Brave Samuel

We've arrived in Finland. We are staying at Cumulus Hotel on Koskikatu. Internet connection is not too expensive, 5€ for 24 hours.

I went straight on arrival to the sauna, which is warmed every day and complimentary. The hot "löyly" felt really good. Last time I was in sauna was almost four months ago in December. I've been in this hotel before and the sauna has one construction fault. If you throw a full spoonfull of water (about a coffee cup) on the hot stones, the door of the sauna room will open. It's as if the sauna elves are saying that too much "löyly" has been thrown.

"Löyly" is, by the way, a very old Finnish word meaning the steam of the water thrown on the stones on the sauna stove.

Tuula and Tapani were kind enough to meet us at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport and transport us to our hotel in Tampere. We had also a nice, although one-sided, supper with them here. We ate and they enjoyed the view, I hope. We'll meet again tomorrow and at the end of this trip. We'll go see a musical in Helsinki called "Evita".

Samuel flew with us today. Before this he's only accompanied us to Finland if we did the trip driving. This time he dared to come to the airplane. Of course, he became airsick, on arrival he was completely green and not feeling very well.