Tales along our own roads - travelling stories

[Humppaporo]

I thought it might be nice to start a thread with stories about the travelling stories of forum members. When travelling many (unexpected) things happen, it might be nice to share them.

This story is often in my mind, time to write it down.

Rosala 1

It was one night on Rosala island, a small and very beautiful island for the Finnish coast. The couple in front of me was not young anymore. I guess the guy was over 60, absolutely not handsome, quite fat and also quite drunk at that moment. But he was a real kind guy. His wife, a head shorter than him, slim and around 5 years younger (and sober), leaned towards me and said: “we live together now for over ten years. Those years were good, though not always easy. He is such a great guy!” I nodded. She continued: “do you know that I get up every morning quite early, although I have troubles waking up? Do you know why?” Of course I did not. “He always wakes early by himself, so I have to be earlier than he is. So I can wake him up, there is a special reason to that. It means so much to me, I would not miss it.”… “ Every morning when I wake him, he opens his eyes and looks a little fuzzy, because he just woke up, but then… “ she swallowed “Then he sees my face, and a broad, big smile breaks through, like the sun through the clouds. He is always so happy to see me, and I would not miss this warm and happy smile one morning in my life. It makes my day, every day again. I can feel that he loves me so deeply, because of that.” She looked down, lost in thoughts. He looked at her, took her hand, and mumbled: “yes, I love you, you know.” and I could see how honest he meant it. Then he grabbed another beer.

This is something I will never forget. It was so special. This love, but also the fact that she told me. I even don’t remember their names anymore. It was far after midnight at a huge outdoor party, we were sitting in the middle of a real crowd of drinking people, with tons of beer and heaps of makkara.

That night was memorable for more reasons, maybe I will write more when in the right mood.

[ina]

What a beautiful topic, Claudia!
I like everything: the name, the meaning.
When travelling many unexpected things surely happen to the "journey man". Still, some things you will remember better than the others - they're almost magic, like the excemble above.
Did you speak in finnish or in english?

[Humppaporo]

ina : Surprisingly in English, at that time i had totally no knowledge of the Finnish language, and now also i could not speak or understand, only really really slowly and with a sanakirja at hand.

I had many nice (and some odd) conversations that evening with all surprisingly well speaking English Finns (besides one woman, maybe i will tell next time about her and her husband) and night, and many many beers, i could not drink all that was given to me, so i gave away 7 full bottles, after i drank around 5 or 6 beers in the whole, more i could not do after a really tiresome and heavy day

It will good to be back this summer (well, not in Rosala i think, but in Finland)

[DaveTheRake]

It is such a lovely story!!!!! I don't really know what love means, but I thyink this story must be really close to it...

[jarmo]

I´m in spain now, for study, but when I´m back I´ll write some piece about it... it´s quite fun here actually

[Humppaporo]

A heart has four rooms

On that same evening in Rosala, i met many people, i almost got the feeling that they lined up and waited till the former one disappeared to show up. Every time someone left for the toilet, beer or whatever, another guy took the place next to me and started to talk. It was odd in one way, but entertaining in another way. I tried to leave many times because I was very tired, but never succeeded until it was far after 3 o’ clock .

A man, Tomi, came sitting next to me on the wooden bench. He started to talk and insisted to get a drink for me, but since I still had seven beers undrunk, I refused. He said: “ you would make me very unhappy if you do not take anything from me…that would mean you do not like me” and looked at me with puppy-eyes. I did not like him, and wanted him to go away, but did not want to hurt his feelings. Since I was totally stuffed with makkara and beer already, I asked him for coffee… at around 2 in the morning He went inside to get it.
As soon as he had left, another guy came towards me, embraced me tightly, took a seat next to me and started talking… when Tomi came back, he left again, a pity because he was much nicer to talk to. Tomi got even more pushy and touched me all the time. When I told him to leave off, he said that he was quite good in massage. The day before I made a nasty fall in Helsinki, and I was bruised all over, my knees were black and blue and the rest was not much better, so without lying I could tell him that it really hurted. Then he left off, but asked me if he could spent the night with me. That was a horrible idea, so I said ‘no’. He did not like my answer and said, with a very serious look in his eyes: “do you know that a heart has 4 rooms?” I knodded, since my teacher told me the same long ago ;D. He said: “there must be a free room for me” Argh! I told him all rooms were taken. “By who?” he asked. “By my three kids!” “Ahh! So there is one room left!!”… “öhm, no, it is also taken!” “Who did?” he wanted to know. I said “by some guy”. My love life was none of his business. He only wanted to know if it was taken by a Finnish guy, “cause that are the only good ones!” ;D he said. In a way it was quite funny, but also quite uneasy. He just wanted to know where my tent was ..to check if I would be safe all night! hehe!

