Visione. I had the opportunity to go on Thursday but I got realised half an hour lat that I’d missed it as it started raining outside, Friday was a much better day for it anyway, clear skies and more wind. The boat was launched in 2003 but has just undergone a full refit so looks brand new.

Visione is a 147 foot lightweight cruising yacht with a displacement of nearly 120T, of which the lifting keel makes up almost half. The boat is styled to and aimed to perform like a racing yacht but fitted with a quite luxurious interior. After leaving the dock we motored most of the way out of the channel and then pulled the sails out. The main was raised via remote control. As all of the winches on the boat are hydraulic, the remote allows the controller to check that the sail is unfurling properly and feeding into the sail track correctly. Once the main was up the Jib was unfurled, both the main and jib sheets run to captive winches and are also controlled by push buttons. After sailing for a little while we put a reef in the main as there was more wind once we were out in the open water.

We sailed around and tacked a few times, even when taking there was still little for the guests (I guess that is the idea) to do as everything is pushbutton controlled it makes handling very easy. We sailed upwind at about 11-12konts quite easily, in about 16-18knots which meant that it was quite cold on deck, especially when we were shaded by the massive sails. After an hour or so of sailing the geneker went up and the Jib was furled and we started reaching back towards the harbour. This didn’t last long though, we gybed once and after a few minutes on the new heading there was a very loud noise, similar to some very close growling thunder. The sail started tearing from the leach to the luff at about ¼ from the top, it then tore most of the way down the luff. The sheet was pulled in to bring the remains of the sail as close to the boat as possible and then beginning at the bow we all began to pull the sail from the water.


Once it was all back on deck we lowered what was left hanging from the mast and then managed to pack it all back into its sail bag (not very neatly). The process took about 20 minutes and then we headed back in with just the main and jib. The jib was furled as we entered the channel but we sailed most of the way to the dock under the main.

The biggest difference to the boats I’m used to sailing is how slow things happen, the motion of the boat over waves, and its reaction to changes in the sail trim and steering are very graceful. I’m not sure that I could get used to sailing on a boat like that for too long, it was very nice (it would be much nicer in a warmer climate), but there wasn’t really anything to do. I could probably manage as one of the crew with something to keep me occupied. But then I probably don’t need to worry about that as I’m unlikely to get the opportunity to sail on a boat like it again any time soon.

Riga

I spent the weekend in Riga (Latvia). I left work half an hour early on Thursday and drove 4 hours down to Tampere where I had booked cheap Ryanair flights for the weekend. Cheap is exactly what they were, just like ridding a bus, only it took much longer to get on and off. I meet up with Oliver at the airport who had flown in from Norway and we made our way into town and found the hostel we had booked pretty easily. The website booking we made had not worked properly so they were not expecting us, they had been a month earlier. This proved not to be a problem as they had similar accommodation available anyway (it actually worked out cheaper I think). The weather was mostly sunny and 20-25 all weekend which was lovely.

We spent Friday investigating the old part of town, which was smaller than we had expected, full of quaint little (and not so little) old buildings, and old churches. Riga is located on the River Daugava and the central (old part) of the city is on the east side and surrounded by a narrow man made waterway that splits from the river. We enjoyed sitting out in the sun in one of the squares at a restaurant for lunch and visited the Latvian Photography Museum. The photography museum had two expositions and a history section which included examples of Latvian made spy cameras and examples showing the development of local photography. One of the exhibits showed prints made in the 70-80 and highlighted manually created effects which are mostly all done with computers. We had dinner in another square where the restaurant served us some of their home brew, which was very good.

Saturday was spent in a similar way to Friday; we walked around in circles finding little streets that we had not walked down yet. We got lunch from a supermarket and ate in the park, where we were told off by a police officer for sitting on the grass! He did have a point, the sign that said no walking on the grass was only 4 meters away. The Latvian War Museum was mostly interesting although as this sort of thing usually is a little depressing. The afternoon finished with a cruise down the river, which was only an hour long but it was nice to sit down for a while. For dinner we found a pizza place which was the best value for money we found all weekend.

On Sunday Oli had to get back to the airport after breakfast so after seeing him off at the bus stop (so I knew where to get on) I did some more wandering. I went to the observation deck in the spire at St Peter’s Church, which gives a great view of the city which is otherwise very flat. After a late lunch I saw the Latvian Museum of Occupation, which was as interesting as the War museum and about as depressing. I then had to get off to the bus stop to get my flight back to Tampere and then my long drive home, which was made easier after an hour by which time the sun was low enough for the trees to keep it out of my eyes. Then the last two hours I was driving towards red sunset. I have a feeling that the amount I was driving north was neglecting the speed of which the sun was dropping below the horizon. I got home about 1am still in plenty of light.

Wiener Schnitzel

After my two flights on Thursday morning, and some temporary special displacement I arrived at Doug and Kati’s place at about 1230 (once again without a bag which had not left Helsinki – I wont bother on my next trip). A quick lunch and some helpful suggestions and guide books form Kati and I was back out on the streets of Vienna (with a better map this time). There is a ring road the runs around the centre, and apart from a brief trip across the river, I stayed within the ring for most of the afternoon, eventually ending up at St Stephens Cathedral, where I did a short but interesting guided tour. The tour was mainly looking at the various sculptures inside the cathedral, most of which are from the original 4-500 year construction, some have been collected or donated and although seem to fit in had not been part of the plans. There are apparently about 250 different sculptures at the cathedral.

I meet up with Doug outside the cathedral a bit before 5, and he took me on a quick tour of the city’s main sights. We Then meet up with Kati and had couple of beers and some food at a local pub. As the menu was in German I had some help from Doug, who ordered me something nice and appropriate, and very delicious.

