A white Christmas after all - in Finland, of course!

Thursday, February 12. Five teachers from EOI Cornellà – Laura, Karen, Eulàlia, Oriol and Dani – are ready for the cold. It’s early in the morning and two taxis are taking us to the Barcelona airport. Next station: Helsinki!

We land in the Finnish capital in the afternoon, with just enough time to transfer to our second plane to Vaasa. By the time we get there, it’s dark outside, but the cold is bearable as we are all wrapped up in the warmest clothes we’ve ever had – some of them bought for the occasion.

Tiina and Terhy – the headmistress – are there to meet us and drive us to our hotel, some 80 kilometres to the east of Vaasa and not far from Lapua and Seinäjoki.

The one-hour drive to the hotel gives us time to talk with our excellent drivers – we in Barcelona can’t yet understand how both Tiina and Terhy managed to drive with such ease on absolutely frozen roads – and to take in as much as we can of the landscape. Snow everywhere, tall trees, pretty detached houses scattered here and there... So different from Barcelona, so beautiful and – why not mention it? – clean and pure!

We feel at home from the very beginning. Our hosts are unparalleled at organizing the smallest detail to make everyone feel comfortable and... be on time!!! That we were about to find out the following morning, with the start of the activity-filled program prepared for us.

And speaking of feeling at home, the hotel rooms had everything we could ask for plus one thing we don’t recall having ever had anywhere else – a Finnish sauna in each room! All that was left to do on Day 1 was eat a little, meet our Chester colleagues and go to sleep. 17 degrees Celsius below zero outside...

Friday, February 13. Breakfast at the hotel and departure for a bus tour of nearby Seinäjoki, where some of the teachers at Lapuan Kansalaisopisto live. And, yes, the snow we saw the night before was still there. It wasn’t something we just dreamed of! The bus gave us another opportunity to admire the landscape and to get to know each other a bit better.

Seinäjoki is a 60,000+ inhabitant city with beautiful buildings – some of them designed by the internationally renowned architect Alvar Aalto – an important cultural center and an impressive library where everything has been designed to make visitors’ stay a pleasure.

Just a curiosity: in Catalan and Spanish encyclopedias, Alvar Aalto is the first entry you find after ‘a’!! Well, after admiring Aalto’s designs and learning more about the local way of life, we had a little time to do some shopping before having lunch at a nice restaurant. Time to recharge our batteries and get ready for the bus bound for Lapua!

Once in Lapua, where the Finnish partners are based, we visited the Cathedral, where Oriol had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play the impressive 6,600 pipe organ – the biggest in the country!

After that, we arrived at the Adult Education Center, where we had an afternoon snack and then left the Communitek students from Chester and Lapua to work together and discuss their experience participating in the project while the teachers held the scheduled project meeting.

What an eventful day! To top it off, a fellowship dinner was organized with live music performed by Katja and two other singers from the school. But, wait a minute! Something was missing. Finland, winter, snow outside... You’re right! Santa Claus popped in when we least expected it and brought presents for everyone. He knew Christmas was long over, but he couldn’t let us go without paying us a visit in person. After all, we were at his home!

Kiitos for such a niche soirée! Pity there was just one more day left...

Saturday, February 14. After having breakfast at the hotel, we were taken to the Vanha Paukku Cultural Center. Massive, with a long history – it used to be no less than a cartridge factory! – and a museum. We learned some more facts and figures about Finland and then we had a look at what the English and Finnish students had discussed the day before as regards the impact that the Communitek Project is having on them. Definitely an enriching experience!

After lunch, it was time for winter sports at the Simpsiö Outdoor Resort. Downhill sledding is not something we can do every day in Barcelona... How funny! And cooking sausages over a bonfire was just the best way to warm everyone up after rolling on the snow for a few times! A bonfire and... a Finnish sauna!

Just in case any of us hadn’t yet gotten rid of the cold, a sauna and winter swimming at a ski cabin would do the rest... And it worked! Most of us didn’t think we’d be able to go into the freezing water after the sauna but – much to our own amazement – we did it! In fact, even two or three times!

Well, it was clear we all deserved a nice dinner party for being so brave. And we had it. This time, even some of the guests stepped forward and sang or played the guitar. How talented people are! A night to remember, just before going back home.

Sunday, February 15. All good things come to an end. Last breakfast at the hotel and back to where we started from – Tiina and Terhy drove us back to Vaasa airport, from where we flew to Helsinki and then on to Barcelona. But no need to be sad! Next sation: Chester. We are so looking forward to it!