After a while he left, and I got other company there but I could see him wait about 50 meters away (long live the bright Finnish summer nights!). When I finally left, he was still there. I honestly felt that I did not need him to protect me that night.. so I went to the showers/saunas and looked through the key hole till he finally left... Then I went to my (fortunately hidden in the woods) tent and slept… safely without Tomi!

*This is the only not so positive experience i had on that holiday... so, since this is not that bad, you could see i had a great time!

[Socke]

This time a story from me. At the moment I'm on a study trip in Iceland, and the story took place today in the western fjords in this country.


The last couple of days the biggest matter that was discussed about was getting the group into the bus in time. Usually there is always someone who isn’t back at the scheduled time, someone who still went to the toilet, bought post cards or simply didn’t find back at first attempt. This morning, however, every single person was sitting in the bus already two minutes before the deadline, which seemed to be such a shock for the bus that it broke down right after. Instead of staying twenty minutes at the waterfall we spent there a bit over two hours, until the bus driver, who happened to be a mechanic as well, had repaired his vehicle. Everything put on a video tape by Hans, who meanwhile got that popular with his constant video filming of basically everything that 48 out of 49 people in the group were wishing his camera would one of those days accidentally fall into one of those rivers in some fjord. We managed to get a bit further up till the bus broke down again. While the driver again tried his best to get it working again the bunch of Scandinavian philology and other students was sent to take a walk through the fog that had accumulated on the top of the mountains. Thoughts of hitch-hiking to Rejkjavík arose, which however turned out to be pointless since there hardly appeared any cars, like everywhere on the island. After half an hour the bus made towards the group and kept working till a parking lot some kilometres further. While stopping a biting smell originated from the back of the bus. Ása, our Icelandic teacher, made another -this time successful- attempt to call a bus company and order a new bus. In the meantime the group rushed into the nearby kiosk. The small hut was dimensioned for approximately ten people maximum, fifty people trying to get a hold of some groceries overstrained the capacity of it a fair bit. 90 minutes later a new bus arrived. Half of the group took this school bus, the other half tried one’s luck with the broken one and a ferry. Both arrived at some point in Iceland’s windy capital, having escaped all further indoctrinations concerning Gislí and the saga about him, which probably would have taken place if everything had worked as planned. Which leaves me wondering… did our bus actually die due to a natural cause?

[Nordican]

When we were driving through South Dakota, we encountered all sorts of absolutely nothing. There's the dark kind where you can't see anything, the road kind where it's just straight and not even any interesting dead animals or trash, and the regular terrain kind where it is just flat. Just flat. No trees, no nothing, all of South Dakota is like a nuclear wasteland.

HOWEVER. Due to the radiation emitted by these absofuckinglutelynothing particles, the rabbits are enormous. Like, the size of small children. Look at your computer tower, right now (if you have one) and that is seriously how big they are. What this serves in nature, I don't know, but it's AWESOME. Anyways. Yeah, rabbits are enormous, and other than that it's really empty. Hardly any animals at all, honestly. You see no farm pastures, no birds, no random deer. Nothing! The entire state is dead except for HUGE rabbits and occasional domesticated animals.