After the Pub, we went to the Roo Bar (an Australian Pub) and did their weekly pub quiz. We didn’t do very well in the quiz, I think we were last (of 5 or 6 teams). But we won the most bonus questions so we were having a good time anyway.

Friday we took a trip out to the lake (or puddle as Doug was referring to it) with a stop at the airport on the way to collect my bag. It was blowing about 20-25 knots and after half to three quarters of an hour of failing to water start on Doug’s windsurfer I gave up. Niki took out his Moth briefly but decided it was too gusty and came back in. After Doug had helped Kati go Kite surfing he took out his moth, and stayed out for a while before he tore one of the wing tramps and had to come in. We had dinner at a wine bar near the lake. The food they served was mostly cold meat platters of various types, they had photos of the meals on one page so I ordered with my finger, and got a plate with a bit of everything.

On Saturday after a late start I went out to Schonbrun Palace, and I spent the whole afternoon walking around in the vast grounds. You could easily get lost in the relatively untended forest areas, but at the same time the grounds are full of imaculatly cared for gardens, ponds and fountains. It is mostly a public place so it is free to look around, some of the gardens require an entrance fee.

Saturday night and Doug and Kati’s Beach Party went very well, although very late as well. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and get into the spirit of things. One of the neighbours may have not approved as the police turned up about 0330.

Sunday we spent the morning cleaning up a bit and then headed off to the lake again. We managed to fix Doug’s wing tramp well enough to go for a short sail in an inconsistent 5-8 knots. I had a go and managed to get foiling in the first gust that came along. Guy also had a go, and did quite well seeing as he hadn’t sailed moths for a number of years, even managed to get foiling once or twice.

I got dropped off at the airport on the way back to Vienna. My flight got into Helsinki at 2240. I think I swallowed some water from the lake on Friday and by yhr time I landed my sineses were pretty well blocked. This made for q very uncomfortable landing as I could not eaqulise the pressure in my ears. I spent most of the 7 hours in waiting for my flight to Kokkola not being able to hear much. Perhaps making up for not arriving in Vienna, my bag was waiting for me when I landed.

After a slow day at work on Monday feeling lousy I didn’t go in on Tuesday which seemed to help greatly, but my head has still felt a bit off all week.

First In

Riding my bike home from work this evening I was reminded again how quickly this place changes. I past the sailing club on my way to see how much ice was left in the harbour. I found when I arrived that the first boat of the season was in the water. I’ve seen a few little runabouts in the water over the last week, and I heard that two Swan’s were launched last week and have been out on sea trials already. However this was the first real boat I had seen back in the water.

Last week I stopped here on the way home at the same time. I walked to the end of the pontoon and jumped up and down. Although I could hear the Ice moving it still felt very solid. I was even able to stand on it still (not that I walked about – just put my weight on it). The surface was covered with about three of four inches of slosh, but it was still solid. Whereas today there was nothing left. Even all the way to the end of the harbour, the only ice left was around some of the shoreline that is sheltered from the sun.

Today the sunrise was at 0510, and the sun set at 2140 (well, just now), but there is reasonable light for about an hour and a half either side still. It makes for a much happier place; I wish I had a boat here. Well I better get packing, off to Vienna tomorrow morning at stupid o’clock.

Wasted

The weather has been beautiful today, it got to at least 15 degrees and it’s still about 8 outside now at nearly 2200. However I have not used the day wisely, I used the morning to sleep in a bit, although it only really meant I got my normal amount of sleep because I went out last night. Then after venturing out of the house to get some groceries I’ve been bumming around the rest of the day, enjoying the sun coming through the window and thinking how nice it would have been to go sailing. I really wanted to go outside and enjoy it, but I couldn’t make up my mind about what to do.

Ravioli in a Can

This isn’t particularly Finnish, but it was something I had not seen before that I found it in the shops some time ago. I finally got around to eating it during the week. Not very exiting I know. Ravioli with meat filling in tomato sauce is the direct translation, I believe the meat was suppose to be beef. The filling did kind of remind me of that sort of freeze dried beef that you get in long life camping food. The pasta and the sauce tasted the same as any pasta from a can, overcooked and sweet. I guess it was a pretty cheap meal, I don’t think the can cost more than €1 so for a meal that is pretty good, if you like soggy parcels swimming in ketchup.

Thanks Mr Rudd!

I spent most of tonight trying to decide which weekend and if I should go to Austria. Last year at the Moth worlds Doug Culnane offered me a place to crash if I travelled over that way. And I’d been thinking about it for a while. I found out tonight that I may get the May day holiday as I’m in Finland (I need to check this tomorrow) so I decided on that weekend as it meant I could have another day. The flights weren’t cheap, but they never are from here so I figured that I might as well make the most of being here.

After booking the tickets I logged into netbank to check that of a transfer I made yesterday had gone ok. I was surprised to find there was more money there than I expected, but not because the money had bounced. It seems that my share of the economic stimulus package has made it to my bank account (and been spent) in the same day. The amount pretty much exactly matches the flights. I’m sure it will help the Finnish and probably even the Austrian economies, but it’s not going to do too much for Australia. But, I’m sure everyone else will spend theirs inside the country to make up for it!

Better Odds

Well that last post was a bit long, I will put up some photos to go with it once I have sorted through them, or at least looked at them.

The odds of me getting back to Kokkola/Pietarsaari airport are increasing. Until tonight it was 50/50 as to weather I would actually be able to fly back into the local airport. But tonight everything went as it was supposed to and I now consider myself to have a 3 in 5 chance of landing here.

