March 16th-17th Thursday-Friday

Drove down to JFK after lunch and caught the plane to Frankfurt (8 hrs) arrived in early (Friday) morning and had to wait 4 hrs until next flight so we lay down and slept on some chairs in the departure lounge. Flight to Helsinki (2.5 hrs) was ok, slept a little on the way.

Caught the bus from the airport to the train station where we put the boards and the suitcase into storage. We used a photo-booth to get some visa pictures made and then walked to the US embassy, picked up the visa forms and found that we had to pay FIM270 each (about $45 each) just to apply for the visas. Walked to a café, Leila ordered me some sort of herring dish which was a bit much for my untutored palate (cold, dry-looking, ugh). It was getting late, so we walked into town to look for a Merita branch (Leila's bank) which might still be open. Found a branch still open (with 10 min to go!) and managed to get Leila a new ATM card and used this to transfer money into the Embassy accounts for the visas. Back at the railway station I exchanged some US$ for FIM. Leila called her mum and then a friend of hers (Elina) and with whom we visited an art museum, then we had a late lunch with Elina in Zetor's ... I ate some sort of very nice reindeer dish (I think). Then we picked up the suitcase from storage and caught the subway a few stops nearer the outskirts of Helsinki where we met Leila's mum at a shopping center café.

Taken to Porvoo (I fell asleep in the car), where Leila had lived for a long time while going to school and where her mother now lives. On arrival we were fed and Leila and her mum were able to spend some time catching up. Later that night, Leila introduced me to Finnish sauna. Very, very nice. Slept like stones.

March 18th, Saturday

Woke late, had a lazy morning, showered, breakfasted. Leila and I walked into town and she showed me the house where they used to live when she was small. Did a bit of shopping, picked up new bootlaces for my hiking boots, some toothpaste, just generally had a look at Porvoo. Then Leila walked me into the older (much older) part of town. Narrow winding streets, looked at a beautiful old church (over 500 yrs old), a very pleasant place where car traffic is restricted. Leila pointed out some of the more interesting features and explained a little of the history of the town. Went to a café to have tea and coffee with a piano accompanyment. Visited the town museum and learned quite a lot about Porvoo's history, from the stone-age through to the end of the 18th century. As it was beginning to get a bit late we headed back to Leila's mum's home, passing Leila's old high-school on the way. Leila's mum served up another nice tea. Leila and I then finished filling out the visa forms. Watched a video before going to bed.

March 19th, Sunday

Another lazy morning, after a late breakfast Leila's mum let me drive into the outskirts of Helsinki where we caught the subway back into town. We stowed the suitcase again and walked to the US Embassy to drop off our applications. Did a small amount of shopping before having afternoon tea. Somehow managed to pick up all the tickets we needed for our Lapland trip after the relevant ticket office closed! (Nice lady working in an adjacent office helped us out). Retreived the suitcase and boardbag from storage and boarded the night train for Rovaniemi. Fairly nice little cabin on the train. Had a drink in the restaurant car, bought sandwhiches for dinner (not real special). Did not sleep well.

March 20th, Monday

Arrived early in Rovaniemi (situated on the Arctic circle) and caught the bus to Levi (2.5 hrs). Arrived to find that our (hotel Sirkantähti) room was not yet ready (!?) so, feeling tired and dirty, we wandered around a bit looking at the little tourist market, checking out the mountain, marveling at all the snow (record snowfalls this season apparently), and having lunch (delicious) before dragging ourselves back to the hotel. Had a much-needed shower before heading off for another wander around the village. Bought some beer at the local K-mart. Had dinner (pizzas) at the hotel Levitunturi. Went back to our room for sauna/showers (plus beer), our room had it's own sauna! Watched some TV before bed.

March 21st, Tuesday

Woke up at 8 am (alarm), had a big cooked breakfast in the hotel restaurant before returning to the room to unpack the snowboards and dress for our day on the mountain. Walked to the base of Levi mountain, where the lifts were and bought our lift tickets. All of the lifts were T-bars ... we were a bit worried about this because up until now we had used chairlifts ... but after a trial on the kids T-bar we thought it would be ok. So ... up the mountain we went ... fantastic day snowboarding all over the place ... soon learned the joys of off-piste and had immense fun all day long. Took many photo's. Towards the end of the day we decided to head back down the mountain along a green connector trail ... this was very flat and most of the time we were pedalling along with one foot unstrapped. We were so tired doing this, the wind was very strong, we decided to follow a couple of boarders off-piste as they seemed to be headed in the general direction of the place we started with in the morning. Very soon we found that (a) these people, a mother and her young son, were inexperienced (albeit adventurous) boarders and didn't really know what they were doing and (b) we were quickly lost among the trees and deep snow. Everytime we stopped we would fall (forward or backward) into a few feet of deep snow and find it very difficult to regain our upright position ... the trees were getting thicker and thicker, and it was getting steeper and steeper ... turned out to be a lot of very hard work ... but we eventually came out at the bottom not far from where we had hoped to be. Put the boards in storage for the next day. Had a light dinner at Myllyn Äijä restaurant. Again, great food. Did the beer/sauna/shower thing before bed. Slept like the dead.