Well, we were driving late at night, my mom was just staying solid but getting into the "I'll take five seconds to react to something running in front of me" mode. Not good. Fortunately there are no bears, low flying aircraft because this is South Dakota. Anyways, I'm sitting in the back, in the middle and I'm watching the road (just incase she misses something) and then I see it.

An enormous rabbit.

Of course mom is just trucking away, and it's slowly getting closer and closer. It's not really moving, I guess it doesn't care and figure since it's so monolithically fat it'll be okay from vehicles. THEY'LL SWERVE. The really funny thing is, though, we didn't. In fact the rabbit was so fat that it actually made the entire Blazer rock to the right as it passed under the tires. It was like we ran over a large rock or something, because it woke both my siblings up and all I could do is giggle like the sick bastard that I am.

All in all, a good trip because nothing else happened. We got to see the mountains too.

[jarmo]

Fieldwork in Spain. June 2007

With two fellow students we met at Amsterdam airport. for our flight to Alicante. We would go to Spain for a month to do some geological field survey. De flight was very good, no delay or problems with retrieving luggage (except one of them who tied his field boots to his backpack, those shoes were gone). At nine pm we felt the solid ground of Alicante under our feet. With our luggage, we went looking for the bus to the city centre. When we arrived at the bus stop, the bus just arrived. It took some time to explain (in spanish) where we wanted to go (main bus station, for there should be a cheap and reasonable hotel). At last some girl told us the next bus stop was at the busstation. When we left the bus, we realized that it didn't at all look like a bus station, hardly a bus stop. After we asked some people, it turned out to be just around the corner. We knew the hotel we wanted, was next to the bus station. So we walked a spiral around the bus station when we found the sign, just at the corner where we started. We asked for a room for three people, one night, and we got rid of our bags (they were heavy). And we were outside again, looking for food. We had a hard time finding restaurants, there weren't any. The only supermarket we found just closed in front of us. After some rather clueless walking, we found a small cafe of something, where we could eat. We had to choose one of the two offered foods: 'Baguette meat' or 'baguette fish'. We ordered the meat one, and we expected it to have have some lettuce, tomato etc. but it didn't. It was just grilled bread with some slices of grilled meat between. Nevertheless, it was nice to eat, as we were hungry after the traveling. So we decided to order another one, this time, I chose the 'baguette fish'. There followed a spanish word-flood, of which i could make out two words: oil and sepia. I just nodded and said 'Si, si si' . After some minutes, there came a baguette with some slimy stuff on it. After eating some of the bread, I realized sepia might be octopus. I looked it up in my little dictionary, and I was right.
the next morning we would be traveling about 100 km inland, to the 2600 inhabitants village Fuente-Alamo. The bus station consisted of many small desks, of every available local bus company. The one we had to take was utterly closed, with some spanish notes on the window. After looking at it three times we understood that tickets were to be bought inside the bus. Okay then, in the bus, in hot, hot spain, without working air-conditioning, near three hours traveling. When we arrived at Fuente, we realized that Alicante was quite mild due to the sea breeze.
First thing to do was to find the bar owner, who manages the housing for students. We tried to explain that we would be staying with the other two students who arrived some days ago, but he didn't understand. He rang someone and after five minutes a woman entered the bar to show us a house to rent. The house was neat, and we received the key already, but we wanted to stay with the other two,they had a house suitable for over 5 people. As soon as we made this clear, the woman showed where our study-mates lived. We entered and started to rest.
The next day we noticed that more study-mates arrived, and we gave them the key of the other house. We got a lift of one of them to Jumilla, an reasonable big city 38 km further. Here we rented bikes, and cycled back, in the afternoon (siesta-time). Overall the road was uphill, but at the downhill parts we reached speeds over 50 km/h. At two thirds of the 38km, was a village where we drank something. In total it took us two and a half ours to get back to Fuente-Alamo. When we entered the village centre, there were others waiting till their bikes would be delivered. Damn, we could have done that as well. It was easy to have the bikes collected and brought back when we would leave at the end of the month.

