Heinäsaaren kisaturistit Keski-Euroopassa

Lahesta se lähti tämäkin, niin kuin monet muutkin hyvät ideat: Lähtee kattoo hiihdon MM-kisoja Itävallan Seefeldiin, ja olihan se huikeeta. Jännittää suomalaismenestystä ja laskee vuorilla.

Lermoos

Mutta kuinka sumuista taas oli! Miten Alpit osaakin piilottaa auringon pilvien taa, kun oon tulossa hoodeille. Vähän vesisadetta ja plusasteita siinä parin tonnin korkeudessa. Hapotti, eikä aina nähnyt minnepäin se rinne kaarsi. Ehkä sitä ei ollut päästäkään kovin hyvässä hapessa, kun syöksyttiin univajeeseen heti reissun alkuun (”nuku” yö lentokentällä). Tai siis rupes olee jo vaikee tunnistaa meitä kuljettaneesta kulkuneuvosta Saksan ja Itävallan rajalla, että ollaanko junassa vai dösässä ja liikkuuko asuntoauto pyörillä vai raiteilla.

Garmisch Classich

Tosiaan hengailtiin kahden valtakunnan rajalla. Majapaikka löytyi Lahden ystävyyskaupungista Garmisch-Partenkirchenistä, jossa hypätään mäkiviikon yksi osakilpailu. Muuta ei kaupungista juurikaan nähty kuin meidän huone, kun päivät kuluivat rinteissä lähialueilla ja kisahuumassa Seefeldissä.

Seefeldin aprés ski

Ja kyllä se aurinkokin tuli esiin, ihan Suomen kesän veroisestikin. Laskiessa oli niin hiki, että pari päivää kotimaahan paluunkin jälkeen janotti. Mutta upeeta oli! Mitä ylemmäs pääsi, sitä komeemmat maisemat. Ja aprés ski oli niin kivaa kuin muistinkin. Bileet alkoi jo terdeltä, sisällä soi saksalaisia juomalauluja ja kaikilla näytti olevan kivaa. Toinen aprés ski, jossa oltiin, oli suuri ulkoilma aprés ski Seefeldissä. Palkintojenjakoja odotellessa joku +50v tiskijukka, joka oli alkuun vähän kömpelön oloinen, viihdytti meitä ja oli siinäkin hauska pyörähdellä ja edustaa Suomea. ”Is there anyone from Finland?” He asked. ”We! We!”

Zugspitze

Vaikka kisatunnelma paikan päällä oli hieno ja ääntä huudettiin pois, ei se valitettavasti siivittänyt suomalaisia kuin yhteen mitaliin. Hö. Siksi tässä onkin puhuttu kisamatkan oheisohjelmasta. Ei juuri nähty urheilijoita kuin numerolappu rinnassa, mutta hauska kohtaaminen kävi Zugspitzen (Saksan korkein huippu, 2966m) junassa: ketäpä ei Nikanderia tuntisi. Team Ristomatti Hakolan porukkaa siinä. Rise voitti veljeni kanssa SM-viestissä kultaa. Ilman silmälasejani olemme kuulemma Akun kanssa samannäköisiä……….. Nii siis kysyit, mitä syötiin. No, löydettiin tosi hyvä thaikkula ja muita erikoisia ravintolakokemuksia.

Team Ristomatti Hakola

Hei Ha/oitsu, Heinäsaari 2010. Jos nää hauskat seikkailut ei vieläkään lopu, niin ne saa jatkua! 

Super-Heinix ja Ha/oitsu  (kuva: Ha/oitsu)

Pilatus

In the Gospel of John (18:38) Pontius Pilatus asked Jesus what is the truth. The Gospel don't tell the answer to Pilatus or us (or at least not in the way we would expect), but one truth is, I achieved one of my goals: to be at top of Pilatus! Wow, wait. Not that Pontius Pilatus man, but a mountain in Switzerland.

Yes, finally one of my dreams came true. Actually many dreams did.

A good friend of my exchange year came with me this time. Rob Island. He was easy travel company also in a sense he knows what life was five years go. I didn't have to explain anything and he got excited about the same things I did. Or maybe even more than I did, 'cause I've been visiting Switzerland way more often than he has.

I wanted to stay those awesome 5 days, we had, somewhere else than in a hotel/hostel. I had so much luck in this, 'cause I found a very nice flat in the best place of Bern, Länggasse. Near everything (Uni., Gelaterie di Berna, railway station, the city centre and Neufeld forest) and the flat was cosy and swiss. I could move in right now. Thank you, renters!

