![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I left the house in Dublin yesterday at about 06:40. The sun was just up, it was a little bit foggy, and the city was very quiet - quite boring, really, since I was already in travel mode. I got to the airport, and went to check in. Having stood for ages because there was nobody actually at the checkin desk, I finally got that done with, and was told to bring the rucksack to oversize baggage, apparently because of the straps. As I got there, and took it off, the guy at the x-ray machine said "Nice shirt". I was wearing a long-sleeve-t with a Torshammer on the back, and for some reason it does often get comments. And then I put the bag on the scanner, and turned to go find some breakfast. "Hang on," the guy says, "What's that?", pointing at the screen. I looked. "That's a three pound hammer," I said. He looked at me. "Why would... ohh, Asatruar. Me wife's sister's married to one of them".
(Apologies for typos here; this is a Finnish keyboard, and all the punctuation is differently placed.)
The rest of Dublin airport was boring, and boarding didn't happen until an hour later than advertised. But then... the plane was brand spanking new. It couldn't have been its first flight, because it had to come from Helsinki to get to Dublin, but it had to be still in the single figures for commercial flights. (An Airbus 320, I think,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grutok) It had comfortable seats, was all shiny and new, and had lcd screens that folded down from overhead - one per four seats or so. They used this for the safety instructions, and then they went black as the plane taxied toward the runway. I figured they're fold them back up, but a second later they flickered, and suddenly they were showing a runway. It took a few seconds to dan on me that we were seeing from a camera in the nose of the plane. They showed this view during takeoff, until all we could see was a patch of sky, and then switched to a view looking straight down. When the view on the screens got too small to be interested, they did some in-flight entertainment stuff, but I was looking out the window by then.
We flew up the coast of Ireland, and then east across the north of England and/or Scotland, and acros the Irish sea. It was the first time I'd crossed Norway in summertime - usually the route goes over Denmark - and let me tell you, Norway is a country that doesn't mess around. It goes from coast to huge towering mountains in a few miles. It's hard to judge from overhead, but I'd say you can see mountains that mean business from the beach. I also found I could tell Norway from Sweden from the air - Norway is mountains and forest and roads that go where they have to get around. Sweden is all straight lines. And Finland is rounded lines and has a forest everywhere, not just where it hasn't been turned into fields or something else useful. We flew over the archipelago as well, but I don't think you can approach Helsinki without doing that.
We touched down in Helsinki, and having passed by the vast number of Chinese people in passport control (I saw a Chinese Taratto. Very strange), I came out into the arrivals area. Nina phoned, and we chatted for a few minutes, and worked out that I'd have to wait about an hour for a bus. So I went and ordered a burger (entirely in Finnish, too!) and ate it, and then worked out where the right bus stop was. Bus arrived, I enquired (again in Finnish) if this was the right bus, and I was on the way.
Details of time here so far to follow...
(Apologies for typos here; this is a Finnish keyboard, and all the punctuation is differently placed.)
The rest of Dublin airport was boring, and boarding didn't happen until an hour later than advertised. But then... the plane was brand spanking new. It couldn't have been its first flight, because it had to come from Helsinki to get to Dublin, but it had to be still in the single figures for commercial flights. (An Airbus 320, I think,
grutok) It had comfortable seats, was all shiny and new, and had lcd screens that folded down from overhead - one per four seats or so. They used this for the safety instructions, and then they went black as the plane taxied toward the runway. I figured they're fold them back up, but a second later they flickered, and suddenly they were showing a runway. It took a few seconds to dan on me that we were seeing from a camera in the nose of the plane. They showed this view during takeoff, until all we could see was a patch of sky, and then switched to a view looking straight down. When the view on the screens got too small to be interested, they did some in-flight entertainment stuff, but I was looking out the window by then.We flew up the coast of Ireland, and then east across the north of England and/or Scotland, and acros the Irish sea. It was the first time I'd crossed Norway in summertime - usually the route goes over Denmark - and let me tell you, Norway is a country that doesn't mess around. It goes from coast to huge towering mountains in a few miles. It's hard to judge from overhead, but I'd say you can see mountains that mean business from the beach. I also found I could tell Norway from Sweden from the air - Norway is mountains and forest and roads that go where they have to get around. Sweden is all straight lines. And Finland is rounded lines and has a forest everywhere, not just where it hasn't been turned into fields or something else useful. We flew over the archipelago as well, but I don't think you can approach Helsinki without doing that.