Our objective was to discover how the area became how it is now. We would do this by writing down every type of rocks, and mapping the area. Then interpreting about area's you know nothing about, or about area's that are not logical (faults!). The area had once been beneath sea level, and the sea became gradually shallowed, and there was land. It became a dune (coastal) area. But then the sea level raised again and it became deep sea gradually again. All of this information is possible to find inside the stones (sedimentation environments). There also was some folding and faulting, which made the geology more and more complex.
There were many nice things to be found, but not rare. Fossiles (ammonites a kind of seasnails, Belemnites octupusskeletons, Oysters of 35 cm big and petrified wood, i found a piece of over 7,5 kg. And there were pyrites that were turned into iron(oxide).
The house was at the first floor, it had a big kitchen and 'living', a small room with a telly, three bedrooms with 2 beds each, and a big bathroom. The village itself is small, but there is a supermarket (with that month cheaper chorizo, fruit juice and energy drink), an internet-cafe with four computers (downstairs a hall where they practised archery) and some bars. The church had a bel (read: speaker), because of what the sound of the bel was rudely cut off. The village is at the foot of the mountain El Cerron. There's not much to do, but there were enough shops etc. The area knew very few vegetation, only some fields with small almond, vine and olive trees. On the mountains they planted small pine trees.
There was a swimming pool, which opened just some days before we had to leave. It was straightforward, but nice.
I informed about the archery, and it turned out to be a private club, only for invited people, but I was invited with some others right-away. When we came one thursday morning, we were shooting for two hours, when we decided to stop. I got invited for a tournament the next sunday, but that day we were having field assistance, so I couldn't go.
Garbage bins are something they have never heard of in this part of Spain. the ground was covered in garbage, and so was the ground in the bars. If you took a small road outside the village, there was a big chance of running into a huge garbage pile. Fridges, televisions, toys, shoes and sheep-remains, some fresh.

The regular busconnection to Alicante would arrive quite early. But I could go with one of the teachers and arrive in Alicante even earlier. We left at 7 am, for he had to check in at 9 am. My flight would leave at 22:00, so I would have to wait. The hours counted away, while I was reading and eating (my mp3-player had broken down) in the sun and shade. When I could check in twelve hours later, my luggage was too heavy (sigh, petrified wood, sigh), so I had to transfer some stuff to my hand luggage, which then was too heavy to keep with my in the plane. I took my safety-helmet, food and a lot of paper out of my bags to reduce the amount of money to be paid. So I walked at the airport with the helmet on my head, and people gave me strange looks, also the hand luggage checkers. After a mere 5 quarters of an hour delay (due to heavy weather at German arports), I left. And some hours after midnight I arrived at home, tired.

[Humppaporo]

This summer i was in Finland again

One evening I have had a very tiresome day and arrived at around 20:00 at a camping (in Pälkäne). I was so tired that I hardly could walk. But I checked in and put up my tent. While doing so, I heard some very loud Popeda songs. Since I like Popeda I felt cheered up immediately, but wondered also, many campings would not allow loud music at all. Soon I found out that it came from a huge tent quite near to me. They went on with Amorphis and other good music, and I became curious, so I went there to take a look. It was a group of people, who had a really huge music installation on a generator, and it seemed quite permanent. They showed me around and asked if it was disturbing, well, not at all!

Later that evening I went to the grilli with my beer and makkara. The same group was there among many others, but also an older woman who did not speak any English, Marita. She sat there and the guys translated for her, she was every time in doubt if they did it right But the conversation went on, half in English, half in Finnish. I was sitting in front of the fire. She had tears in her eyes when she told me that I was sitting on the place where her husband always sat. I did not know until then that he died very recently and that his burial had taken place that very same day. She was comforted by the whole camping, she had hard times. That night I heard the whole story about that camping. The people there came already as babies with their parents to the camping, and continued to do so when they were already grown, and later on they brought their own kids. The guys I met came there for over 20 years every free day they had, they played their games, had a band, karaoke and many other things. Marita and her late husband were like parents to all youngsters, they were like one big family. They all told me about good and bad things that had happened there, shared many memories. At around 4 in the morning I wanted to go to my tent to have some sleep, after all beer and a long day I was really tired. But they persuaded me to stay somewhat longer. I did and went to bed much later. When I got up quite early next morning, I broke up my tent, and wanted to leave, but in a way I also would have liked to stay there.