Sleeping and living things were in good order, but again, the people, friends, made the visit. Every night there was more than one friend to meet and to hang out. Laugh, drink a beer, have a dinner or a picnic. It made me smile to hear what kind of plans my friends have and they are OK. From Fellergut times we have grown up, at least that bit, that on work days we have to go to sleep earlier.

What I always want to do when I'm in Switzerland, is to hike. To go somewhere up and to see the views. Pilatus has been one of my dreams years already, but usually when I come to Switzerland, it rains or the weather is cloudy. Well, this time wasn't exception. The weather was very cloudy on the top and we didn't see much. Or mostly just white/grey. But when hiking up, glimpse of the Sun lighted what breathtaking views there are. Good reason to go back to really see everything.

Hmm, the weather was actually better than forecasted. It rained mostly in the nights. But the forecast didn't tell how many old faces I was going to see. The last morning I was delighted to meet quickly Alte Testament. He is not really old. The Old Testament is. And his road is heading to Helsinki in a month, like Yugos. They are coming to Finland!
By the way, you can find Pontius Pilatus in The New Testament. Thank you God for your word in the Bible, thank you for blessing my friends and Switzerland. Keep doing that, then you are blessing me too.

Hei, I did had so much fun! Let's do it again! Let's meet again! Let's find me a job and a flat so I could stay longer in the heart of Europe!

Bern from Rosengarten

Views from almost the top of Pilatus Kulm

Kitchen in our rental flat

Jehei, home town looks quite same, cosy

Rösti

Swimming in Aare :)

Here I present all the great views! At Pilatus.

Main building - University of Bern

Ferrari-fast trip to Ferrara

Ferrari-fast: less than 48h in destination, but good hours! How many hours do you need for an adventure?

Ferrara is a big city (in Finnish perspective) 50km from Bologna and there lives about 130 000 citizens. And for a change or for the first time it was nice to to see ”normal” Italy, not only those very famous parts and spots full of tourists. Ferrara seemed cosy to me, coloured mostly in warm brown. Lots of narrow streets, old buildings, a castle(!!), and a huge wall surrouded the city (the place to run in Ferrara). People were also very nice, always saying hello. I’d say the atmospheare in the city was warm and welcoming.

 

View to backyard at the Great Nika's house

Oh, and the people were the main purpose to visit Ferrara. My friend from my Swiss time lives in the city. The Great Nika. And he still got his funny laugh (which I haven’t ever told him before, maybe?). Jeje, so good to see him after couple of years. The Great Nika has a very nice home (they dry dishes like in Finland, they have a drying cupboard), and he married this beautiful woman, and now they have (almost) always smiling one-year-old son. I played with this little Nika and the language wasn’t problem at all, we understood each other very well. He knows many languages.

It wasn’t just the Great Nika family. Also the grandmother was visiting at the same time. With her it was a bit more difficult to communicate ’cause my Albanian is so bad. But we all know that expressions and gestures are telling way more than just words. Also when running to catch the bus on Wednesday morning at 4 am and being a bit lost, just say the word you know in Italian (my case: il treno -> the bus left from the train station) and you will get instructions in Italian with hand gestures. When I reached the bus one minute before departure, the driver told I should have bought the ticket in advance... Luckily he still let me ride. Grazie MILLE!!

And one more human being: my Husband. The Great Nika has a nice friend too, and quite soon I became his wife. He is a musician. Between our household chore quallers he taught me new way to think about music and kept me company while the Great Nika was working. So cool to jump into new situations and get to know new (handsome) faces. Yes, my Husband is very handsome.

Ah yes, the connection between Ferrara and Ferrari. The car Ferrari and the city Ferrara are not connected. I’m just fast. Ferrari-fast.


Visit Ferrara.

Holiday mood, feeling sehr good

Action! Relax! Be where you are supposed to be! And surely I was. Have to say that holiday makes really good to body and soul.  

The king in the North

The King

All though Game of Thrones speaks about The king in the North, the real king in the real North is reindeer. Before this Summers holiday week up North I thought this species of animals are just stupid when hunging out on the roads. But oh no, they own the roads. They know their worth and position: they are too valuable and expensive to drive over. 

