Kuopio, Finnland

Jens, Hendrik, and I arrived in Kuopio, Finnland around 2 pm Saturday (22 July) afternoon. We decided to split up for the afternoon and meet back at the train station at 6 pm to find a place to sleep for the night. I had emailed the hostel in Kuopio a few days before and they were full, so I probably wouldn't have stayed the night there if I had been alone (I'd have enough of the 'camping alone in the city' thing and was tired of it. And the city camping ground was too far from town to be worth the hassle). So I explored the great little town of Kuopio -- which is surrounded by lots of lakes and forests -- that afternoon. I also kept an eye out for a 'low-profile' place that we could camp for the night. And I found a good one! Kuopio was really an enjoyable town and had I been statying in a hostel I probably would have stayed for a couple of nights.

I went back to the train station at 6 pm to meet Jens and Hendrik. It was about a 30 minute walk to the camping spot I had picked out, but it turned out to be a great spot. It was at the end of a little pennisula that juts out into the lake. I would almost call it a city park. There is a short hiking trail out around the pennisula but no roads. There was also a little gazebo right by the lake. We decided to wait to put our tents up until later to attract less attention since there was still the occasional person walking by. So we went for a swim in the lake and swam out to a small island about 100 meters out. We spent a lot of time just walking around the small pennisula and to a nearby beach and just people watching.

There were lots of ants on the ground where we wanted to put up our tents, so Hendrik had the idea of just sleeping in the gazebo since the skies were clear. This actually worked out great and saved us a lot of trouble in setting up the tents (although we were in clear view of every one that walked by later that night and next morning). I think it looked less suspicious than a couple of tents set up in this 'park' though. We spent the evening walking around and talking and entertaining ourselves watching people go to and from a wedding reception at nearby restaurant. We eventually talked to one of the young women from the wedding reception (mainly to inquire about free leftover food of which there was none!) who was standing out side. All in all it was a great night.

The next morning (Sunday, 23 July) we got up and walked to the train station. As it was Sunday, we were dissappointed to learn that the grocery stores didn't open until noon but we needed to catch a train at 11 am. We thought we would be going without breakfast (after a very light dinner the previous night) but were saved by the cafe at the train station. We caught the same train but Hendrik and Jens got off at a different stop and I was headed all the way down to Helsinki. We made plans to meet up again in Helsinki in a few days.