We touched down in Helsinki, and having passed by the vast number of Chinese people in passport control (I saw a Chinese Taratto. Very strange), I came out into the arrivals area. Nina phoned, and we chatted for a few minutes, and worked out that I'd have to wait about an hour for a bus. So I went and ordered a burger (entirely in Finnish, too!) and ate it, and then worked out where the right bus stop was. Bus arrived, I enquired (again in Finnish) if this was the right bus, and I was on the way.
Details of time here so far to follow...
It's not been quite 24 hours since I landed, but it's close enough for title purposes.
From the bus on the way to Lahti, I saw some very strange wooden thing under construction on a building site. It took me a good few minutes after to work out that it was in fact a house; wood frame houses under construction look very strange.
Having metinannajones and her mother in Lahti, we went to Lammi for long enough to drop off my bag and get some food, and then we were off to the summerhouse. The summerhouse is a little cottage with an outhouse and a sauna beside it, on the shore of a lake called Pääjärvi. It's one of my two favourite places in Finland.
We had a sauna at the edge of evening. The woodburning sauna is completely different to the electrical kind, and much better and more pleasant (not that the others are unpleasant, either). We were in 90°, and even 100°, briefly, before going to dip into the lake. On the second dip, it started to rain. There is something intensely magical and, well, intense, about being naked in a lake as rain begins to fall all around you.
We ate pizza, and drank wine, and listened to the fire popping and the rain on the roof, and toasted sausages at the fire. There was something in the woodpile when I went out for firewood; I'm not sure if was a rat or a squirrel or what, but it bolted for the undergrowth at speed, and was probably quite ticked at me for disturbing its shelter. Bed after the sausages, and a deep deep sleep.
This morning, we woke at around nine, and breakfasted, and then went down to the lake again. It was sunny and warm, and we watched fish (perch, bream (I think), a small pike, a yellow water snail and some wee red-eyed fish that I'm choosing to call Maelor-fish). One of the Maelor-fish nibbled my toe. We swam some, too - orinannajones swam, and I hung off the ladder on the jetty, and waited to see if my depth phobia would cut in (it didn't). Water was about 20°, just nice.
And now we're back in Lammi, catching up on mail and lj and offloading images from the camera, and we'll head on toinannajones' grandmother's house, way out in the country, for tonight.
Pictures will appear when I have time to cut them down to size a bit, and find someplace reliable to upload them to (any recommendations?).
From the bus on the way to Lahti, I saw some very strange wooden thing under construction on a building site. It took me a good few minutes after to work out that it was in fact a house; wood frame houses under construction look very strange.
Having met
inannajones and her mother in Lahti, we went to Lammi for long enough to drop off my bag and get some food, and then we were off to the summerhouse. The summerhouse is a little cottage with an outhouse and a sauna beside it, on the shore of a lake called Pääjärvi. It's one of my two favourite places in Finland.We had a sauna at the edge of evening. The woodburning sauna is completely different to the electrical kind, and much better and more pleasant (not that the others are unpleasant, either). We were in 90°, and even 100°, briefly, before going to dip into the lake. On the second dip, it started to rain. There is something intensely magical and, well, intense, about being naked in a lake as rain begins to fall all around you.
We ate pizza, and drank wine, and listened to the fire popping and the rain on the roof, and toasted sausages at the fire. There was something in the woodpile when I went out for firewood; I'm not sure if was a rat or a squirrel or what, but it bolted for the undergrowth at speed, and was probably quite ticked at me for disturbing its shelter. Bed after the sausages, and a deep deep sleep.
This morning, we woke at around nine, and breakfasted, and then went down to the lake again. It was sunny and warm, and we watched fish (perch, bream (I think), a small pike, a yellow water snail and some wee red-eyed fish that I'm choosing to call Maelor-fish). One of the Maelor-fish nibbled my toe. We swam some, too - or
inannajones swam, and I hung off the ladder on the jetty, and waited to see if my depth phobia would cut in (it didn't). Water was about 20°, just nice. And now we're back in Lammi, catching up on mail and lj and offloading images from the camera, and we'll head on to
inannajones' grandmother's house, way out in the country, for tonight. Pictures will appear when I have time to cut them down to size a bit, and find someplace reliable to upload them to (any recommendations?).
.