Another Mökki Weekend

Last Friday I went on a cottage weekend with about 30 exchange students and 10 tutors from Evtek.

Waiting at Evtek for the bus to arrive

We left on Friday evening by coach, the destination being a group of cottages deep in the forest near Porvoo, close to the sea. We arrived in complete darkness after a couple of hours drive, much of it down winding country roads.

The cottage I stayed in. The boats give away that it was by the sea.

After carrying through the forest all our bags packed with food and drink (mostly alcohol) to last the entire weekend, we chose our cottages. There were two close to each other, one big and one small and I ended up in the small one with 8 others. There was another several hundred meters through the forest and another beyond that which also contained the sauna, so the students were pretty spread out. Unlike the last cottage I stayed in, these ones didn't even have running water, so all water had to be fetched from the well!

The sauna cottage

We started drinking almost immediately, with most of us bringing stupidly large supplies of alcohol. I relied on beer while some others brought only vodka, which is a bit crazy but at least it's lighter to carry I guess.

Night time in the big cottage

After getting a bit drunk we headed to the sauna, which was of the proper wood-fired traditional kind. It was a strange experience as this was the first time I had been to a sauna whilst very drunk, but at least that prepared me for the next bit...swimming in the Baltic sea.

There are 5 nationalities in this picture!

It had actually been lightly snowing before we went swimming, so that gives an idea of just how cold it was. The worst part was actually getting to the sea, which required a naked run in total darkness, avoiding the rocks. We could only stand a few seconds in the water at a time, before running back into the sauna which is an incredibly satisfying experience. After sauna we went back to the big cottage for more drinking and went to bed some time in the early morning.

Me on a morning stroll

The next day I woke up in the afternoon and opened the curtains in my cottage to find myself staring at the sea, which was quite a surprise. We had arrived when it was completely black outside and hadn't noticed that our cottage was practically on the shore. I thought it was surrounded by trees!

Artistic shot of a mysterious figure. Only kidding, it's Rob shortly after waking with a hangover

After breakfast I went exploring with Gerard and we climbed a large rocky outcrop that gave a great view out into the sea. It took us a long time to climb it as the edges were very steep and slippery with parts covered in ice. Once on top we discovered the staircase almost next to us!

The view toward the sea from the hill

After getting back to the cottage we all had lunch and set out in a bigger group to climb a very tall hill we had spotted earlier. Finland is a very flat country so we get excited whenever we see anything tall! It was very steep on the sides but we found a way to the top and were rewarded with a great view.

...and the view in the other direction from the hill

It was possible to see for miles around from the top, although most of the distant landscape was just more forest. We climbed back down on the other side from where we came up and continued exploring. On the way we came across a strange sign...

No idea what this means

...but we kept going and wandered down toward the shoreline, following it back to the cottage. The rest of that day was spent the same as Friday - drinking , sauna and more drinking.

Getting the barbecue ready

We awoke sometime in the afternoon and were quite confused when somebody informed us that it was only 12.30 when all of our watches said 1.30. Turns out the clocks went back in the middle of the night and we completely forgot about it and being hungover it just really confused us at that point.

Sunset on the last day

I spent the rest of the day exploring more of the wilderness and climbing a couple more hills, before packing up and heading to the coach in the evening to take us back home.

It was a really good time with great company - there's something really nice about the whole staying-in-a-cottage-in-the-middle-of-nowhere thing. I've done it twice now and look forward to doing again sometime soon. As for now, I'm heading to Stockholm on a 3-day trip so expect some updates toward the end of the week.

As usual there are more pics here on my photo site.