Moi moi from Finland! And thus begins the final part of Samantha’s Humble Tour, which will most likely be full of culinary adventures while I take over my friend Maaria’s kitchen, and essentially become her housewife (yay!). Since I’d spent so much time and energy planning for my English Dream Trip (which I’m pleased to say went without much of a hitch, and which I’ll summarise over the next few days), I honestly hadn’t given the Finnish part much thought apart from spending time with Maaria, participating in midsummer mayhem, learning about Moomins, catching up on some reading, catching up on lots of writing, and rolling around in pure Scandanavian happiness.
Tuesday
Despite the awesomeness of the sleeper train, my general failure at sleeping meant I didn’t really get much proper rest. The train stewardess knocked on my door at 6am to deliver breakfast on a tray, but I was too tired to eat anything, so I sipped on my tea and packed away the food for later.
Breakfast tray on the overnight sleeper train.
The majority of my trip to Helsinki was fine, but the final leg (Oslo to Helsinki) was a little bumpy. Namely, I had 55 minutes between the “arrival” in Oslo and “departure” in Helsinki—while that might seem like plenty of time, a lot depends on a number of factors. Unfortunately, every one of the “uh-oh” factors were in play for that connection: there was a shuttle transfer from the Oslo plane to the terminal (15 mins with the taxi-ing), passport control, and another security check. With many apologies (and Japanese-esque bowing), I jumped the queues, and made it to the gate just a few minutes after boarding had commenced. But it turned out my haste was uncalled for, as the flight was delayed for some reason. Things got even more interesting once I had boarded, since the system had somehow double-booked a whole bunch of seats, and I kept being ushered to the back of the plane by an air stewardess who, while smiling, had no idea what was going on.
But it all turned out for the best, since the gentleman who sat next to me (another displaced passenger) was a Finn with lots of advice to impart.
The view leaving Norway.
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