Preface
I will still try to write this blog in english, even though I will probably make even more mistakes than writing it in German and it will be less accessible to my family. But dear family we can talk on the phone anytime (and it seams like we do quite often now) and I have to train my english writing skills. So here it goes…
The Journey
What you would normaly do when you come to Oulu would be to book a flight. We decided otherwise and opted for driving to Finland with our car. Now what you would normaly do when you travel to Finland with your car is to book the closest ferry. We decided otherwise and drove as much as we could. We had the great opportuinity to meet some good friends along the way and therefore could rest our right foot in Hamburg, Aalborg and Gothenburg (So the route looked something like this. Which not only made the journey much more beareable, it made it even pleasent and even more interesting. Some things from along the way.
Germany
Never drive on the A7 to Hamburg. There will be a trafficjam. Everytime. That‘s it.
Denmark
Well as boring as Denmark is to drive thorugh the more interesting things we learned and visited during our one night stay there. First of all I learned a new cooking technique which was so interesting I have to share it. It basically goes like this, you take a peace of meat, with salt and spices, and put it in a preaheated oven (250°C) for 10 Minutes. Then you take it out for 10 Minutes. Then you put it back in again. You repeat that 3-4 times and then cover it and let it rest for 30min-45min. Never had so jucy meat.
The other amazing thing we visited was, the (at that time) biggest solar thermal energy storage and central heating power plant in Denmark (because we were dining with the chef engineer). In short, what they do is, to heat up water during the summer. Store it in a really big (62.000 tons of water) and well isolated underground tank and use the heat in the winter. At first you would think that this is a stupid idea because it gets really cold during the winter in Denmark but not that sunny and warm in the summer. The point is though that the technology is cheap, easy to service and while they still need conventional gas heating in the winter, they need 50% (!) less.
Sweden
In Sweden I was not only made aware of the existence of Smörgåstårta which is an amazing salmon and shrimp sandwich-cake. I also developed a theory why Volvo and Saab build so secure cars. They drive a little bit crazy up here.
Also they seem to be very unfriendly on the road but that might have been bad luck on my side. The drive from Gotheburg to Stockholm was our second biggest drive, and while we were warned that the roads in Sweden would be all kinds of things, like boring, dangerous or not real motorways, it was a pleasant drive – apart from some crazy driving Swedes along the way.
Ferry Stockholm to Turku
This gets an extra heading, because it was great. The price was really cheap, we payed less then 70€ for us, a inside cabin and the car. The ferry was well in shape, very clean and with nice bars and restaurants. They had some amazing beers and even live piano music. We got on board at around 19:00 and left at around 8:00 the next morning ready for the last and biggest drive.
The thing you would not belive until you have seen it is the size of the duty free shop they had on that ferry. I swear I have never seen a shop on land with so many good whiskeys and rums. They even sold frozen meat, which explained the coolers everyone was carring.
Finland
After you leave the ferry you usally drive up to some kind of border control where they look at you passport for 5 seconds or just wave you through. Not so in Finland.
We were greeted from a poliisi officer with some finish words and "Drugcontrol, Drogenkontrolle" and a device was brought in front of my face in which I had to blow for 20s. We were than let go with a cold "zero point zero – have a nice day".