Tampere

I've arrived in Finland after a good journey, found the bus I needed and my Hotel without any problems, had to use my imagination about the meeting point for tomorrow morning but found it eventually. I've been for a stroll round the city and along the waterfront, it's very industrialised but with lots of green too. I'd had trouble booking a room in the city for my return journey so thought I'd ask at reception if they had any rooms available for Tuesday........they all looked at me as though I was mad........'Tuesday?!' We are full you won't find any rooms anywhere (dramatic pause) AC/DC are in town', they must have some following over here. I told them I'd got a room in Nokia (16km away) and they were amazed I'd got that.
Well I need to repack my bags, and Hadleighs, for the next couple of days as we will be in the forest and then I think it will be an early night.

Meet my travelling companion.

Let me introduce you to Hadleigh Bear. He will be accompanying me on my 5 week adventure which begins tomorrow at 4am!! Yes you did read that right. For those of you who don't recognise Hadleigh, he is the St. Michael's School globetrotting bear, travelling with pupils and staff wherever they may go. His case is packed and I'm sort of packed (decided only to take hand luggage on this short jaunt but forgot how much space a bear with luggage needs). We fly out tomorrow from Stansted to Tampere in Finland. Then very early Monday we journey northwards to Vaskivesi, join with pupils from Vaskivesi Primary School for a wilderness course in the forest, I've opted to stay in a 'heated' tent overnight, hmmm have to see what that's like.