To further increase my confidence in the airline, I think the landing was the softest I have ever had. The visibility was low on the ground as the air was very damp, we lost altitude quite quickly and then levelled out 3 times on the approach, looking out the window after the third one, where I’d seen only darkness a moment earlier there was now runway lights buzzing past about 3 meters under the wing, we flew down the runway for a few seconds then eventually touched down so lightly that if I had not been looking outside and waiting for it I probably wouldn’t have realised we were on the ground.

To top that off my bag even made it and I was home by 0130. From the little I saw on the drive home most of the snow has melted, there are still the remnants of large piles but they stand barely half a meter off the ground. From the dim light of the headlights it also looked as though the grass may be starting to change back to green from the pail brown it was when initially uncovered.

Could I fit anymore in?

Probably but I’d have to plan a bit better than just rocking up and see what happens.

I’m trying to be good this time round. I’m sitting in the shopping area of Terminal 3 at Heathrow (and later Terminal 1 in Helsinki). I’ve got two and a half hours to kill after having no delays with my first flight from Dublin (plus an extra 2 in Helsinki), so I’m starting this now before I forget.

My bag apparently arrived in Cowes on the ferry on Sunday and after some chasing on Monday it eventually got delivered to me at about 2215, almost exactly 3 days after I had arrived at Kate’s place. The working week was uneventful, 50% of my time was spent in meetings and training sessions which was the point of the visit (as well as an escape from Finland for mental well being). I did fit in two things that I was most grateful for.

On Tuesday night I caught the ferry over to Southampton to go climbing with Andrew (another engineer in the UK) and his wife Suzanne. We visited the local climbing gym which would have been better accessed by boat from Cowes than by car from Southampton but we got there and spent a couple of hours climbing. Cowshot is one of the biggest climbing gyms that I’ve been too and it was good to climb on some graded routes again, confirming that I’m actually not that bad after all. We did a couple of easy climbs to start with and then did a few longer lead climbs with Andrew’s rope. From memory I did a 4 and 5b on top rope and then a 5, 6c, 6a, and 6b on lead, all quite comfortably with no slips or falls which made it even more enjoyable (this is the French grading system which I’m not that familiar with so I need to check how that relates to climbing back home – but it is more relevant to me over here anyway).

On Wednesday night I went out sailing on Matt and Katia’s 707, the tide was coming in when we arrived at the boat an we had to pull it out of a little mud before we sailed off the dock and around into the Solent. We then spent an hour and a half working up the side of the island trying to stay in relatively shallow water to ensure we were making ground against the tide. Just off Gurnard there was a visibly disturbed patch of water where we launched upwind when we sailed through it, you could visibly see the change in motion of the boat as we passed through this section of water that was flowing the opposite direction to that surrounding it. After passing through this area a few times we turned around and sailed back under the kite in about 30 minutes, even though the wind was less than half the strength of what it was when we left, even sailing right into the dock.

The trip to Dublin on Thursday night was straight forward, except I missed the stop in the city I was suppose to get off at, and after going against my better judgement and following some misleading/misunderstood directions ended up on a midnight sightseeing trip of Dublin before getting to the hostel for some much needed rest.

Good Friday saw most things in Dublin Closed. I started the day with some random wandering of the streets which included going down the river half way to the port and then found some of the gardens south of the river Liffey including Merrion Square and St Stephens Green. I took in the National Gallery (from the outside before picking up a ticket for one of the Dublin City Bus tours. I sat through the whole tour where the Bus diver/tour guide advised not getting off for approximately half of the attractions as they were closed on good Friday. However this was a good way to get a better feel for the things that I would want to use my Saturday and Sunday for.

I used the remainder of the afternoon to looking through the ‘Bodies’ Exhibition which happened to be in Dublin. The exhibition is a showcase of real human bodies dissected in various creative ways in an effort to teach us how the body works. This was both incredibly interesting and unnerving at the same time. At the start of the section on circulation there are the lungs of a smoker then the lungs of a non-smoker, there is a glass case between the two which is half filled with cigarette packs. The statement above the case is un-imaginative but seemingly effective. In the evening the Hostel had a band playing in the hostel common room and some drinks with other boarders consumed the night.

Saturday I again set off on foot and visited Trinity Collage first, spending quite some time wandering the grounds thinking how inspiring it must be to study in such beautiful surroundings. I then did the guided tour of the grounds which was good to get some more insight into what I had already gone and looked at. The tour finishes with the Old Trinity Collage Library which houses the Book of Kells, as well as a few other very old copies of biblical texts. The books on display are indeed very special works of art, but I was actually more impressed with the Library building itself which is filed in a pretty illogical way given the number of books in it. Size of the book determines its position and then they are grouped in alphabetical order from floor to ceiling (over two floors). The interior of the building is dominated firstly by the full height bookshelves and then by the beautifully finished cylindrical timber ceiling. It seemed like a very easy place to be lost in time.

I also checked out the Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin’s oldest building where there are many significant Irish figures remains buried within the structure, many entombed below the place of worship among the building’s foundations.

Dublin Castle was not exactly what I expected. Still used as a state building the tour showed off some of the more luxurious rooms, which were not at all reminiscent of the ruins I was expecting to be walking through. Some of the rooms on the tour included the Former Kings bedroom, the thrown room, lady’s drawing room and a look at the foundations of the old powder tower, which was as close to the ruins that I got at the Castle.

I returned to the hostel before I set out to find some dinner and meet James (a kiwi) so we ended up getting an Irish stew at Pub in the Temple Bar area and then had a few drinks in a pub or two in the area which from all accounts was the place to go for a night out. The accounts seemed to be correct as it was incredibly busy both in all of the pubs where we were almost fighting for standing room and yelling to hear each other, and out on the street where trains of people flowing in various different directions formed only parting for taxi’s that were barely moving down the narrow cobbled streets.