I just took a piece of paper to write a note to Marita when I saw her coming. I told her in probably not quite right words that I just wanted to write her a note, because I had to leave. She made me promise to come back next year. Sometimes you do not have to speak a language good to understand each other.

Sami, one of the guys there, gave me a dvd with Finnish music, most of it I knew, but he made me promise that I would listen to a band from his friends from his hometown Valkeakoski, Kingdom of Dusk. I did a few days ago, have to email him about that.

In the end of that holiday I tried to go back to Pälkäne, but it became so late in the night, that I did not. I will definitely go there again next year.

[Sara]

Humppaporo, your stories are such a pleasure reading. I've also been to Pälkäne a couple of times.
You create Finland such an idyllic look, that it makes myself feel really patriotic every time .

[Humppaporo]

One night at Tampere camping just came back to my mind. I came back to the camping quite late, around one ‘o clock and I had not eaten all day, i was wet and cold, because it rained all the time.
So I went to find the grilli. I had only a vague idea of where it was (had not been there) and it was totally dark. So I went to look for it, and tried to smell it. Soon I smelled burning wood and went downhill in that direction. Because of the trees I had not seen the quite huge fire that was in there. When I came to the grilli cabin, there was one man, sitting alone at the fire. He was really delighted that someone came, but the fire was far too big to prepare food on. We talked for a while, and when he understood that I would like to prepare some makkarat he said immediately that he would lower the fire for that purpose. I told him not to bother, and that I could easily wait or just eat some bread, but he insisted. So I went to my tent to get food (and beer of course ) and when I came back, one of the fires was low enough to use. So I prepared my food, shared it with the guy and we had quite a nice talk. Around three in the morning some more people came and it became really nice. But against four o’ clock he said that he should go to sleep because he had to be in Helsinki at noon, but that he really regretted it, because he would like to stay longer. So I asked him why he had to go to Helsinki. He said that there was no special reason but that he had decided to be back around noon the next day. I asked him if he could not change that, because it was really cool there and no-one else felt like leaving. But he said that he really felt sad, because he had to go, he had set his mind on that and nothing could change his plans

Well, I stayed till after five, and it was very nice. He was a nice guy, I forgot his name, but it was a pity that he did not have the flexibility to change his plans, or not go to bed. But I will never forget the hearty welcome he gave me when I was hungry, lonely, cold and tired, and the nice talk we had.

[Humppaporo]

Nokia

Because people in Nokia are suffering so much problems with the water supplies today on independence day, a story from Nokia.

Around 3 in the afternoon I came to Nokia and was looking for Nokia camping. It was my first time in Finland and I was not very familiar with the signs that lead to things like campings then. I could not find it, drove around and around… I stopped at a little ice-creamshop on a crossing somewhere to ask. Since I did not speak or understand any Finnish, I asked in English for the camping. The two girls that worked there tried to help, but they hardly spoke any English and mixed up right and left all the time. They argued the whole time about the right word/way. I left with a description that soon brought me no-where So I tried to find it again myself, which did not work.

At a certain moment, it was already almost 6 ‘o clock in the evening, I ended up in such a modern area of the city, where all houses are arranged like a labyrinth. It was a dead end road and I tried to turn. When I finished that a car came and parked almost next to me. An older man got out (I think he just came from his work) and I decided to ask him for directions. So I got out of my car, with the map in my hand and asked if he could tell me how to get to the camping. He obviously did not know any English, but understood my question. He started to explain in very fast Finnish, while making lots of gestures.
I gazed at him and when he finished his story I told him that I unfortunately did not speak any Finnish. He started all over again, a little louder this time For some reason I still did not understand He must have seen my confused face, because suddenly he gestured and said that I should follow him. I drove behind him for about 19 kilometers, taking many turns and driving all small roads. Then, to my big relieve I saw the camping. He drove up the camping grounds, turned, wished me a good trip and left. I had not even the time to say thank you.