Pikku-Syöte point of view

These kings were also everywhere where i was training. So actually my Lapland holiday week was a training week. I was so happy after an injury (I sprained my leg pretty badly twice in 9 days) to run, to rollerski, to drive my bike and to practise orienteering. Despite the hard training sessions, reindeers were always on the top of the hills before me. They’re fit!

 

On the way to Muonio around 10:30pm

Red sand beach, Pallas, Muonio

And some royal time to my soul too. Having my own car (and these days it is dark blue Nissan) makes it possible to see many beautiful spots and find the way to the people who makes me happy. My neigbours at Syöte and the extreme ones at Muonio and Sodankylä. And nice timing for track and field World Championships in London! Great: days outside and evenings inside watching how Norwegians do manage. 

Mysterious Montenegro

Herceg Novi

Or it is not. Or hard to describe. My friend Yugo had invited the coolest theologians from my exchange year in the University of Bern. I didn’t know all of them well but for me it is ok to jump into these kind of adventures. Or take a taxi from Dubrovnik airport to Herceg Novi. Or not knowing what we are going to do and see. But I didn’t see that much. And at first only few activities made me a bit frustrated. But doing nothing was just what I needed. My injury wasn’t properly healed after all and I’m telling you, the heat was something huge: playing just one round darts made me sweat so much. 

  

Kotor

Some activities we had. We spent time at Yugos sisters Summer house in Herceg Novi and a tour in the old town of Kotor. On the other day a boat trip on the lake Skadar. And morning runs. Usually I run alone but this time I had company (annoying that guys who don’t train as much as me are in better shape anyway…) and glad I had. Human eater dog was pretty scary but the scariest was flying 2 meter long green snake. And I got the point why we didn’t do any hike: One and half hour later after this run we noticed that the hill where we ran was on fire. There were massive forest fires everywhere in Montenegro.

 

Forest fires

The most I enjoyed when we were eating together and playing games with dice in our Villa. The villa was really nice right next to the Mediterranean Sea. Usually I don’t like seas ’cause it is always windy and cold, but here I liked it. And the shore was amazing!  But still the people were the best. We spoke mostly in German and I was secretly smiling everytime when I understood a joke. In German! These theologians are maybe the coolest ones I know. I’m sure that as priests they will make parishes bloom. And thanks to them, I got back my interest in Theology.

Mysterious Montenegro. Thank you sweet Jesus for everything!

Our shore

Dinner time

Oh why, Switzerland?

Aarburg

I mean it was like 3 weeks +30 and when I arrived, it rained and it was half of the warmth. I had plans what I wanted to do, none of then I were happening. Mount Pilatus stays still unconquered and orienteering compatitions I missed. I’m so rarely late but everyday I was at least 1,5 hours late. Because of… I was lost. Would have been very nice time to practise orienteering, hehee. Anyhow, even many things were not what I wanted them to be, they were just what I needed to see or hear. I was there where I was supposed to be.

Swiss OlypicMedical Center

Instead of Pilatus I went to see Aarburg. It’s a castle between Bern and Zürich which I have seen so many times through train windows. And I like castles and outside it’s quite nice. But it was closed. Well, of course! Ok, then for a small hike in Biel. I wanted to reach Lés Pres d’Orvin just see how it looks like in the summertime. I couldn’t find it and I started to be really annoyed. Then, suddenly I found myself at Swiss Olympic Medical Center where they are testing athletes, meaning what is their current condition, how good they have trained. Very nice sport area, may I be tested there as well?

Luzern bridges

Oh beautiful Saturday morning, untill I was going for a run -> thunder and hard rain. Whatever. It was much easier to breathe in Switzerland than in Montenegro though and after 4 years nice to be at Gurten (the Mount of Bern). In the afternoon I went to Luzern for chocolate factory. But the factory is in Zürich, actually. Well I had more time to see the city, which I like and invented some dreams to happen in Luzern, besides Pilatus. But what really shaked me there was evening mass at Chatolic church. I was craving to attend to a some church thing and there it was just when found this church. The priest was so good, he got the right words for me, which I will use in my next speach too.

 

Luzern

Some things in Bern were different than before. Fellergut time is now officially over. There are many great memories but new ones are coming. My friends have very nice places where they live. Thank you God for bringing to my life such wonderful persons. And thanks for blessing them ’cause their blessing is my blessing too. Vau, I miss living in Bern. Oh why are you so far way from Finland, dear Switzerland?

Holiday weeks: SUCCESS.