On Sunday morning I visited St Patrick’s Cathedral and Park (which is right next door) and continued to enjoy the lovely weather that seemed to have blessed my Easter weekend. Sitting in a grassy park on a clear sunny morning was a real treat, although no warm by Australian standards, it was very pleasant and much warmer than my current ‘normal’ surroundings. The Cathedral is a spectacular building and I only hope that I at least managed to capture a fraction of it’s presence in my photo’s. I didn’t end up getting to look around inside as on Easter Sunday they were of course running services and although I’m sure it would have been a nice service to attend I had other things I still wanted to fit into my Sunday.

Perhaps not the most holy thing to do after visiting St Patricks (although I was in Ireland), I went to tour the Guinness Storehouse. I’d had mixed reports of Good to Great on this but on the whole it seemed that it was the most popular site visited in Dublin. The day before I was there they had over 7500 people through. I found it quite interesting and although it was not overly technical you could spend as long or as little time as you liked looking at the displays because it was a self guided tour. There are various displays on both the history Guinness itself, the brewery buildings, the ingredients and the brewing process, and various advertising campaigns from over the years are highlighted. And of course after walking and escalating up to the top of the building you get to enjoy a pint looking out over the brewery and its surrounding city of Dublin. It then seemed like the right time for lunch (even after my meal in a glass) and I ate at the restaurant a couple of floors down. Defiantly the best beef and Guinness stew I have ever had (as you would hope).

The next appropriate place to visit seemed to be the Old Jameson Distillery, so after wandering back across the river I had a guided tour of the old facility. All the Jameson that is sold now comes from a larger operation in Cork, so there is no lingering smell of barley in the air as there was at the Guinness factory. Original equipment from the distillery included a set of still’s, a mill stone, some pumps and of course the 70 year old cat called Smithy, who after many years of faithful service catching 20 mice a day was rewarded by being stuffed and kept on display for all to see. The guided tour was interesting and more technical than the information that I’d just gotten at the Guinness factory, however the tour itself was not as visually striking and 25% was done with video anyway (mainly the history part). Of course just like the Guinness tour at the end you get to sample some of the product which you’ve just learned so much about. Although in this case the bar does not have quite the spectacular view, the alternative being that 8 lucky members of the tour got to partake in a whisky tasting and compare 3 different whiskies (for which I was not selected). They almost unanimously selected Jameson as their favourite.
After this I had run out of time to get back to the gaol or visit anything else with a closing time so I went for a wander kind of aimlessly for a couple of hours. Along my travel I found a few unidentified old buildings mostly churches, The Capuchin Friary Church, St Mary’s Cathedral, a cool statue of an oversized hand opposite St Mary’s, a random statue of what appeared to be an Olympic torch in the middle of a round about, the Port of Dublin including a familiar looking Incat Ferry, the O2 building which is a recently built large music venue which on the night in question had Tina Arena playing which accounted for the very high volume of traffic (pedestrian and otherwise), and a cool building with a massive falling over glass cylinder sticking out the side.

After finding some dinner I went back to the hostel and made sure I had everything and then read a book for a while (not very exciting, but my feet were kind of sore). The trip back today has been ok, but long, which is as you would expect for 3 flights separated by a couple of hours at each airport. Hopefully, I won’t be too tired in the morning for work (yeah right!).

Travelling Light

Well I’ve just spent the weekend in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. I finally stepped of the red jet ferry from Southampton at about 2215 on Friday evening and made my way up the road to Kate’s place (another engineer with Gurit) who is putting up with me for the week. Unfortunatly I arrived a little lighter than when I left, as well as a pretty poor showing of snacks on the plane, (partly due to equipment failure) my bag never left Helsinki.

They told me at the airport that it should arrive on Saturday afternoon, but after checking today on their online tracking system it seems that it has made it to the UK, but it hasn’t caught up with me as yet. Hopefully it will arrive tomorrow.

Yesterday I spent most of the day finding a cheap change of cloths so I at least had something to change into for work on Monday. The running joke being that I have an excuse for wearing jeans to the office. I also managed to grab a random selection of books from a second hand store which will get added to my library back in Pietarsaari, this was a bit of a high as the one book I brought with me I managed to finish all but 6 pages of while in transit.

I also fit in a ride through the local forest with a borrowed mountain bike on the way into Newport to find the change of cloths (although the very boat oriented selection available in Cowes suited me ok, the price tags didn’t). A BBQ finished Saturday quite nicely.
Not much to say about today, went a played Tennis with Kate and was surprised to find that I was not nearly as bad as I remembered being last time I played. Even with my handicaps of inappropriate footwear and no contact lenses.

Menu

Elk and Beetroot carpaccio served with horseradish and cheese

Oven-baked salmon with whitefish, bacon, bread with lemon and herbs. Wine sauce, fennel and asparagus

Lingonberry granite

Lightly smoked lamb with herbs, potatoes fried in butter, cherry tomatoes baked in oven with garlic and balsamico

Chocolate fondant and white chocolate mousse with buckthorn & strawberry sauce.

Coffee

All served with a generous sized never ending wine glass. We got liquor made form arctic berry’s with desert and also some cognac with the coffee.
All this was served in a restaurant with the most expensive roof ever imaginable. Baltic yachts officially opened their new factory on Friday afternoon. They put on a light snack during the afternoon and gave guests a tour of the new facility. Guests were also invited to enjoy the beautiful dinner mentioned above at the yard in the

Snow

There has not been much snow about the last few weeks. With the longer days and some finer weather the temperatures have been warm (er – like edging above zero) and the sun has been melting away all the snow and ice on the roads. So in an attempt to make the most of what snow there is before it disappears I went to Ruka last weekend and went Snowboarding for the first time.

