I meant to write this blog last night, but my body clock is still 2 hours ahead, so I went to sleep at 8.30pm and I woke up at 5.30am (BST) so I'll write my blog now (at 6am) instead!
Here goes... in case you hadn't worked it out yet, I went to Finland last week. Here's a blog of my journey to Roverway - I was going to try and fit it all in one blog, but apparently I just have too much to say!
Thursday 19th July
Today was flight day. Luckily I had the day off because I still had loads to do: find my spare neckers, buy my euros, buy insect repellent, finish packing... I managed to do everything, and even have time to cook a nice curry for my lunch! I headed to the train station, where I got on a coach to Heathrow. Got to Heathrow in plenty of time, sat around for a bit, then checked my bags in, headed through security and sat and waited. And sat and waited. And sat and waited. My plane wasn't delayed, I was just super organised, so I was there really early!
Eventually boarded the plane, flew to Finland, and met Jess in Helsinki.
Friday 20th July
After meeting Jess in the airport (at about midnight, hence the change of day!), we (along with one of the patrols, the Pennine Rovers) had an adventure. We needed to get to the school we were staying in that night. This involved a bus and a tram. Except that it didn't. On the first bus, we were packed in like sardines. You try fitting 7 girls, plus a 65l rucksack and a day sack each, onto an already full bus. Entertaining is the word! During this bus ride, one of the girls got talking to one of the locals, who informed us that trams actually stop at midnight, so our instructions to get a bus and a tram were going to fail. Luckily, he was quite a nice man, and he told us where to get off, and which bus we needed to get to complete the rest of our journey. As we got off, we discovered that also on the bus were a bunch of foreign Scouts - German I think, but I can't remember - who seemed to have been given different instructions to us, and were aiming to get a bus as well. So the nice local man was right. We found the right bus stop, and got on another, slightly less full bus, along with some drunk locals who provided some entertainment.
Eventually we arrived at the school, settled into our classroom, encountered some Spanish Scouts who wanted to smoke so much they were trying to climb out of our window (this effort failed), and eventually got to sleep.
An early start, and another bus journey - this time a private coach - got us to the Olympic Stadium (from 1952) in Helsinki. Along the way, we met up with another patrol (from Ulster), and the rest of the IST. We piled into the Stadium, and saw the rest of the participants and staff who were at that opening ceremony - there were three opening ceremonies around Finland, because the participants were starting from lots of different locations. There were hundreds of Belgians, some very noisy Spanish, a Portuguese guy who had the best necker in the world, and loads of other nationalities that we hadn't yet seen. By the end of the week, we knew the nationality of a Scout/Guide by their necker (except when they started swapping them!).
Highlights of the opening ceremony included seeing bits of the other opening ceremonies, seeing Santa, and singing the cheesy Roverway song (which includes the line "Follow your B-P spirit" - oh yes it really does!)
After the opening ceremony, the participants were sent off with their various leaders, and the IST were told to wait. So obviously, we all took this as the perfect opportunity to play in an Olympic Stadium. The Belgians played Bulldog, the British Scouts pulled a football out, there was a frisbee flying around from someone... and us? The UK Guides? we took the chance to run 100m on an olympic track, and got a round of applause from our audience... Probably the only time we'll ever be able to do that - I can't see London 2012 letting us do it!
Then we got on yet another coach, and travelled to the campsite...
More coming soon, but I should probably get up and get ready for work at some point!
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