#42 - Proactive move

Returning back from a long trip is often tiring, which is why I usually took taxi to Tampere airport. Thus it was almost a reflex to walk straight to the taxi queue after arrival. Sometimes there were too few taxis and you needed to wait a long time in the middle of the night to get your taxi. This time I had made an exception and my car was waiting for me at the airport parking.

While flying back from Europe to Helsinki, I remembered my car and decided not to drink any wine with the meal. However, after landing to Helsinki I decided to be clever and avoid long queuing, so I called to Tampere taxi center and ordered taxi to the airport.

The next morning I woke up and felt happy, until my wife asked me about the car. That’s when I remembered that the car is still at the airport. When you are tired, do not try to be cleverer than you are.

Lessons learned:

Do not make decisions when you are exhausted.

Remember proactive thinking.

#41 - The art of persistency

I was flying back to home together with my colleague Mr. V. I think we were the only ones sitting in Finnair business class. We had a hilarious discussion and pretty good meal during the flight. Especially the wine tasted good. The wine was actually so good, that we asked the air hostess, if we can get the wine back to home. Unfortunately the answer was negative; we are not selling the wine, because it is not part of our catalogue. We asked repeatedly if we can get the wine back to home, but the answer was always the same. We even pointed out that we do not necessarily need to buy the wine; we just want to get it because it is so good. Negative result, so we continued enjoying the wine and our hilarious discussion.

It was a nice and relaxing flight. Once we arrived at Helsinki airport, the airhostess gave both of us a package. Inside the package was a bottle of the good wine. We were so surprised and happy.

Lessons learnt:

Do not give up - Persistency is rewarded.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

#40 - No ferry tonight

One decade later I was back in Tromsø Norway again. It was a three generations’ holiday summer 2011; me, my father and my girl. The purpose of the trip was to enjoy the perfect scenery and to participate into the midnight sun orienteering competition in the area that had been rewarded as the most beautiful orienteering area in the world. Such enjoyable three generations’ moments are very rare.

Idyllic competition center in the middle of nature

We had about 90 minutes drive from Tromsø to the competition center in the Kirkevik and the same route back after the competition. The most optimal route included a short ferry ride over the sea. One of the competitions was arranged late evening, a real midnight sun event. Everyone was tired after the race and we tried to get quickly back to the hotel. We drove almost one hour to see that the ferry was no more operation at the night time. We had only two options; sleep on a car until the next ferry in morning or take another route back to the hotel. We chose the latter one and after three hours of driving we were ready to go to bed.

Lessons learnt:

Remember to adjust your plans to the situation.

Route from Kirkevik to almost Tromsø (point 1) +
from almost Tromsø to Tromsø.