I went up there with Barny (one of the Crew from Visione – a boat being Refitted at Baltic at the moment). We left Baltic at about 1615 and with pretty clear roads the whole way up made it to check in to our hotel at about 2230 which was pretty good time for the trip. After checking in we checked out one of the local pubs quickly and then got off to bed so we could hit the slops first thing in the morning.

After a very nice European breakfast we got the to the ski hire place just as they opened at 0900, this wasn’t difficult as it was the next building across from the hotel. We collected some gear we were out waiting for the lifts to start by 0930, just enough time for Barny to give me a quick snowboarding lesson before we had a real slope to look at. After taking the lift to the top of the main runs and strapping myself in, Barny persisted with a lesson and kept giving me pointers as I half slid and half fell down the slop a couple of time. After this I figured he probably couldn’t help much and I just needed to practice. So I stayed on the gentle slops while Barny went to explore the hill (there aren’t really any mountains in Finland).
We meet up about 1300 and found some lunch, I had been falling allot but was managing to stay relatively in control and I could stop well enough. Barny told me I had to go and check out this other run so I followed him round to one of the other lifts and up over the top of the hill was an Igloo with a Bar inside. We sat and had a Hot Chocolate with Minttu which was very nice, surprisingly it did not feel cold inside, as the walls obviously keep the wind out very well. I was a bit disappointed that the lens on my camera kept fogging up so I didn’t get the best shot from inside.

After a full day of falling/boarding I was very tired and bruised but I had great fun. We got cleaned up and warm and eventually went to find some dinner which ended u just being at the hotel, but was still very good, and almost exactly what I wanted.

Again we were up in the morning before the lifts started and were greeted with light snow and less than 100m visibility at the top of the hill. I had much more success and enjoyed myself even more, much less falling on my second attempt. By the time we had to leave I had managed to go down over half of the runs available and most of them a few times. I got some air over some bumps without hurting myself and even weaved through some trees.

Although the drive back was quicker it felt longer due to tired and bruised mussels. I was very stiff while at work on Monday but gradually loosened up over the week.

It started to snow here last night and it still hasn’t stopped. I went for a ride this morning in about 50mm of snow which was fun although very slippery at times. The snow is easy enough to ride in, what’s under it is the problem. Randomly hitting frozen puddles or completely iced up bits of the path made for an interesting balancing act at times. When the paths were wide it was even more difficult as the extra light meant that you could not distinguish the highs and lows of the ground in front of you because it was all bright white. But it was fun and it’s nice to not have to worry about washing the mud of the bike, just let the snow melt and it’s clean!

Ice

I went for a walk yesterday out to a small café located on an island (Måsskär) about 10 or 15km’s outside of Pietarsaari. This doesn’t sound that out of the ordinary I know. The bit that makes it worth writing about was that there is no bridge out to this island, yet I still walked the out there.

I drove around to the fishing Harbour and after having a quick look at the fishing boats sitting in the snow I found the small sign pointing to the island. There is also a sign right next to it advertising a snowmobile taxi to get you there, but I wanted to walk. The path is well marked with snow poles drilled into the ice about every 50-100m so once you have the starting point it is not hard to follow. This was the first time I’d been out on the ice so I was a little nervous.

At the shoreline there is a couple of metres of slush about 50mm deep because the ice is cracked at the shore. This is of course due to the fact that unless the water freezes completely the tide will still move the layer of ice up and down (a little). So after talking myself into believing that this was the case I continued to follow the snow poles further onto the big expanse of white (I did let a group of four people go first though). It is about 2km over the ice out to the island in almost a straight line. In one place there were rocks sticking out of the Ice I passed a number of fishing/buoys. Once or twice there was a big Ice block sitting near the path which was obviously a sample cut from the shelf and showed that the ice was about half a meter thick.

I made it to the Café by 1330 and had a relatively cheap lunch followed by a ‘Pig’ and a Coffee which was recommended as a specialty by the owners. The Pig was basically a Jam donut but shaped kind of differently. I learned that the building was originally constructed in the 50’s as a pilot house and the space used for the café was originally used by the coast guard. The Café was decorated with some old marine navigational equipment, including some replica Viking instruments which were very clever. On one wall there were a number of charts of the surrounding waters, and another wall housed a bit of a shrine to the building, filled with newspaper articles about it’s construction and life. Some interesting photos showed a small truck being pulled from a hole in the ice in apparently 10m deep water. The truck hit a soft patch and fell through loaded with sand while the were building the pilot house. They managed to construct a big frame on the ice and winch the truck back out within a day or two.

I had a quick look around on the island before I then walked back to the Car. I turned on the GPS a bit after I was back on the ice, the red line in the image is pretty much all on the ice.

The yellow line is a ride I did on the mountain bike last week, about 50% of which was on snow mobile tracks or single track (which is very tricking in thick snow). That was allot of fun. The blue line is a ride I did today, we were only riding on the roads today though as the snow on the tracks would have been too soft to get anywhere. It didn’t rain at all but we got very wet, we went a little further than last week and ended up doing over 60km. I expect to be a bit sore tomorrow.

A Bit Slack Lately

Although I seem to spend too much time in front of my computer, I’ve been slack about uploading photos recently. I’m still getting used to using my new camera so many of the shots I’m taking are not very good. But there are an awful lot of them to sort through. I may be a bit trigger happy occasionally. But I’ve just gone through a bunch and picked out some good ones from while I was back home and some more recent ones from over here. They are in no particular order and most of them are from the old camera. But they are uploaded here.

This one is from the new camera while I was playing with it one night. It cracks me up. Enjoy.

