Our plans for the winter changed dramatically after we became aware of the word Covid 19 and what that would mean. Once we made our decision to stay here we tried to discover and learn as much as we could about the area. We even started an online course about the Finnish language, quickly realizing that it indeed was a challenging language. We looked into extending our visa, but ran into major roadblocks and decided that we needed to find another airlines to get back to the USA. Norwegian Air had canceled all flights till after June 15th. We were able to book a flight on KLM which cost twice as much as our original flight, but that seemed to be our only option. Our new flight departed Helsinki May 26th. With that new date we had one more month in Kemi. With our skis put away, first walking and then biking became our main ways of exploring. After we had mentioned of our interest in finding bicycles to our landlord, he showed up several days later with a couple of bikes.
Mine is the white one, which is a typical commuter bike complete with basket. Don had a more traditional mountain bike. We were able to put them to good use exploring many of the numerous bike trails.
So many biking paths. We were able to go in all directions and the majority. of the time we were on bike paths.
We alternated between hiking days and biking days. One of our hiking days look us back to the ski trails which were melting out quite rapidly.
Finding a scenic spot for lunch was always a priority.
Love the dark breads and of course the chocolate.
We found the main grocery store to have a good variety of products. There was always a good supply of fresh produce and there never seemed to be any food shortages like we were hearing about in the USA.
Towards the end of April we were still able to take long walks on the ice. There was enough melt/freeze going on that we were able to have good traction.
Before heading back to our apartment we stopped to check out a bird feeder and were approached by a man. His name was Alpo and he was from Kemi, but had spent some time in Miami and spoke decent English.
He explained to us that the Finnish people may seem unfriendly, but they have big hearts. He was not surprised that we had not talked to many people.
One of our favorite bike trips was heading south of town where we could look our over the ice to see if there were any seals coming in to have their babies.
Unfortunately we never saw any seals, but enjoyed having lunch at this spot.
Here is a photo of the apartment building that we stayed in.
At the Apartment, one could pay for a parking spot. There were about 12 spots of vehicles. The majority of renters used bicycles .
Every day there would be train cars full of logs that would pass thru our town.
Scattered through out the town were lots of sculptures. In fact there was even a map directing you to all of them. One that we found intriguing was one by the water that had been donated by a mining company.
One of our favorite activities during this month was discovering new birds. It almost seemed unusual not to daily identify a new bird. I decided to put all the birds together at the end of this blog, except for the Whooper Swan which we always enjoyed watching and found out that it was the National Bird of Finland.
By the middle of May there was a flurry of activity at the marina.
Boats were being lowered into the water.
Anxious boaters were waiting for the small ice floes to disappear. The season is short and the boaters were going to be ready to set sail.
We took a final bike ride out to the fishing port.
In just a couple of weeks tha ice was gone.
It was time for us to pack our bags and give our little appafrtment a final clean.
We felt quite fortunate to spend over 2 months here!
Finally the day came for us to depart. We needed to take the train to Helsinki, spend the night and then fly to Amsterdam the following day where we would catch our flight to San Diego. We had done a trial run of walking to the train station to make sure that we would have adequate time to get there before departure. From a previous observation we understood why trains pride themselves on being punctual. You need to be lined up and ready to board, there is no announcement. The train pulls in, the doors open. passengers load and the train departs.
Waiting for the train.
We thought that we were going to have to get a connecting train from Helsinki to the airport, but relooking at the schedule on the train we were thankful that we would be dropped off at the airport. It was a short walking distance to our hotel. All the restaurants were closed so we were glad to have crackers and cheese.The next morning we headed over to the airport to get our boarding pass. There were very few people at the counter.
Back to wearing masks and social distancing..I
It was quite easy to social distance as the hallways were empty.
As we waited in the mostly empty departure gate, an announcement was made telling us due to a technical problem our flight would be delayed. There goes our chance of making a connection. Guess we won’t be going to San Diego today. Finally we boarded our plane and headed to Amsterdam. On the plane we were told to go to a transfer station and there would be an employee helping with our accommodation and rebooking our flight.
At least the sign was in English. The first transfer station had a cutout of an airline personal. that didn’t seem to be of much use. We knew that we could not get our luggage as we were not allowed to leave the airport. We needed to find a custom person to give us clarification of what we needed to do.
At least the wait to find the custom officer was nil! They sorted our our dilemma and pointed us to where we could actually find a person to give us directions. We were given vouchers for a room and meals and also given new tickets, our new route would be to Atlanta and then to San Diego.
We should be well rested for the next leg of our trip. Needless to say we were thankful when the remaining journey to San Diego was uneventful. The plane was about half filled and the silence was noticeable. No one coughed or made a noise for most of the trip. We arrived to San Diego, quickly passed thru customs and were greeted by Ryan and Beth. We appreciated that they drove to the LA airport to pick us up.
It was back to their house that we had left just under 3 months ago. It was time to quarantine and reflect on what we had just done. We are looking forward to when we can return and continue exploring the Scandanavian countries!