My first post from Germany is about actually getting here. The weather in Finland on Tuesday the 31st, my departure date, was atrocious. My flight was delayed about 4 hours, and I basically had nothing to do during that time. I stupidly did not bring along enough good literature, so I was quite bored. In desperation I put pen to paper and tried writing something. Here's what came out, word for word:

Here I am at Tampere airport. My much awaited and much anticipated departure from Finland is gonna be delayed awhile. This Halloween in central Finland brings a winter storm...you know, snow blowing sideways. Because of boredom, frustration, aggravation, exhaustion, etc., I'm writing this to keep my mind busy and distracted; perhaps a good strategy to retain my sanity. It has been 2 years since my last big move, which was from Nebraska to Jyväskylä. I've avoided and to some extent forgotten what a pain it is. Though I foggily recall how anxious my arrival in Helsinki was and how stressful the final leg to JKL was. Enough of those ill memories lingered to remind me that today was not gonna be fun. Problems started early. While finishing packing and cleaning, Ines alerted me to my mis-interpretation of Ryanair's baggage allowance. While I thought I was allotted 20 kg/bag, in fact it was 20 kg/traveler. Needless to say, this cost me. The anxiety followed me throughout the day; the next source was a realization, i.e. I realized I forgot something. Specifically, I forgot to get Rico's bike key back to him. Sorry man. The train ride to Tampere went smoothly; train was only a few minutes late. The train stop initiated my mad dash, heavy bags in tow, to the Ryanair bus. I made it with just over a minute to spare, a minute I used to gather myself, catch my breath, and stop shaking. At this point I was feeling pretty good, like the hardest part of moving was behind me. Despite the exhaustion, a culmination of the day's travels and the taxing week leading up to today, I was feeling ok as I boarded the plane. On the plane I was even lucky enough to get an exit row seat, a seat I was glued to for the next hour plus. During that time, the plan didn't budge. According to the pilot, there was a lot of de-icing to do. Meanwhile, the weather went from bad to worse. Eventually, given the extremely low visibility, they moved all passengers back to the terminal. That was about 45 minutes ago. So here I write. There hasn't been much progress since departing the plane, and the weather doesn't seem to be improving. Essentially, no one knows what is gonna happen; whether we'll ever get off the ground to fly towards more balmy latitudes. One bad omen: when we the passengers were escorted back into the terminal, most people immediately began reading over the terms for flight cancellation compensation. I'm still hoping it doesn't come to that. Ok, I feel that I've thoroughly detailed the situation up to the present (I feel like I'm writing a description essay like the kind we had to do in high school English class), so I'll move on to something else.

Ok, that's it, that's all I wrote. If you need some closure on this story, here's how it ended. The flight eventually did take off (people clapped when it got off the ground, which I thought was premature...first time I've experienced that in any case) and make it safely to Frankfurt. The scene at the airport wasn't as romantic as you might expect. Ines wasn't waiting outside the gate; she was getting us a hotel room. That's ok, we were both too exhausted to be romantic.