Spring

Well, officially winter is now over, and if you’re wondering it does seem very odd for me to be saying that in the beginning of March. Last week was quite cold but this week has been progressively getting warmer. Today the local high temperature was 2 degrees and the overnight low was only minus 1. The change is quite noticeable, by the time I was on my way home from work today just about all of the roads had thawed out and I went for a run and found that many of the paths had slush on them instead of snow.

The last couple of days I’ve also noticed that the snow seems moving off many of the roofs in town. One of two things is happening which both look really cool. With the warming weather the snow is melting in one way or another and either the whole sheet of snow covering the roof is sliding gradually down and curling over the edge forming 200mm thick white curtains hanging on the buildings. Or the snow is melting to water against the roof and then the run off is re-freezing as it leaves the roof forming quite impressive lines of stalactites hanging from the edge of the roof.

I am hoping that it gets cold again (yes it is a strange thing for me to be saying). Last week I was lent a pair of cross county skis and so far I’ve only used them for half an hour. I didn’t really have time to get the hang of them and the shoes I was provided are too small and don’t match the skis which did not help. I found a cheap pair of shoes in the supermarket yesterday which should match the skis but if all the snow is going to thaw out it may not be worth buying them. The forecast for next week is colder than today but only barely with forecast highs of 0.

Sodankylä

I got invited last week to go to Lapland for the weekend with Erno & Katri (& Mano). It’s a non study week for all the university students this week so Katri was going home for the week to visit her family. I managed to get Friday off and we drove up to Sodankylä on Thursday night after I finished work. This was a long drive but was not two bad shared between the three of us, and Katri did the last bit when it was darkest and most slippery (as she was most familiar with the roads and knew where we were going). We arrived at a pretty unreasonable hour and didn’t do much but get to sleep.

On Friday morning after a slow start to the day we eventually visited Katri’s Grandmother who seemed very nice even though I could only understand a couple of words she said to me. We stayed for lunch and were fed some traditional Lapland food. Included on the menu was some berry juice, poronkäristys (Sautéed reindeer served with potatoes), and some bread, cheese, ham, and salmon. All very good, except the Salmon was very well salted and tasted a bit too fishy for my liking.

After arriving at Tähtelä about 7km outside town and the place where Katri grew up (our accommodation for the weekend). We scrounged around for a while finding some appropriate cloths to borrow to go skiing. We then spent another little while finding Katri’s gear which had mysteriously been moved. Eventually we headed for Kommatin Rinteet (the closest Hill) and arrived at 3pm so we could fit in two hours before the lift turned off. It was only a small hill but that was ok with me especially given there was only 2 or 3 other people on the slope. It cost €15 for a 2 hour lift pass and another €15 to hire the skis and boots.

After managing to get the things on and stand up we headed up the slope. Once at the top it started to get a little more scary, standing up was easy, moving was not difficult and heading down the slope was a piece of cake. Actually going where you wanted to or stopping, that was a bit of a challenge. After two times half way up the slope we ventured to the top which was a bit steeper. This proved no more difficult and the more I tried the easier it got and more comfortable. It wasn’t until the forth time down the slope that I actually fell over so I can’t have been trying hard enough as I fell over allot more after that. I think I managed to get a reasonable handle on things considering the short time we had. Katri was on her snowboard and was giving some helpful coaching tips to Erno and myself. Although I think I had a little bit of beginners luck I really enjoyed myself. Next time I’ll have to go for a little bit longer though.

After collecting some food and beverages for the night we headed for the sauna and some a little bit of snow rolling in between. I think I may have been refered too as the crazy Australian in Finnish at least once or twice as the Fins were a little taken back by my snow rolling enthusiasm. The evening then continued with sausage cooked over an open fire and eventually we caught a taxi into town and went to most of the local pubs (there were only 3). I was surprised by the number of people inside the pubs given the size of the town. They were busy but it wasn’t too difficult to find a seat. After a bit of dancing, some talking and more drinking we made our way outside, ordered and received some fast food and grabbed a taxi back. I admit it’s a little fuzzy but I think we got back about 4am.

Needless to say there none of use were particularly enthusiastic about Saturday. Mostly we watched the Skiing World championships on the television, went and got pizza (I had more reindeer on mine), played some card games and went through the sauna again.

On Sunday morning we woke late and went back to Katri’s mum’s place where she feed us Porosoppa (reindeer soup) for an early lunch followed by some ice cream and coffee. I then left to drive back to Pietarsaari at about 1215, finally arriving back home at about 2030. Most of the trip was ok except about 150km between Oulu and Kokkola where I was stuck behind a truck which was dragging a massing plumb of snow behind it making visibility virtually none existent.

So I think in the end I ate more Reindeer than I saw over the weekend, perhaps I should comment on the meat. As far as meat’s go there is nothing wrong with it, I was surprised at how good it was on the pizza. It appears similar to beef in colour but smells more like lamb whilst cooking, but I wouldn’t say it tastes like either that much, It was just different. Perhaps I need to try it again and get a better description; that will have to wait for another day though.

Two Weeks Later

I’ve now been out on the bike a few times. Surprisingly I have not fallen off yet. It’s easier to ride in snow than I was expecting. It is very similar to riding on sand. The deeper the snow the more it slows you down and the trickier it is to stay upright. At one stage I tried to ride through some 200mm deep snow and although I could keep the bike moving it may have been faster to walk. Most of the time the bike paths have been cleared (as have the roads) and the snow is only 50mm deep. My tyre’s seemed to be ok but I may have to invest in some winter tyres for the bike.

Probably the most important thing is to be dressed appropriately and I think I’ve managed to achieve this with some thermals, a light mid layer and some very light weather proof cover. Throw on a pair of gloves and thick socks and I was fine. Although there was a gap between my shoes and the weatherproof pants which meant my ankle got a bit cold. So the only additional bit of kit I need is shoe covers which will extend over the ankles and make my shoes a bit warmer.

