I'm sitting in an Irish pub in Tampere, Finland right now using their internet connection to check email and catch up on what is going on in this world. As always when traveling, world events, news, communication and everyday sort of things are pushed off to the side and over-looked for more exciting adventures.
We arrived on the boat from Sweden on Friday morning, sleep deprived and disheveled. We slept on the bus ride to Tampere and woke up to find Aura waiting for us at the end of the line. Every two minutes her cell phone would ring and she listened to our travel stories with a distracted air. Once at home, we helped to cut out name tags for the wedding guests and then had to pick the flowers for the reception hall. When she said we were going to get the flowers, I thought that meant we were going to pick them up from the florist. I guess in Finland it means going to a meadow and picking arm fulls of wild flowers to arrange in jam jars for the centerpieces. Rompingh throught the forest and fields, I couldn't have thought of a more picturesque way to spend our first day in Finland.
As we went to the reception hall, I realized that we would be the ones setting everything up for the wedding. Arranging flowers, setting tables, stocking toilet paper, setting up the bar and stocking the coolers- there was no wedding planner or person in charge, other than Aura. I realized that for my wedding, whenever that may be, I don't want to have to be bothered by last minute details like that.
After a suana in Aura's house, we crawled into bed and slept like rocks until 11:30 am on Saturday. The problem- we were supposed to be ready to go to the church by 12:30. Panic!
However, not as much panic as when Aura got the call saying that the bus driver had lost her wedding guests. I'm not sure how, but eventually everyone made it to the little chapel over looking the crystal clear lake and the service was over almost before we had time to realized they were married.
We were bused off to the reception hall, where the buffet awaited. The bar opened shortly afterwards and between the Irish and Finnish guests, I think we did justice to the open bar and kept the bartender quite busy.
We arrived back to the house around 4am, starting drinking this afternoon with Aura's dad and now here we are at the Irish pub again.
Tomorrow we take the boat to Estonia. :)
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