Wednesday 25 December 2013

Christmas Adventure

Happy Christmas everyone! ♡

I made it home for Christmas this year! It wasn't quite as easy as it might sound to you. Surprisingly, we didn't have any problems with any of our three flights. Instead the domestic travel caused more problems.


Christmas tree at Aberdeen Airport.


After arriving in Finland, I spent a couple of days in Helsinki with a friend while Laura was visiting her family Hyvinkää. After that the great journey to Loimaa started. And I have to say that this was not the first time, I've travelled from Helsinki to Loimaa by train. It should be fairly straight forward: just change trains in Toijala and you won't accidentally end up in Tampere. What could possibly go wrong?

Well here's a little map I drew you using Google Maps, so that it's easier to follow my story.


Green line is our train route and the red arrow is a little taxi "short cut".


Okay, when I was still considering which train I should buy my ticket to, a friend invited me for coffee in Vantaa. It's on the way, great! ... So I went to see him in Vantaa. I had an hour. Unfortunately, I spent half of it in a forest with a coffee machine and a huge broken suitcase. I had a coffee machine, because my friend had lent it to me so that we could use it at my mum's 50th birthday party and my friend Tiia's graduation party. And something unfortunate had happened to my 25 kg suitcase and it only had one tiny little wheel left. And no, I didn't mean to end up in a forest, but instead of taking the tunnel that lead to the parking lot where my friend was waiting for me, I had taken the tunnel to a forest. So instead of an hour's calm coffee drinking we ended up downing a 4-minute speed coffee from a kiosk while standing at the station.

After I safely back on train, I nicely placed all of my luggage on the shelves I can barely reach and found a good spot for my suitcase to stand up. The train was fairly full but I had found good seats for me and Laura, who was meant to get on at Hyvinkää. She got on put her stuff away and take-away pizza out of her suitcase.

Dinnertime!!!

Oh, but that would be way too straightforward wouldn't it? Soon we realised that everyone else was getting off, and we were just sitting there eating pizza. Well, of course we were sitting in the only coach that was going to be left behind at Riihimäki and that we had approximately 1-minute to get all of our stuff and to run to one of the coaches that would carry on with the rest of the train. Laura lost a bottle of Fanta in the process. It was tragic.

After finding new seats and the train was moving again, we thought that we could just sit on the train and eat. Finally. We were very happy about this and I was telling Laura about my forest adventure and she was talking about meeting her family.

Then I asked Laura when exactly we would need to change trains again. And at the same time the conductor walked in saying:

"Tickets from Toijala?"

Oh, yes, of course we had just driven past our stop while chatting. Fortunately, there was a nice couple on the train who were getting off at the next stop at Viiala and they helped us phone a taxi. Fortunately there was some extra time, and we arrived back in Toijala 5 minutes before our train arrived there. But hey, let's look at the positive side! We didn't have to stand in freezing rain waiting for the train - instead we got to see Viiala.


Back in Toijala!


I think it's quite funny how many things we managed to fail during this 2-hour journey... But in the end we made it home for Christmas!

But was it a white Christmas? Well... It was raining, but because we are ninjas at getting lost and then finding things, we found a little pile of snow!




How was your Christmas?

3 comments:

  1. Kääk! En osaa oikeen englantia, niin en tajua kaikkea :D. Mutta kysymyksestä vastaan: mulla oli erilainen joulu, Aasiassa. Ekaa kertaa muualla ,kuin Suomessa ja kivaa oli, vaikkei tuntunut ihan joululta :D ainakaan perinteiseltä.

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    1. Tuo sun joululomamatka kuulosti kyllä aivan mahtavalta! En ole vielä ehtinyt kommentoida kunnolla, mutta aion kyllä! Itselläni on Aasian matkat vasta suunnitteilla, mutta sinnekin on päästävä vielä! :)

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    2. Suosittelen kyllä :) ja kiitos paljon

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