I have to issue an apology to those wishing for descriptions of my travels as detailed as previous posts. This is because I have failed to keep the blog updated and thus leading to a too great a job to update it in the fashion of previous posts. My thinking being if I can bring the blog up to date quickly, then I can continue a more detailed and, dare I say, entertaining account of events in future posts. So, I'm going to have to briefly describe my whereabouts and doings of the past 9 days:
Östersund
I stayed with Maria over the weekend. A lovely host whom I had many an interesting conversation with. She took me to meet a lot of her friends including taking me to a themed party on the Saturday night where we played some funny games, sung songs and I got to learn some more about Sweden and the Swedish. The party was after a long days Snowboarding in Åre following a beautiful mornings train ride to the mountain. It was cold.. so so cold.. -33 C at one point. It's so cold that the moisture in my nostrils froze when I breathed through them. I still had plenty of fun snowboarding, as I tend to find it hard not to enjoy it, and the cold wasn't really too much of a problem. Maria, being a student, took me to a games night organised by the student union where I learnt a lot about politics in Sweden from a friend of hers called Johan, played some chess and ate some pizza. I left Östersund on Tuesday morning and took a bus to Umeå. The bus route went through some of the vast forest that makes up Sweden and provided some stunning morning views.
Umeå
My host in Umeå was Jonas.. a couchsurfing veteran who has hosted many couchsurfers in Umeå. I found music is a large part of his life; he spent the evenings rehearsing with his band, he took me to a Jazz club with his friend Maurine, and whenever he is in the apartment good music is playing. I spent a lot of my time on Umeå relaxing in his apartment, Jonas creates a mellow atmosphere, as I was still a little stiff and exhausted from snowboarding. I spent Wednesday and Thursday nights out at the bars in Umeå. On Wednesday I met a trio of college students, Johannes, Ellen and Erik. They were keen to practise English and so we had fun chatting about, England as well as Sweden. On Thursday, after the Jazz club, I spent the night trying out different beers with Maurine and having interesting conversations on psychology, Paganism and she taught me a new English word. My stay with Jonas was to be my last stop in Sweden before I took the ferry East across the gulf of Bothnia and it was certainly a pleasant and enjoyable stop at that, I put it down to his refined hosting skills.
Vaasa
I arrived in Vaasa at the awkward time of 00.30 Saturday morning but my next host, John, was there waiting for me to give me a lift to his apartment in central Vaasa. He lives with Marianne, both experienced couchsurfers, and the next day they gave me some advice on what to do and see in Vaasa. I decided to try out the Berlusconi pizza at Koti pizza, a famous Finnish pizza chain that originated in Vaasa. The Berlusconi is named after the Italian after he complained about Finnish food on a visit... The Berlusconi beat the Italian pizza chefs at an international pizza competition. The pizza's meat topping is reindeer meat - a Finnish delicacy. Later that day I went to an ice hockey game between Sport (the home team) and Hokki. The names didn't seem too creative to me. I asked the guy next to me what was going on and he was happy to explain. His name is Toni and, after chatting for a while, he offered me to a place to sleep, dinner and a tour of Tampere (a city I was planning to visit in Finland) where he now lives. After a few beers and sampling of the international beers snacks John and Marianne had accumulated on their own travels, we went to a bar across the road I met some of their friends and enjoyed beer and wine. I decided that night I'd get up at sunrise to use John's ice fishing equipment to catch a fish, ever the optimist me. At midday the next day I had found an old Finnish guy help me out with fishing, tricky as he spoke little English, abut despite his expertise and experience we both failed to catch anything. The rest of the day was spent collaborating with John to make a hybrid Finnish/English roast.with boiled Moose meat. It turned out to be quite successful and afterwards John spoke to some friends of his that live in Seinäjoki to see if they could host me.
Seinäjoki
I arrived in Seinäjoki yesterday afternoon where I met Wuokko. She took me back to her apartment where I later met Esa. When they showed me round their smallish place they casually mentioned they had a sauna in their bathroom. I had been warned that the Finnish have a love for saunas but I was still shocked to see it! I spent the evening going from shower to sauna to balcony and found the combination of the three very relaxing.