Below is the forecast temperatures for this week.

Back in the Cold

Well after some dramas with getting my bags checked in the flight was as per usual. It was not pleasant to go from business class back into economy. But I kept myself occupied for the flight to Bangkok and managed to get some sleep on the second flight to Helsinki. After landing I had a few hours wait for my flight to Helsinki and I used the time to change into the more appropriate clothing that I had with me and have some breakfast that wasn’t plane food. I also managed to start checking my work emails which there was only about 200 of. I ended up getting back to Baltic just in time for lunch on Wednesday. The boat has progressed well while I’ve been gone. To someone abstract from the project it would not look like much has been done but it’s starting to get into a lot of details and there is always lots of time in them (apart from the keel structure which is still a massive void in the boat).

The change in climate was not as big a shock to the system as I was expecting. It’s been hovering below zero since I’ve been back and is forecast to get colder next week. There is snow on the ground instead of the slush or ice and there is much more light than when I left (a good 7 hours). I had a few drinks on Friday night and watched some movies last night. For everyone who asked me when I stopped, well I guess that counts as now. The only toy I have with me now is my mountain bike which I’m keen to get out and ride in the snow. But I need to get myself a bike pump first, as I left the one I had on the road bike which is now in Sydney.

Silly Season – Part 2

The last Friday I was in Finland I went to the Baltic Christmas party which I attended slightly under dressed. I would have been overdressed for the work Christmas parties I’m used too but this was a fairly formal occasion. No problem, I just looked a little out of place in my jeans and short sleeve shirt. The dinner that was served was a very large buffet and was delicious. The desert was not so great, but there was plenty to drink. We were entertained by tales (in Swedish) from Mr Winter while we ate. They also had a band and then drinks didn’t seem to slow down until they finally kicked us out at about 12pm.

On Saturday I drove to Vaasa and competed in bouldering competition (this is rock climbing but without ropes and not more than a few metres above the ground). Caj had heard about the competition from some of his climbing friends in Vaasa, apparently a yearly event this was the first year competition had been open to people outside of the Vaasa climbing club. The competition was held in the Vaasa local climbing gym which is built inside a water tower. The competition went for 4 hours and was based on an honour system of ticking off the routes that you had completed. This was a little difficult at first as the instructions and route descriptions were all in Finnish. After a little bit of help I could soon manage to work out what was what for most of the climbs without having to ask too many times which one I just did. It made for a really fun afternoon with about 20-25 people attending. Caj did very well to get the highest score of 134 and I did pretty well with a score of 104.

The Sunday I basically spent packing and working out what I would take with me back to Australia, this included my bike which involved some very careful packing. On Tuesday night I had a few people around to help me finish off the food in the fridge. After some last minute packing on Wednesday morning and a stop in at the old factory in Bosund on the way to the airport I was off on my way. I had a couple of hours to kill in Helsinki while waiting for my flight to Hong Kong. I used this time to try and find some Christmas presents, have something to eat and do some sketching on a part of the boat that I’d been given to engineer. I was a bit disappointed that when I found the Finnair lounge that I had already eaten. The business class ticket that I had somehow been gifted with got me access to as much as I wanted to eat. As well as a relatively quite space to sit and do a little bit of work before I got on the plane.

Flying Business class is a bit of an experience. You get champagne or orange juice before you even get off the ground. This was a nice treat given that it took 20 minutes to de-ice the plane, a delay that I’ve not experienced before. There is acre’s of room for your legs and a seat that is electronically controlled and almost goes completely flat. This is before mentioning the 3 course meals that got served with real metal cutlery and a wide selection of drinks. The Finnair flight was very good except that I needed to sleep and I wanted to stay awake and use as much of the perks as I could. The Qantas flight I ended up on after a slight delay was just as good except that their orange juice was real Australian juice and was just so much better than any that I’d had in the past 6 months. I kept myself awake on this flight and used the time to watch a movie or two and try and get some work done (not the most effective but I made progress at least).

Nic and Alex picked me up from the airport and I stayed at their place during my short time back in Sydney. Thanks heaps guys, it was a great. I put my bike together so I could ride to work in the morning and then tried to get some sleep. I was up as soon as the sun was though (I hadn’t seen it for a while) so I left early and got to work in plenty of time. Stopped to get some breakfast from the green grocers and bought some mangos which could have kept me going all day on the smell alone. The banana’s I bought were fantastic also. I sailed my boat over the weekend before Christmas and was at work again until Tuesday afternoon when Alastair picked me up with a large box behind his tiny Barina. Inside the box was my Christmas present to myself – a brand new boat, which I had just enough time to take a peak at before leaving in the shed at Balmoral to go catch a flight for Melbourne.

Christmas was a pretty quiet one at home and after a couple of days I followed mum and dad out to Donald to visit Jen, Harry, Xavier and my newest nephew Hamish. I then proceeded to head north again with the car to spend a week playing with my new toy and had spent new years in Sydney (which was an interesting experience – the fireworks were good though). I worked from the 5th to the 9th and also the mornings of the 12th and 13th. I drove back to Melbourne on the 15th with the new boat in tow. On the 17th I flew to Sydney for a dentists appointment and also had lunch with Ross and Gemma who were up there for the weekend. I also fitted in going to an engagement party in Melbourne on my return. Then on the 19th I went to Geelong for the moth national championships. After 5 days of racing in variable conditions I finished quite respectively and even managed to get a win in heat 2. This was a pretty good effort given the preparation that I had. Sunday afternoon was spent packing up the boat so that Marty could take it and the car back to mum and dad’s place, and then the evening was spent at the presentation night. Australia day was spent travelling back to Sydney; I shared the driving with Les to avoid paying for yet another flight (Thanks for the lift mate!). I finally caught my flight back to Finland on Tuesday the 27th.

