Tampere... Finland's 3rd largest town. It has closed down shoe factories. And, uhm, thats it.
Well, not really - but about every other building the guide pointed out was a closed down shoe factory that lived by selling shoes to the Soviet Union... so when the wall fell, and the russians started to want newer models of better quality and lower pries, pretty much every factory went belly up.
Other than that it was a decent enough trip... whole class had dinner on Saturday, and a varying amount of beers after - along with a coupe of other Norwegians I found a place that had Kilkenny on tap, so thats where I stopped. And I have to add - having been around a bit by now - that the Finns in their natural environment can be funny, but also depressing and scary...
On Sunday we stopped by a giant mall to let us do some shopping, before we went to the local water land to prove the theory that the armed forces makes boys out of men... consider it to be a proven fact. Personally I think the "who can get the best speed in the water slide' was the clincher... 17 seconds by the way, with the best speed being 15.
After a buffet dinner - in the best tradition of the ferries to Denmark - it was back to Niinisalo, where the program for the Big Exercise was waiting in our pigeon holes, along with more things to read... I know what I'll do this evening.
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