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I'll expand on this post some time in the future but I could not possibly speculate when. I'll upload some pictures soon as I don't have to availability to do some here.. plus I only have 3 minutes remaining on this machine as I'm in Seinäjoki public library.
Östersund
I stayed with Maria over the weekend. A lovely host whom I had many an interesting conversation with. She took me to meet a lot of her friends including taking me to a themed party on the Saturday night where we played some funny games, sung songs and I got to learn some more about Sweden and the Swedish. The party was after a long days Snowboarding in Åre following a beautiful mornings train ride to the mountain. It was cold.. so so cold.. -33 C at one point. It's so cold that the moisture in my nostrils froze when I breathed through them. I still had plenty of fun snowboarding, as I tend to find it hard not to enjoy it, and the cold wasn't really too much of a problem. Maria, being a student, took me to a games night organised by the student union where I learnt a lot about politics in Sweden from a friend of hers called Johan, played some chess and ate some pizza. I left Östersund on Tuesday morning and took a bus to Umeå. The bus route went through some of the vast forest that makes up Sweden and provided some stunning morning views.
Umeå
My host in Umeå was Jonas.. a couchsurfing veteran who has hosted many couchsurfers in Umeå. I found music is a large part of his life; he spent the evenings rehearsing with his band, he took me to a Jazz club with his friend Maurine, and whenever he is in the apartment good music is playing. I spent a lot of my time on Umeå relaxing in his apartment, Jonas creates a mellow atmosphere, as I was still a little stiff and exhausted from snowboarding. I spent Wednesday and Thursday nights out at the bars in Umeå. On Wednesday I met a trio of college students, Johannes, Ellen and Erik. They were keen to practise English and so we had fun chatting about, England as well as Sweden. On Thursday, after the Jazz club, I spent the night trying out different beers with Maurine and having interesting conversations on psychology, Paganism and she taught me a new English word. My stay with Jonas was to be my last stop in Sweden before I took the ferry East across the gulf of Bothnia and it was certainly a pleasant and enjoyable stop at that, I put it down to his refined hosting skills.
Vaasa
I arrived in Vaasa at the awkward time of 00.30 Saturday morning but my next host, John, was there waiting for me to give me a lift to his apartment in central Vaasa. He lives with Marianne, both experienced couchsurfers, and the next day they gave me some advice on what to do and see in Vaasa. I decided to try out the Berlusconi pizza at Koti pizza, a famous Finnish pizza chain that originated in Vaasa. The Berlusconi is named after the Italian after he complained about Finnish food on a visit... The Berlusconi beat the Italian pizza chefs at an international pizza competition. The pizza's meat topping is reindeer meat - a Finnish delicacy. Later that day I went to an ice hockey game between Sport (the home team) and Hokki. The names didn't seem too creative to me. I asked the guy next to me what was going on and he was happy to explain. His name is Toni and, after chatting for a while, he offered me to a place to sleep, dinner and a tour of Tampere (a city I was planning to visit in Finland) where he now lives. After a few beers and sampling of the international beers snacks John and Marianne had accumulated on their own travels, we went to a bar across the road I met some of their friends and enjoyed beer and wine. I decided that night I'd get up at sunrise to use John's ice fishing equipment to catch a fish, ever the optimist me. At midday the next day I had found an old Finnish guy help me out with fishing, tricky as he spoke little English, abut despite his expertise and experience we both failed to catch anything. The rest of the day was spent collaborating with John to make a hybrid Finnish/English roast.with boiled Moose meat. It turned out to be quite successful and afterwards John spoke to some friends of his that live in Seinäjoki to see if they could host me.
Seinäjoki
I arrived in Seinäjoki yesterday afternoon where I met Wuokko. She took me back to her apartment where I later met Esa. When they showed me round their smallish place they casually mentioned they had a sauna in their bathroom. I had been warned that the Finnish have a love for saunas but I was still shocked to see it! I spent the evening going from shower to sauna to balcony and found the combination of the three very relaxing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'll expand on this post some time in the future but I could not possibly speculate when. I'll upload some pictures soon as I don't have to availability to do some here.. plus I only have 3 minutes remaining on this machine as I'm in Seinäjoki public library.
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