What a Day

I am at my hotel roon now at 10.30 PM after a great day, may be one of the most memorable days of my life. Its still day light outside. My host here Teppo picked me up from my hotel and we drove to his beach house on the Baltic sea some 30 kms from Turku. The house is located amongst some of the most scenic places you will see facing the sea. Turku is in the south west of Finland with Baltic sea on the west. Teppo has a weekend house here and its a great place to spend you weekend. It was cold and windy Temperature around 5 degrees during the day and Teppo suggested my jacket that I was wearing was not good enough for this place and he gave me a complete dress with trousers , jacket, cap, gloves etc. And then we rode on his Motor boat into the sea. What a fun. He let me drive his boat and it was thrilling. Here inside the deep sea I was driving a motor boat at 150 km per hr and what an experience. Its hard to describe. Such a great fun We went into an island and roamed around. Then we drove back to his home. He is into motorbiking also. And he has at this place a old 350 cc Dakota motorcycle he bought from the army. It has place to keep two machine guns. We drove it to the woods and he allowed me to drive it in the woods. It was such an adventure driving this motorcycle into the woods on tough terrains, real fun. We came home at around 3 pm where his wife had cooked a wonderful meal and with all the adventure I was really hungry and my plate was all clean. Teppo is very much into F1 races and so we again took the motorboat to another island to go to his fisherman friend who has a TV and saw the F1 race. Unfortunately within the first round Force Indias one car was out and saw Vijay Mallya looking shocked but his another car was 10th. One of the basic reasons for Teppos interest I believe might be because todays champion Kimi Raikkonen (I believe thats what its spelled) is from Finland driving a Ferrari and he won the race. Its always a proud moment when your countrys flag goes up on the podium. We drove back in the evening to Turku and am surprise to meet Rajesh rathore with whom I am going to have a meeting in Burlington, Canada in three weeks is also at Turku and we go out for dinner three of us in a boat in the river behind our hotel. Good Food and we have a great time. During the day I came in close contact with Teppo and I learnt couple of things from him todays which I will never forget. When we entered his house in the morning I asked him how safe it might be in this country as his motor boat or house remains un attended for weeks and nothing is lost - is he not worried about this. At our home we cant even think of locking the home for few hours and going out for a family dinner even though we have servants etc there. He replied he never falls in love with his materialistic things , its better to keep in cash then love your car or boat etc. If it goes insurance is there but these things are there to bring enjoyment not worries. So rightly said. Maybe we try this time all of us going to Purulia for my birthday locking the house for 4 days and enjoy being together away from the daily hassles of life when in your town. Another thing he said which I will remember forever was its not how you begin but how you end that counts. So right. I have already requested Teppo use of his property for a vacation in summer some time in the coming two years. Its a place to see and enjoy. No pollution, no noice and complete peace. From tomorrow again the routine meetings start. I will be in Finland for the next two days before I fly on tuesday to Germany - again a long journey - train from lahti to Helsinki and then flight to Frankfurt further flight to Stutgart. Stutgart will be my two nights stay again before I fly back home.