Puijio Kuopio

Tuesday, August 7 - continued.

After checking out a few museums and stuff, Ina and I hopped on some train to Kuopio (still in Finland). Here's a map since we're starting to head pretty north.





I did manage to get some more recordings of Finnish. You'll need to turn up the speakers for this. This is a really rude thing to do, I know, and the lady was catching on, but honestly, it's for cultural reasons and I had NO IDEA what she was talking about. Notice my reflection in the window, what am I wearing??

Off the train and into a cab to go up the hill to the Maja Puijio hostel, which was on top of a hill and had a tower at the top. We checked in and began to wander around.


It started to get dark.


Apparently, the hostel is actually a ski lodge with a Slalom (Norwegian slalåm, literally, sloping track) ski jump. Neat.


There was absolutely no one around, reception/tower closed just after we got there, so Ina and I decided we'd do what those girls were doing the night before in Helsinki.


These are the "best of" 600 or something.




This one is my favourite.





My turn!






Hey! I suck at this!

Ina liked how my hair looked like it was glowing, so we tried to do that with her hair.

Little success.


Honestly, I wanted to stay there forever. It was so beautiful. We must have taken hundreds of photos that evening.


The Tower.


Lakes in the beyond.




More to come. Remember last year's thing with mushrooms?


That's the hostel. Neat, huh?


Like pretty much every hostel in Scandinavia, there's a sauna.


our room. That pile on the floor there, that's my backpack.


If you're confused here, it's because the shower encompasses the sink. You can watch yourself shower in the mirror. Oh Finns.

Wednesday, August 8: Ina's Birthday

After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we headed up to the tower, which was free, since we were guests of the hostel.


It kind of looks like Canada. I hate to say it, but it does. Not to say that it wasn't nice.


Apparently, we were scared we'd fall off the tower.




There was a group of Russian tourist kids on a class trip or something. It's nice to know that tourism lameness knows no boundaries.


We hung out at the top for a while, snapping lots of pictures.


Ina opened the present from her folks at the top. When I woke up at 7:00 am, I quickly took my present for Ina out of my bag and put it under my pillow, with the intention of giving it to her moments later. Instead, at the end of the day we were sitting and talking on my bed and I did what appeared to be, me pulling a present out of my ass. She enjoyed the presentation. How's that for a pun?


She got a cool ipod case for her nano, which she didn't bring with her, a butterfly pin that was huge and 50 euros. I'm lucky if my folks remember it's my birthday.


I was watching the slalom ski jump for a while and then noticed that it was running and that...


There were people jumping! Holy crap!

After having our fill of the tower, we walked the 2 km to town. It was a nice walk:
















"Hey Ina, turn around!"


wait, one more.

The whole time we were walking down, there was this old guy running up and down the somewhat steep hill. It was really creepy, to be honest. Every time he passed by, he greeted us in another language. We confuse people.


It was really nice though.


Everyone has one of these handy things by their doors.

When we got to town, we decided we'd figure out where the lake cruises leave from and opted to take one at 3:00 pm, which left us with a few hours to kill. I opted to go to the museum of Natural History in Kuopio, Ina reluctantly agreed.


We ended up having a blast. The curator was incredibly excited to have non-Finns there. He was practically shaking when he handed us the translations of the exhibits.


Heheh. I'm six.


The reason I wanted to go so bad, they have one of four recreations of a mammoth in the world.


And a bunch of other creepy stuffed animals.


Hahahahah.


You come down from that tree right now young man!


hahaha. oh yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen, the mammoth



it was pretty cool.


We entered nintendo world.



From there, we headed to lunch, a nice restaurant by the water, thanks Steffi und Bernd for giving Ina money!




We literally ran to catch the boat cruise.



For some reason, I decided this was a good idea.






That's where our hostel was.

From there, we walked through the market and did some shopping.



And saw this. bahahaha.

We headed back to the hostel, oof. It was so far away, mostly because we had some groceries with us. Then back up the tower to try and catch the sunset.







Kuopio, you rule.

We had some drinks in the cafeteria before heading back down to our room to get our real drink on:

Wood grained cans of apple and pear cider.


Graffiti outside by the ski lift stuff. Notice how that's the cleanest graffiti of all time?


hahahhaha. getting a little tipsy?


Good night!

Thursday, August 9: Laters Finland, it was fun
Packed up our things and began the journey back to Sweden.


This was funny at the time?


When I initially saw this, I took it as "caution, you might spontaneously break dance"


The last train station in Finland! It's Kemi. Nice station though.


Hahaha. This is Tornio, Finland, on the border with Sweden.

Next...we head back to Sweden.