My First Post from Finland

So, I'd better start this thing. and i gotta play catch up for 3 weeks of ignoring this blog. this could be a long one. for purposes of playing catch up i'm gonna try and make quick points.

so, we survived the trip, though it wasn't ideal. i'm still glad i did it though.


that map is slightly incorrect but is right from Denmark on.

Eoin, Barry and I left Ireland Tuesday the 4th of January at 9 PM from Rosslare after what can only be described as an epic dinner from Eoin's Family in Waterford. Irish roast Dinner for the win. but the situation wasn't ideal. the car was immensely over loaded though. with the parcel shelf still in-situ in Waterford. the boot was filled up to the rear window and the seat behind me was jammed too. this had two effects on the drive.

1. i couldn't see out the Back window,
and 2. the suspension was massively over loaded at the back. with the exhaust nearly biting the bullet on more than a few occasions. See photo from the Harwich-Esbjerg ferry.


a bit low at the back :D


Fun on the deck of Ferry

so, we got into Fishguard at 0.30 am and after a few polite questions from the local constabulary we made for the motorway. the first stop came near Swansea for some air, the next on the Cardiff ring road when i just had to get an hours sleep. so then it was back on the road driving over the bridge from Wales into England. Which delightfully is only tolled going into Wales. As morning broke we trekked across England arriving in Essex around 8am. and in Harwich port at 9am. then we just waited it out til the 4pm boarding of the DFDS ferry to Denmark (Esbjerg). during this time it we created a list of reasons why we hated Harwich, a town which is notable for its complete lack of anything more than totally necessary. after losing our minds more than once we boarded the ferry for 18 hours of car free transport. the toughest part of the journey was as it turned out over.


Harwich to Esbjerg Ferry

so then we arrived in Denmark. a country i definitely want to visit again. from what we saw, the town of Esbjerg and the motorway stops, the image is very clean minimal and generally enjoyable. we headed trans-country for Copenhagen (København) skirting the city at sundown. then it was time for the Oresund bridge, except there were 2, which we didn't know...


Esbjerg Approach


Danish Motorway

Still though, impressive. we video'd the bridge from the dash but it is pretty boring to watch. its my one regret that we didn't cross the bridge in daylight. going again i would definitely have spaced the trip to allow for that. but hopefully i'll see it on the way home. so 10 hours and 700 miles after leaving Esbjerg we arrived in Stolkholm at 1am.

Sweden is a strange country. from the moment we came out of the toll plaza in Malmo (€40!!!!) i couldn't warm to it. i don't know if it was the poor roads with the fastlane heralding a fast and snowy death or the fact that i couldn't really see cos my headlights were masked to not blind people as i drove on the wrong side. but it never appealled to me. maybe it was that we didn't see it in the daylight at all. as our final ferry left Stolkholm at 7am. either way, i for one was glad to see the back of Sweden. hopefully i'll get to go back to Stolkholm and see it in a more casual way.

so after 13 hours abord a Tallink Silja Hyper Ship we arrived in Turku Finland at 6 pm Finnish time (two hours ahead). and it was dark. this was one of the scariest experiences of my life and equal in my mind with sitting my driving test at home. by this time i was the only right hand drive car i had seen since Denmark. i also had winter tyres on but everyone else had snow tyres, i still had very poor light and the car was still incredibly heavy. then, they opened the doors...and directed me off. now maybe it was a sick joke but sending the irish car with a plainly nervous driver off first into an empty port where the entire complex was under a foot and a half of snow and not ploughed with no english roadsigns seems a bit extreme to me. either way i span the car twice and somehow managed to end up in Russian customs before driving the wrong way down a one way street onto the main road. WELCOME TO FINLAND!!!

the drive up was interesting too. no moon, a blizzard in progress and icey roads. more than once i panicked as my brakes seemed to have frozen due to lack of use. stamp on the brake pedal and it'll be 10 seconds before anything resembling braking happens. 6 hours later and we arrived in Mikkeli. in -13 celcius and snow. Dave was already in residence. having arrived in Helsinki as we left Stolkholm. i have no photos from the drive cos it was night but this is what the car looked like the next morning.



and the roads when it wasn't a blizzard. and only -5 celcius



the janitor was called to let us in and already this place feels like home. it was a quiet weekend but once we went to orientation and got to know a few faces its been easy. this is long now so i'll continue this in another post :D

Jonnie Out

Preparations 1 - 04/12/10

So the big off is getting closer.

a bit of background on this to begin the blog with.

I'm Jonathan Weir, 20 Years old, and a third year product design and technology student in the University of Limerick.
For third year every year the students go on co-op work placement, but this year due to the circumstances...i.e. the screwed economy, there aren't enough jobs so we're off on Erasmus. myself and 3 others, Barry, Eoin and David are all going to Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences in Finland.

This blog is part of our Erasmus, and will serve as a link back to UL and a guide for others going to Mikkeli in the future. I have another personal blog, which varies in quality and quantity which can be found through my account.

any who,

preparations are getting underway for the trip which i'll be driving.
Am i insane everyone is asking. possibly.
Newmarket-on-Fergus(near Shannon)
Nenagh(collect Barry)
Waterford (collect Eoin)
Rosslare-Fishguard(Ferry)
drive across UK to Harwich
Harwich to Espjerg(Denmark)(Overnight Ferry)
Esbjerg-Stolkholm (drive)
Stolkholm-Turku(Finland)(Ferry)
Turku-Mikkeli(8 Hour Drive)

all to be done leaving 4th of January arriving the 7th/8th

so, on my to do list is renew my insurance,get some cold weather gear etc. we're facing -30 Celsius and we'll need heated car parking spaces.

the process so far has been simple enough. though whether or net we'll get the modules we want when we get there is questionable. The UL Erasmus office has been excellent as has the Mikkeli International Co-Ordinator Ulla Vuorinen. any email to her has been replied to within a day.

MOAS has been the biggest hurdle. they're the main company organizing accommodation in Mikkeli. seemingly it is very rare to get Furnished apartments in Finland. MOAS only have two furnished buildings out of 40. having applied 2 months ago we only got our accommodation during the week. then you have to bank transfer a deposit to them. they're very inefficient and their application makes no sense but we just ignored some of the gaps. why the have to know our weekly income and the size of our current abode baffled all of us. any queries are easier to put through Ulla.

Anyway. i got a new NEX-5 DSLR camera yesterday so i should have photos of the trip and a breakdown of each day once we get going. i'll also be using this as a notepad for FYP ideas as well as a Finland journal.