Bus Ride through Lakes and a Ski Jump Simulator

After spending 5 days in Tampere, we hopped on a bus that took us to Lahti, Finland.  Lahti is Northeast of Helsinki.  We traveled across LOTS of lakes.  There are over 187,000 lakes in Finland and I think we traveled by 30 of them. :)  Again, beautiful.  I did get some pictures of the countryside this time around.  After we got off the bus and in Timo Aarrevaara's mini bus, I realized that I left my travel pillow on the bus!  I'm hoping it will be at the bus company's lost and found in Helsinki.  If you read this, please cross your fingers for me.

Today, we met briefly with Lahti's summer university.  This is essentially a consortium of universities offering courses for anyone who would like to take them.  There are 4 sessions:  fall, winter, spring, and summer.  Since this is separate from the public universities, the summer universities are allowed to charge tuition.  They originally started as institutions offering summer courses for teachers and has grown from there.

After that, we met with faculty and the incoming Rector of Lahti University of Applied Sciences.  Universities of Applied Sciences are a mix between community colleges and mid-size universities.  They offer 4-year bachelor degrees, but there is a very strong connection with the community and their businesses.  I also learned that recently Lahti began to offer master degrees.  We had a delightful conversation during lunch and continued the conversation afterward.

We then met with the secretary general of the Lahti University Consortium.  This is a group that is connected with the University of Helsinki and serves two main roles.  First, they own Lahti University of Applied Sciences as well as two other educational institutions.  Second, they work with science universities and bring centers from those universities to Lahti for students.  There are three centers from University of Helsinki and two from Aalto University.  Students are allowed to enroll in courses from any of the centers to earn their bachelor and masters degrees.

After the meetings, we went to the Lahti Ski Mueseum and learned how essential skiing (particularly cross-country skiing) is/was to the Finnish people.  We also saw how the ski outfits changed from the 1920s until the present.  The icing on the cake was the simulators we could do:  ski jumping, bi-athlon (I think)--shooting a pistol or rifle, and cross-country skiing.  I tried the ski jump and the shooting.  (Thank you to Dad, Matt, and Marty for helping me with my shooting skills--albeit low level of skills).

We then rode in Timo's bus to Helsinki and are back at the University of Helsinki's Guest House until we leave for Italy on Thursday!  I'm hoping that our hotel in Venice has internet.  One more meeting and our "class" is over . . . well until I finish the paper.  Until tomorrow!