Silly Season – Part 1

I have to apologise for it being so long since my last post. As tends to happen at this time of year I’ve been pretty busy. Allot has happened since the last post I made. I’m now working from the new factory in Pietarsaari which is great. It’s closer to home and only a 10 minute drive as opposed to 25. I now have a desk in the same building as the boat, and no longer have to brave the cold just to go and check on things (or use the facilities). I’m also in the same space as the project managers and local design team. This both makes me feel a bit more involved in the project and is also providing me with more things to do as it’s so much easier for questions to be asked.

In the middle of October I was discussing with Gaby going to visit Lapland, and we spent some time looking up Hostels and what to go and see and then kind of forgot about it for a while. I did book a day off work but apart from that we didn’t do anything more about it until the 1st of December. Even then we were unsure about what we would do. On the evening of 3rd we finally had a plan. Luckily Peter had found out we were going and thought it would be fun. A friend of his dad had a Cottage in Muonio which we were able to use which gave us both a place to stay and a destination to get to. Peter was also happy to drive which was much easier than having to catch the train.

So at stupid o’clock on Friday morning (the 5th), Gaby, Mariona, Peter and I got into Peter’s car and hit the road. After a couple of hours of driving we stopped briefly near Oulu for a Coffee. Back in the car and after a couple more hours of driving we arrived at Ranua. We only had a short stop on the way when some reindeer were on the road. We got out and tried to get some photos but they ran off into the forest.

Ranua is a pretty small town, but the reason we passed through was the Zoo. The Ranua Zoo has at least 30 different mammals and species of bird. We didn’t get to see all of them due to the season. Much of the birds were elsewhere (likely flown south), the brown bears were hibernating and the weasels were not making themselves known. We did see a beaver, an otter, a number of different owl’s, a golden eagle, hawks, ravens, wild boar (although not very wild), polar bears, wolves, lynxes, wolverines, various deer, moose, and a few foxes as well. The owls were all very cool, as was the golden eagle. The real highlight was the polar bears, unfortunately the male seemed to be sleeping (we think we could just see him up the back of the enclosure. But the two females we having fun digging apples out of the snow. The lynxes were playful and were running around. The arctic fox came and said hello and gave us a really close look. The deer were many and the moose were big. Probably the most unfortunate thing was that all our camera batteries died about half way through (except Peter’s camera phone). After the Zoo we visited a local Pizza place call Hakuna Matata. Then it was another hour and a half north to pass through Rovaniemi and enter the Arctic Circle.

We stopped for supplies through Rovaniemi and then continued on to Santa Park which is five or ten minutes extra drive. The park is built into a natural cave (which has been further excavated) so after entering the front doors you descend down a long ramp and into a foyer where there is a big Christmas tree and a ticket booth. After being a bit taken back by the entry price (25 euro each) we finally gave in and paid the happy elf who assured us it was worth it. With map in hand we then descended down another ramp into the main area of the park.

It took us all of 15 minutes to see the whole park, including take a ride through Santa’s workshop. We got a photo with Santa at great expense, we looked through the post office and decided that we didn’t feel like decorating gingerbread men. The ice bar was cool (pardon the pun) but we didn’t have a drink as we still had a while to travel. We just missed entrance to the last elf school session of the day, and although the ice gallery looked really good we didn’t want to pay the extra to get in there. Just about the only thing inside that was free was the Elf dance which went for about 5-10 mins, granted it was entertaining but not really worth €25. I think in total we were there for about an hour and as we left and the happy elf at the door asked us if we had enjoyed our stay we couldn’t really say that we had.

A few minutes down the road was the Santa Clause Village where you could walk around without having your wallet go on a diet. This was basically a number of buildings with shops and restaurants, spread out and dispersed with giant snow men and appropriate decorations. There was a sign post here pointing to a number of major cities around the world (just like in the cartoons).

After a few more hours driving we eventually made it to the cottage in Muonio (which was very nice and could have housed 8-10 people even before venturing upstairs). We got settled in and had a few drinks and got the sauna heating up. It was a bit colder that far north and there was a good half meter of snow outside. It was surprising how refreshing it is to go outside wearing virtually nothing when it’s below zero and role around in the snow. Then go and step into a steaming wet room at about 60 degrees. It may have been the beers helping but this was thoroughly relaxing and enjoyable.

On Saturday morning after some breakfast we left the cottage a little before 10am. The plan was to drive north and see the Arctic Ocean. So we spent another long day in the car and gradually made our way north. This was slowed down a bit once the sun rose and the amazing scenery we were driving through became apparent. At one stage we seemed to be stopping once every ten minutes to take photos under the glow of the orange sun which was barely holding itself above the horizon. Eventually, just before sunset we made it too our destination, the town of Alta in Norway. We managed to get a few photos before the light faded and then went into the small museum where we had stopped. This was more to get out of the cold than anything else as it was well below minus 10 outside. After a quick look through the museum we went down to the shoreline and touched the water. We then started on out way again. Once back at the cottage we ate and then went outside and played in the snow including a quick step over the boarder (bridge) into Sweden. We finished the evening with another session in the sauna.

On Sunday morning the thermometer was showing minis 17 degrees when we left the cottage to make our way back to Pietarsaari. This was again a long trip, we stopped in Levi and saw the ski fields and were again slowed down by the beautiful landscapes once the sun was rising. We also had another look around at the Santa Clause Village as Gaby was fixated on getting a photo standing on the line marking the Arctic Circle. We eventually made it back without too many more stops after the light disappeared again.