Canoe trip, day 4, and return to Tampere

Our last day of canoeing started off with a bit of a twist. The guy hired to transport us was at the agreed place about 20 minutes early (we were 30 minutes early), but his English was extremely limited. And we had a slight problem. Since we had not camped at Rasua, and were't meeting him there, but at the foot of the lake, we had left a bag at Rasua (containing things we didn't want to put in the canoe). He was supposed to have this bag, and didn't. So Eric whipped out the oh-so-handy Finnish-German dictionary, discovered the word for 'suitcase' (Koffer in German, and matkalaukku in Finnish), and convinced him to drive the 4km back to Rasua so we could pick the bag up (which was to be left in his van until he picked us up, and dropped us at the Jämsä train station).

Once this was out of the way, we got off to a reasonably good start, making it to Jämsä in time for a leisurely second breakfast. However, once we passed Jämsä, the winds picked up, and we realized we'd have to work to make it to the pickup point on time. But we did. No interesting pictures along this stretch -- it was all river, and generally either residential properties or farmland on the banks.

We had an uneventful train ride back to Tampere, punctuated only by surrendering in frustration to the automatic ticket seller that only offered Finnish and Swedish menus, and going to the counter where the nice lady spoke English.

Upon arrival in Tampere, we went immediately to the Hotelli Victoria where I had stayed the previous Friday, hoping to get a room there. They said "sorry all full, the festival is in town". Festival? Yikes. FESTIVAL. This is one of those travel-incognito nightmares. You arrive in town without accomodations, and are probably SOL without going for miles.

We rightly decide to hunker one of us down at the train station with the bags while the other goes to the tourist office in the probably vain hope of finding a room.

We get lucky. 75 euro for a room at the Ramada Hotel, of all places. They have meeting rooms that can be converted to sleeping chambers during heavy demand. Not luxury, but we weren't being picky. And they had a usable internet connection in an out-of-the-way place where I could post stuff.

Last post for a few days, I think. I may not get to post until either Paris or Barcelona (somewhere around the 23d).