I think this was quite amazing and really kind of him to help me out this way!

The camping was fine (except for the annoying bugs ) and around Nokia it is really beautiful. This kind man I will not forget. All good to the people of Nokia, hope their troubles will be over soon!

[Socke]

After my trip to Russia last weekend I wrote quite a long story about it (even if I had the feeling there is hardly anything to write about), my favourite part was actually the Finnish-Russian border crossing, which is definitely an interesting experience.

The guide announces to acquaint us with the border formalities now. “Border formalities” will become my favourite word over the course of the next few days. It can’t be that difficult since we already gave our passports to Russia a couple of weeks ago and payed around 45 euros for the visa. It can. The guide tells us to take a migration card and then fill it in twice exactly after her instructions. She also tells us we can consider us fortunate as the questions on the migration cards are in English since last year. Before they had been solely in Russian. Quite interesting, since Russians don’t need to fill in those migration cards. Interesting also the question after a patronymic, which is most common to have in Russia. It has to be stated when you come into the country and when you leave it again and where you stay during that time. The guide explains that we under no circumstances should lose this paper since hotels aren’t allowed to accommodate people without a valid migration card. It can be quite cold at nights outside in Russia, she continues. First we arrive to the Finnish side of the border. There everything’s just fun, we are told. This, however, would change on the Russian side, and she advises us to behave there. Like on the Finnish side we have to go into a grey building. There the officer indulges in his favourite hobby of putting stamps into passports and everywhere else. A stemp into the passport, a stamp onto the migration card. I see how he enjoys that, only his job is restricting his hobby by dictating where the stamps have to be put. I know that if it once gets too much for him he will break out of all this. He will take his stamp, leave his hut in the grey building and put stamps on every white spot on the bus. Till the ink is empty.
After one and a half hours everyone has received his/her stamps, the trip goes on till we encounter the next checking point. A grim looking guy with a fur hat on his head enters the bus and has a look to all passports. The fourth check point has a surprise for us: No one wants to see our passports.
We go on to St. Petersburg. It’s Saturday afternoon and the traffic is going very smoothly, according to our guide. I nevertheless wonder if there is any system or rule behind it all since cars seem to just go as they please. The buildings and trams look deteriorated. An old woman steps on the street, constantly crossing herself. Considering the traffic one needs the help of God to reach the other side alive.

[Socke]

Today I went to Kiiminki in order to investigate the myth of the heroic fishermen. One winter night I took the last bus back home. A middle-aged, completely drunk man sat next to me and started a conversation. He told me that he was from Kiiminki. And that there were many fishing adventures. I don't know if this man ever came home that night since the bus was definitely not going to the place he said he was living at, but ever since I wanted to find out about the monster fishes of Kiiminki.
Kiiminki is located 20 km northeast of Oulu. I took my bike and followed the road signs. In the beginning there were some. Later there weren't. That's how I got lost for a whole hour somewhere north of Oulu, or maybe it was east or perhaps somewhere completely else. I don't know. At some point I just went back and found a sign again, saying it's still 14 km to Kiiminki. As I was of course again too stubborn to just go back even though I was already utterly exhausted I followed the sign.
I still wonder what the emblem of the municipality of Kiiminki actually shows. Three headphones? An explanation which makes sense, in case the road works there ever continue. Till then people seem to stick to the quality roads of the town. To cut the matter short, I didn't find any fishermen, and also no monster fishes. It was damn windy at that place and after a short picnic I went back where I had come from. That's when I started to think that it actually wasn't worth the torture. Then, however, I found 5 km from Kiiminki the probably most beautiful cemetery (1-5) I have ever seen. It's in the middle of the forest, a considerable number of (mostly derelict) gravestones surrounded by a wooden fence. So that was worth it for me after all, the cemetery near the town of the three headphones.