Hi Friends!!!! This is vinita here in finland. i came here thru tcs as an external consultant to Nokia. my work deals with intelligent networks. i reached here on republic day .. 26th jan. it's snow all around and there is so much snow fall!! but life is very good here and helsinki is a very safe place. i had a lot of work to sort things .. both in office and home -- kinda settling down all these days. but am also enjoying myself here. i had a very nice time on saturday and monday. here are my experiences !!! on sat i went to suomolena island. it is near helsinki and we have to go by ferry which we took from helsinki harbour. the sea is frozen so there are no waves!!! the ice is cut by ice cutters and on that path the ferry goes we reached suomolena in about 20 minutes or so we roamed on the island for some time and walked to the rock which is at the top ---the polar winds on baltic sea .. pierced thru ! even now when i think of it i shiver . there was a lil area of ice where we skated on our shoes. after that we came back on monday,14th feb,i had a real good day in fact that will be a day i will always remember! we went to a place called messila(nokia took us there) we reached messila by 9:00 and we had a small meeting and then we were all divided into 3 teams i was in team 2 and first we were taken to a place and there i saw 2 sledges !!! wow! dog sledges i thought they might be for show only but no! i had my first ride in a dog sledge!!!! after some time we got the plastic sledges on which u sit and slide i did that a few times it is so thrilling then i decided to drive the sledge i was half way thru when i slipped and fell. luckily no one gets hurt when one falls becoz the snow is so soft. but then there was a person on the sledge and there was no one to steer it coz i had fallen so i rose up and started running after the sledge .. then realised that there are instructors all over to take charge of the slege coz this cud happen anytime so he took the sledge and i came back people applauded me coz at least i cud drive it halfway .. not many people had the guts to! then we went to 2nd place .... ice fishing!!!! the entire lake was frozen and we had to drill holes and put a bait and sat down fishing i caught one fish! i was photographed with my catch by nokia!!! after thatwe went skiing. i was a double skiing and there my partner was the oldie nokia project manager!we came second. we had to skii in synch in order not to fall and we did not fall even once! after that we walked to another place .. about 1 km uphill my i got so tired . then wow! there was snow mobile! yahooooo! i sat behind a person ... an all rounder of nokia never knew he is a formula 1 rider!!!! and in first round obviously we came first coz he drove but then to finishing line it was my turn oops! the mobike was so heavy that i cud not steer it we crashed thrice after which i gave up we were at the end obviously with the bike in bushes...courtesy me!!! but then i asked him to take over the stearing coz my shoulders hurt it was too hard and the bike is too heavy and then we ended as second -- nose to nose with first!!! so rite now i am on pain killers! he drove very fast and i fell a few more times! though i held the bike , at times the grasp loosened and i fell down ..luckily the snow was soft, i was not at all hurt even though i fell from such fast bike! then we had a prize giving ceremony! the person who got maxm, 2nd maxm fishes got prizes# there were no prizes for mobikes though ...sob but then there were 3 more prizes to a person who got the smallest fish, to a girl who fell from her snow bike maxm no. of times(the guy who drove my bike took surprised that i did not get it!), and i got it for falling from sledge !!!(that took precedence over my falls from bike). great isn't it????? well who gets rewarded for these?? well that's it hmmmmmmmmm....not exactly............. i m going on a ship cruise(20 hour cruise) with 3 other girls on this weekend!!!! :-) so here were my experiences in finland. i will keep in touch with u all thru mails. and i expect to see mails from ur end too!!! till then, take care vinita |
