The Amazing Day!

....and the day Jeff and Andreas Ate Tar

Sunday was one of those days we wish we could bottle.  The weather was perfect: -- sunny and warm but not hot.  The company was excellent -- during the day and at dinner.  The scenery was gorgeous -- lots of lakes and rivers, tall trees, ferns, moss and enough topography to be interesting though not very photogenic.  Several of the caches we found were particularly impressive.  And the day held some wonderful surprises!

The plan was to go caching with Andreas during the day, then join some locals for dinner.  We first met Andreas in Germany in 2007.  He's from Bremen, and we cached together outside of Frankfurt. We saw him near Seattle (at Geowoodstock) and again in Oxford, England, in 2010.  We were pleased and touched that he made a point of coming to Finland once he knew we were going to be here.  So this was the 4th country we've cached in together.

We spent the day finding some incredible caches together in the Finnish countryside.  One cache with a size of "other" turned out to be a small room, complete with lighting, music, and a chair to sit in while signing the logbook....not surprisingly, it's the most "favorited" cache in Finland.  Another was in the woods but played Für Elise and lit up a few nearby lights when the cache was opened.  A third said something in a rather authoritative Finnish voice that we later learned was something to the effect of "what are you doing here."  One was a short climb up a little hill with a great view of the nearby lake.  Other sound-effect caches had moose calls, and Christmas carols.  Many of the others we found would have been great finds on any other day but were less impressive by comparison.

The most fun cache to find started with a short drive on unpaved roads.We parked about 300 meters from the cache and walked through some very dense woods that had lots of ferns and some deep and vibrantly green moss.  There was also a stream to cross, which we did using 2 small logs it was a bit too wide to jump, and a bit too deep and probably too cold to want to wade across.  Sometime after we left the car we noticed that it was a 2/5 cache, but figured it would involve climbing a tree.  That was a great assumption, until we got to the large rock and all 3 GPS units said the cache was within 10 meters.  Uh oh.  Andreas was the bravest and most agile so offered to climb.  He and Jeff walked around the rock a couple of times looking for the best approach.  We agreed on the right spot which was perfect, if only one could levitate up about 4 feet to start the easy part.  Being a resourceful group, we tried creating a foothold with hands and with a shoulder but without success.  So we fanned out and collected a few logs which we tested and agreed would be sufficiently strong.  They were.  Andreas found the cache much lower than we expected and tossed it down for us to sign.  He predicted it would take 3 tries to toss it back up to him successfully and he was right; after replacing the cache he safely descended. We retraced our steps to the car applauding ourselves and thanking each other for the teamwork (though we still think we got the good end of the deal and Andreas was too modest to agree).

We agreed it was time for lunch.  There weren't many nearby options, but we stumbled on a gem.  It was an owner-run cafe with an emphasis on local ingredients and virtually everything made from scratch.  The owner was impressed that 2 Americans and 1 German found his place in a fairly remote area.  As we were finishing our meal, he presented us with the gift of a dark rye bread -- think a circle in the size and height of a small pizza, though in the shape of a bagel with a hole int the middle.  We thanked him in English, then checked our traveler's dictionary and learned that the Finnish word for thank you is "kiitos" (pronounced KEE-toss), and thanked him again in Finnish. 

After caching much of the afternoon, we returned to our hotels to get cleaned up for dinner.

Dinner held its own set of surprises.  We ate at one of Tampere's nicer restaurants, Plevna. There were 7 of us -- 2 Finnish couples (Harri & Kristi, and the others whose names we alas don't remember), Andreas, and us.  Everyone had beer or cider, mostly made on-site by the restaurant.  The main dishes were generous and tasty, and mostly made with local ingredients. It was fun to talk about caching and other things with people from different places; of the Europeans only Andreas had visited North America so that made our experience unique at the table. Once again, everyone else accommodated us by speaking English, though it's likely that the only language Andreas and the Finns shared would also have been English.

When it came time for dessert the Finns mentioned an ice cream dish with tar on it, and said people either loved it or hated it.  You're probably thinking the same thing we thought -- tar is a substance used in street paving, not in fine dining. Despite speaking excellent English, neither the server nor any of our dinner companions could translate since to them the English word was "tar" though we did get the impression that it was some sort of tree syrup. Jeff and Andreas decided to try it (so did 3 of the Finns). Neither was impressed, though both finished their servings. It's hard to describe the taste (I did have a sample of Jeff's tar) but suffice it to say I would not be in the "loved it" group, and was most happy with my chocolate cake. Later Jeff was pleased to have a piece of hard candy to get the taste of tar out of his mouth.

When it was time for the check, Harri and Kristi explained to the server how to divide the bill.  Of course, this all happened in Finnish so the only thing we understood was the end of the conversation: kiitos.  Based on the hand gestures it looked like they were showing which people should be on each check, so we didn't question anything. When the check arrived we had a credit card ready, as did Andreas.  Harri and Kristi politely and firmly told all of us to put them away.  All we could do was say "kiitos"....and hope that they come to visit Hotel Kiwi one day so we can reciprocate.