EPIC Photo Trip 2020 - Day 2

Well the day started off earlier than I anticipated; I woke up at 3am and couldn't fall back asleep. So after wasting 4 hours in bed trying to fall back asleep and tripping the breaker because apparently my iPhone drains to much power from this wall socket I decided to give up and get ready for the day. Cliff fixed us a traditional breakfast; Karjalan piirakkaa it was very good. I have learned that the Finnish don't care so much about spices and much of their food is pretty bland, but that's not anything s little hot sauce can't fix.

We left the house after breakfast and remembered very quickly that it was a holiday because nothing was open and no one was around. But that didn't stop us from exploring. we drove around looking for some locations to shoot and found some very interesting places. We didn’t spend much time at each spot because this California kid isn't used to the -3-degree weather.  So, we moved very quickly as to not get frost bite on any extremities. Our last stop before connecting with Cliff's friend Janne in town was the Pyynikin näkötorni; in other words, big tall tower. Apparently, they have the best Munkki (Finnish doughnut) in the country, and honestly I’m not sure if it wasn't the best in the world, it was so good. After devouring that slice of diabetes, we headed up the tower which just reminded how absolutely out of shape the two of us are. The view was fantastic, the freezing wind; not so much. We contemplated jumping off to warm up, but decided against that and just climbed down instead. 

So we haven’t been to many places in this large city, but we have found ourselves parking in the exact same location over and over again to get to where we are going and meeting Yanna was no exception. Believe it or not the only thing that was open was the McDonalds so we decided that was as good as any place to have a conversation.  One thing I have noticed here is that the Fins are very nice people and Janne was no exception. He was so much fun to talk to and get to know! After chatting with Janne for a few hours we decided to get back into the car and look for some great pizza. We drove around for about 5 minutes looking for a place and finally googled it and found a place literally across the street from where we had originally parked. I’m telling you we should have just got an air B&B next to this parking space. So, I love pizza and I’m also willing to try anything once, but I never thought that I would have a pizza with falafel on it; and I’m pretty sure I won’t ever again. It wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t pizza. After experiencing that we decided we would go back to the apartment and take a short power nap. With the intentions of sleeping for 2 hours and getting back up to explore the reality of it was I slept through two alarms and woke up 5 hours later. But I have to admit I was refreshed and ready to go; now that it was 9 pm. So, cliff and I grabbed our camera gear and headed out to find anything we can shoot. Obviously, it was dark because this time of year we see about 5 hours of daylight a day, but we weren’t going to let that stop us. What we did let us stop us however was the rain. The cold, wind and rain were just not conducive to photography so we accepted defeat and headed back home, but not before scouting some shooting locations for tomorrow. 

So, we will try again tomorrow and see what that brings us. Again thank you so much for stopping by and hope to see you tomorrow. Here are some images from the day….

EPIC Photo Trip 2020 Images