Love is in the air…and the air is pretty cold too..=)

Well, nothing new and exciting on my end here in the Frozen tundra of Finland. Its been on average -5* c for the past 5 days, not getting above 0*c, so its been cold cold cold. did I mention cold?

Valentines day is just around the corner and my mom’s birthday is this Friday. DOH! the 13th is and has been a lucky number for us in our family so we are not so superstitious as other might be on that particular day (which btw, falls on a…YEP. You guessed.. FRIDAY!!) Well, happy early birthday MOM! Be sure to be around the house on Friday as you may get a package. ;)

well, if I dont freeze into a popsicle, more to come soon…

Oulu, Jyväskylä, Helsinki = 8 hours later…

Well, Feb 1st will go down in history in Finland as the worst day in 15 years for snow fall in a 24 hours period. Something like 5.75 meters of snow fell in a 21hour period, closing all but one landing lane at Helsinki / Vantaa airport. I had just taken off from Oulu at 15:30 and within 10 minutes of the flight, we were being diverted to Jyväskylä Airport and landed at 16:15 to sit out the delay rather than fly around the Helsinki.

We finally got our clearance at 19:00 to start our engines and begin our flight once again to Helsinki, Landing at 20:05, some 5 hours later (the flight itself should only take around 50 mins from Oulu to Helsinki). After landing and getting off the “god for saken” plane, the real fun began waiting approx. 1.5 hours for my luggage. Mid way through, since all connecting flights were cancelled due to the major snow fall, the luggage belt where my luggage was supposed to be decided to dissapear and become all connecting flight baggage claim and that somewhere in the other 2 luggage claim belts is my bag. I was tired and hungry and bit bitter….

After finding my bag at last, is was 21:45 and stood in line for another 10 min to grab a quick burger, then 2 mins for the bus back to downtown. at 22:35 was finally in downtown central railway station, grabbed the first taxi cab back to home, where I entered the front door at 22:55.

That was by far the longest internal flight day for traveling the least amout of miles…but it was interesting and at least I was able to finish my book I was reading.

JOY….more to come soon…