Cottage Weekend and Traveling

This past weekend I went with the university club for exchange students (ESN) to a campground ~50km from Turku. It was alright. The rooming arrangements were poorly organized. There were four ten person cottages, one twenty person cottage, and one thirty person cottage. I wanted to go in the twenty person cottage since it had an indoor bathroom. Unfortunately, everyone else wanted to go in the twenty person cottage too, so there wasn't enough room and I had to go to the thirty person cottage- at this point it was raining and the road was pure mud. When I got to the thirty person cottage it was full as well, so there were 5 of us without a place to sleep. Eventually we found a space in one of the ten person cottages, but walking all over a campsite in 34 degree weather in the rain with all of my luggage was not a very pleasant experience. The meals at this weekend were better organized luckily. And then they made us play games which were a little too organized. I would have preferred to have more free time to walk in the woods and by the water. Even in bad weather, nature is better than "get to know you" games.

After dinner things picked up when I went in my first Finnish sauna, which was amazing! It was a lot hotter than any sauna that I have been in before. Maybe because it was wood-fired? The best part was when a bunch of us ran from the sauna to the Baltic Sea. I only went up to my knees in the water, but a couple of the other girls actually jumped in. The sauna was a little far from the water, otherwise I would have jumped in too.

On Sunday morning I had a little free time to wander around, and I got some nice photos, but I'll have to wait until I can use a PC or get my card reader to put them up.

Today was pretty quiet. I thought I had a class this evening but it's canceled, again. In half an hour I'm going to go the Turun Yliopisto (University of Turku) brass band with a couple of other exchange students. Apparently they have instruments to loan out, and I might even be able to play baritone/euphonium/tuba with them. At the moment I'm also planning a trip to Lativa with a couple of friends here. Ryanair is offering flights from Tampere (about 2 hrs north of here) to Riga, Lativa for 1 cent. Of course, you still have to pay taxes so the flight really costs 40 euros. Not bad. I'm still trying to go to Sweden and Estonia too. I'll keep you updated.