Friday 22 October 2010

Day one...

By popular demand, here is a blog about my time as a Johnny Foreigner in Finland! So here I am, sitting on a lovely green rug in my new flat. to be honest, it's so cold outside that I don't want to leave the house. Unfortunately, Jussi (my delightful boyfriend) is very insistent that I should explore. Hmm.
I got here at about 1am this morning. My journey was a complete nightmare. All was going fairly well until I got to Gatwick, where it transpired I'd bought a plane ticket for the day before! There were 3 seats left on the plane so I managed to get one, whilst putting a lovely £260 dent in my credit card. Which I have no idea how I'll repay. Fuck you easyjet. I rushed back to check in with my new ticket, and then discovered that my luggage was 24kg over my baggage allowance! And to take said luggage with me would cost another £230...
Then my credit card got declined. I did very well resisting the urge to cry. Not so well resisting the urge to shout "Fuuuuuck!" However, I called my beautiful, brilliant, perfect mother, who paid the extra money over the phone, got myself checked in and rushed off to security, paranoid that I wouldn't get to the gate in time.
Thankfully, after that the journey went very smoothly. Aside from the fact that the flight was filled almost entirely with Finnish families, complete with their out of control, screaming little darlings. But I survived, found Jussi at Helsinki-Vantaa and we went for a drink by the train station.
Then we were faced with a 2 hour train journey to get to Turku. And for some ridiculous reason, Finnish trains have no luggage racks! Which is very frustrating when you've spent all day carrying around 44kg of crap. I was getting tired and snappy, and hadn't actually eaten all day.
We arrived in Turku after 1am, it was 0 degrees, and it would be an understatement to say that my mood was flagging. We dropped the suitcases off in our new flat and wandered into the night again in search of food. This is where it gets interesting.
We found a kioski (a burger stand) and Jussi bought some crazy chips, deep fried with chunks of sausages! Apparently that's very normal. It was far too meaty for me but I found it fascinating. I just had normal chips, and even those were covered in salad and sauces. I think I'll like Finnish chips...
Eventually I got to bed, and today I had a slightly strange trip to the supermarket. It might become a problem that I don't understand what most of the food is...

3 comments:

  1. Heya! I had no idea you had plans moving to Finland! I'm sorry I've been rubbish at keeping in touch :( But surely you'll be able to visit more frequently now?;) Although I cannot promise Trondheim is any less cold. It's been snowing loads the last couple of days!

    I'm glad you got to Finland safely, and I hope you'll be happy there:) and do try to keep up this blog, please ;) xxx

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  2. That's ok, I've been just as bad! It wasn't really planned, it came up last week because Jussi lost his job, and it was the last straw because he was so sick of London.
    No snow in Turku yet, but the ground is icy all day and it's around freezing temperature at night.
    As I said on Facebook I have no excuse not to visit Trondheim and Bergen now x

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  3. Depending on trains (I think) they have some sort of lockers for additional luggage in addition to overhead racks. I don't know the specifics, since I've never need to haul that much stuff.

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