March 22nd, Wednesday

Woke at 8 am again, breakfasted in the hotel restaurant, collected the boards and headed off for the mountain again. Did much more off-piste than on previous day, finally got to ride in the new gondola too. Most interesting part? Either dodging trees off-piste around lift 8 (which, by the way, is the longest lift in Finland) or screaming down untravelled steeps (off-piste again) towards lift 5. Got some great photo's. We left the slopes around 2.30pm. After cleaning up we caught the bus to Kittilä, dropped off some film for developing, had afternoon tea at a little pub/restaurant there, checked out a couple of souvineer shops, bought postcards and a T-shirt for myself, picked up a wine for the next night's train trip back to Helsinki. Caught the bus back to Levi and walked around the town a bit, considered going to one of the restaurants for dinner but after checking it out we decided to just eat some bread and cheeses back in the room. Did the beer/sauna/shower thing. Getting to like that very very much now. Although Leila's tolerance for high temperatures is proving to be greater than mine (?!). Slept well again.

Keith racing down untravelled steeps

March 23rd, Thursday

Woke early once more (8 am), breakfast in the hotel restaurant, decided against snowboarding today as we wouldn't be able to shower again until late Friday night when we got to Leila's mum's place in Porvoo. Packed everything up, including the boards, and checked out of the hotel. We were able to leave our bags and boards in the hotel's store-room for the day. We hired a couple of snowmobiles and buzzed off into the wilderness West of the mountain, took lots of photo's and enjoyed the experience. Like riding fast, loud, smelly lawn-mowers. Got up to around 85 km/h while crossing a frozen lake!! Terrifying. I saw a reindeer off in the distance near the end of the trip. I think we covered around 40 km. Got back into Levi and dropped off the snowmobiles and had another nice meal at the Myllyn Äijä restaurant. Collected our bags and stuff and dragged it down to the Levitunturi where we were supposed to meet the bus. Caught the bus to Rovaniemi and then boarded the train. We had our own food and wine so we were very comfortable on the return train trip.

March 24th, Friday

Arrived in Helsinki early in the morning. Placed the boardbag and the suitcase back in storage again before heading off to the US Embassy. Leila a little nervous that our visas might not be ready. Fortunately, the visas were fine (except that we had to find an extra US$105 for mine!! Bastards!) and, elated by our success, we went back into town to do a little shopping. I picked up new shoes. Went and looked at the Uspensky Cathedral, which was a beautiful old orthodox church ... managed to take a reasonably good shot inside without using flash. Also went to have a look at the big church (??), which was large and also beautiful in an understated fashion. Leila called up a friend of hers (Anni) and we had a great italian lunch with her at Giovani's café. We then went to the Kiasma museum of modern art (and got thoroughly confused by most of it). After saying goodbye to Anni we thought about going to a movie, but the one we wanted to see was dubbed into Swedish (ok for Leila, but not for me) so that was torpedoed. Feeling very tired we called Leila's mum and went back to the train station where we picked up the suitcase and boardbag and caught the subway again. Leila's mum picked us up and took us back to Porvoo. Ate a very nice meal (again), we did the beer/sauna/shower thing one last time. Watched Conan the Destroyer before sleep. Actually, I fell asleep about 20 minutes into the movie, Leila got a litte further but also didn't make it through.

March 25th, Saturday

Woke up late, had a very lazy morning. Borrowed Leila's mum's car and drove into Helsinki around lunch-time. We did a bit more shopping around before meeting friends (Jussi and Eija) at the market square for some great sushi. These were very nice people and we stayed with them for most of the afternoon, including walking into town to a restaurant for ice-cream with them. It was great to meet them. We spent a short while looking around at some more shops before driving off to Elina's place for dinner. We were enthusiastically greeted by Elina and her two corgis. Elina had prepared a great dinner and we ate and drank (wine, madeira, whiskey, etc, etc) until fairly late. She played a lot of Finnish music and she and Leila even did some translation of the more entertaining lyrics for me. A great night. Drove back to Porvoo feeling tired and not looking forward to waking up very early for the trip back home.

March 26th Sunday

Woke up very early, too early, 4 am!! Showers, hurried breakfast, packing, driving off to the airport. Said goodbye to Leila's mum and then caught the flight to Frankfurt. Frankfurt was complete chaos. Thousands of people and not enough space anywhere for any of them, our flight was delayed, information was difficult to find, staff were pretty rude, we were very tired. Not much fun. Eventually got on the plane, and had an uneventful flight back to JFK. Hired a car from Avis, drove home through some bloody awful traffic on the Hutchison and Merrit parkways. Got back into New Haven around 3pm, after freshening up we walked to Clarke's for some food, walked home and then lay down for a nap at 6pm ... didn't wake up until the next morning! (Except for cops waking us up, wanting access to the third floor, at 12.30 am!!!)