Trip to Tampere, Finland December 2014
I just got back from Middle East on Nov. 20 and am heading north to Finland on Dec. 10. This was an unplanned trip – decided to go on Tuesday afternoon, buy tickets and pack on Wednesday and leave early Thursday morning.
Trinidad and I flew from DFW to JFK and then on to Helsinki. Once in Helsinki early on Friday morning we took a train north to Tampere and then rented a car at the train station in Tampere. I have been to Finland six or eight times but I have never been to Tampere before.
We were working at a base in Tampere, Finland. (Pronounced as Tom Perry according to someone who lives here).
Click on any photo to see a larger view
Tampere is about 75 miles to the north of Helsinki, but still in what I consider the south side of Finland. We took a train there as we were tired and to avoid bad weather. A short nap helped as we went right to work when we got to Tampere.
Here are some photos from around our hotel, we stayed at the Sokos Ilves Hotel in the center of town. It snowed a few inches every day we were there, but temperature typically stayed right around 32 degrees.
In the seven nights that we were in Tampere, we ate Finnish food, Thai food, German food, and Nepalese food. I’ve tried very hard to stick with local Finnish beers to help the economy out. One type of food that has a lot of restaurants but I’m scared to go into is the Mexican food restaurants. Check out Nepalese food at dinner. I found out that the Nepalese food menu is just like an Indian food menu. We confused waitress by each ordering a dinner that probably said serves 2-4 in Nepalese or in Finnish. Write menus in English man!
Many signs and menus are in English. The next most popular language in Tampere seems to be Russian. Here is a menu in Russian for an Italian Restaurant, the Russian might be harder to read than the Finnish.
You have to be proud of something. Every day that I was in Tampere I ate black sausage (or black pudding) for breakfast and I noticed later on that the sign proudly advertised that it contains only 14% grease – see photo.
