In the fading sunlight, having
put on all of my warm clothes I was still shivering. The snow flakes were
leisurely coming down from the skies as if they were tired from the long and boring
journey from the top. With thin ice getting formed on the foot paths it was
essentially a land mine to walk on them. It was April but the year had been
particularly cold, so all the snow and ice, which should have packed its bags
and should have had left was still lurking around. Temperatures were hovering
in the lower single digits making my task of venturing out in the evenings that
much more difficult. Tampere ,
a laid back industrial town of Finland
was beautiful in its shimmering white cloak of snow. Considered to be one of
the wealthiest and happiest nations in the world and being home of Nokia, It
felt good to be here. Being close to the north of the globe, Finland is
known for its long and cold winters with temperatures hitting -35 degrees. I
have to give it to the resilience of the Finnish people to flourish under such
harsh weather conditions.
Having come to a foreign land and
it being a weekend, sight seeing was the most obvious thing to do and the trip
advisor provided us the details. It was decided to walk to the Pynikki park and
observation centre, situated on the banks of the Pynikki lake which was still
frozen thick. Having a quick breakfast comprising of MTR packets we set out to
the park. Passing by rectangular shaped wooden row houses, which had a dense
crop of snow on their heads, we headed towards a forested area. Comprising of
mainly pine trees, this park looked like the scenic spots usually seen in Bollywood
movies. The lake next to the park was a vast expanse of white. We spotted some
skiers also on the lake surface. Even though the lake looked solid ice, I just
walked a couple of meters on the surface and headed back to safety. After the
lake, the next point of visit was the observation tower which was on a hillock
at the center of the park. The top of
the observation tower provided some excellent views of the lakes surrounding Tampere city, there was
also a café at the bottom of the tower which sold excellent doughnuts. It looked to be a very popular place as many
people had braved the chilly morning to come here to get a coffee and doughnut.
The other outing that we had was
to Finlayson factory and the spy museum which was present inside it. Considered
to be the starting point of the city, the factories outer structure has been
well preserved, whereas from the inside it is a complete mall. Searching for
the spy museum inside the mall was probably the most exciting part of the
excursion as there was nothing particularly interesting inside it.
Food requirements were usually
taken care of by MTR packets, but a couple of times I had gone out for dinner to
the highly recommended Pizzeria Napoli which was very close to the Tampere station and also
to my rented apartment. Nandadevi was another place that I had heard a lot
about, but unfortunately the day I paid a visit, it was their weekly off.
On the last day of my stay in Tampere , pumping my lungs
to get in more oxygen, I trudged on because the task I had in my hand was that
important. Joining a friend who was on a similar mission as that of mine, I
entered a shopping mall called Sokos. With six floors, I think this was the
biggest supermarket I had seen till now. From food, clothing to electronic
goods everything was available. After a couple of hours of scampering around I
finally managed to get my hands on what was supposed to be my visa back home
which was a bright red ladies hand bag.
