Sunday, January 01, 2012

Headed home..... maybe?

After a wonderful Christmas weekend, Mariko and I were headed back to Germany. We were dropped off in Kittilä, Finland (where we flew into) by the lodge from Sweden. We were staying overnight and flying out the next day, mainly due to price.... flights didn't go out often from Kittilä and were cheaper near the middle of the week.

Sadly there was not much to do in Kittilä, it actually reminded me of those towns out in the Midwest that mainly exist for gas stations and food for people traveling through.... one blink and its gone. We had a leisurely meal in one of the only restaurants we saw. Luckily it was pizza, which is generally easy to understand what is what. Though the Finnish must love pineapple, because out of there 25 flavors of pizza at least 5 of them had pineapple on it.

The entire check-in section of the airport
The following day we checked out of our hotel and made our way to the airport fairly early.... we are both paranoid about time when it comes to flying. And then we found out that we couldn't check-in right away. The problem was that Kittilä Airport was so small that they only had 6 check-in counters for ALL flights... and so you couldn't check-in until the flights prior to you had finished checking-in. one nice thing was that most people flying out were headed to the UK, so when our flight to Helsinki came up there was no one in line in front of us. After check-in we waited in the security line behind 5 other people, in which I was patted down by a security agent (who also happened to be our driver to the airport) and soon we were on our way to Helsinki.

The line shortly after we got there
While we were airborne, Mariko mentioned that we didn't have to head home and thought it might be fun to extend our vacation a bit. I knew that this was a rarity from Mariko- though she is fun, she is rarely spontaneous like that. We however had no hotel plans for the evening or foreseeable future.... which is a problem in the winter.

So we had just about 90 mins while in Helsinki to get food, get to our next gate and make hotel arrangements for the next few days..... yeah that was not going to happen with a laptop with low battery power (why do airports hate putting electrical outlets in convenient places). But while chowing down on a Reindeer burger (sorry Rudolph) we were able to make last minute arrangements in Frankfurt for the night.... .giving us more time to decide once we arrived.

The last leg of the trip went smoothly and we were soon back Deutschland! One marvelous thing about the hostel that we enjoy in Frankfurt is that it is close to the Main Train station, which is close to the airport... ergo it is easy to get to when traveling. After a free dinner (thank you 5 Elements Hostel) Mariko and I decided that our next stop was going to be Baden-Baden.... a spa resort town!

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