Grani May Skiing .. but the snow has been STOLEN!

Managed to tick off May skiing on my local hill this evening, was quite nice in the sunshine. Even if they took most of the snow to a massive pile and covered it. Damn snow hoarders! Although I suppose it will help the season's start next winter... in any case, June will be a challenge.

There's an article about the stored snow in Helsingin Sanomat. There's a Finnish company, Snow Secure, that is specialized on snow storage solutions. First year's storage is 50-100K "introductory price" :-)

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Here's the actual left snow, outside the pile:

Video of the skiing:

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Spare parts

Desperately seeking Su... spare parts. No luck.

Sigh. Also running out of expertise, my own and any expert companies I seem to be able to reach.

The parts are for my 32-year old Volvo 740. Parts manufacturing has stopped decades ago for some components.

More car stories in the Planetskier blog series at Blogspot. The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko.

Ballet, airports, and trains

I was traveling home from the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, by train. And it was such a wonderful experience. First off, I made the exit from the plane to the train in fifteen minutes, and caught my other train by running with luggage. But, I also admired the smooth concrete in the new airport underground train station, along the ballet video they were display on it. Nice!

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

FEX

The Flughafen-Express, or FEX for short is a train between Berlin's new Brandenburg airport and the city. The train stops in five locations in the city, but does not do any additional stops on the way to the airport. Pretty convenient! And cheap, the standard fare is just 4,40€ where a similar taxi ride would cost easily 60-80€.

See also the Wikipedia and DB articles.

And here's a nice view from a Finnair Airbus A321, landing in Berlin:

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Urheiluhallit kallio

My first time visiting the Kallie swimming pools. Very nice!

The pools are indoor, run by Urheiluhallit, a Helsinki-based sports facility company. I have not been to their facilities too often before, other than the Mäkelänrinne swimming hall. However, they do run a number of pools and other sports facilities in the city area, and run them well. I think the city sponsors them to some extent, hence the still low ticket prices (5,80€ for a swim in Kallie, for instance).

Anyway, Kallie is as city as it gets. The "green bubble" center of Finland, with lots of students, bars, night life, etc. 

But back to my visit. I had my own lane, not too many people on a Sunday afternoon. There's one 25 meter pool, an activity pool, cold plunge pool (always good!) and two saunas. One of them was super hot, one scoop of water rendered the room very hot and two made it unbearable. So I went to the other one :-)

And there's a host of other sports choices beyond swimming, such as bowling. Right next door is the Kallio football field, for instance.

Weirdly enough, there was some snow on the field still:

Another recent Urheiluhallit visit was in Töölö.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.  I never photograph pools, beaches or saunas unless the facility is closed or empty.

Urheiluhallit Töölö

I did not know that there were swimming halls here! But Urheiluhallit runs many sports facilities that I now have to visit, including this one in Töölö, next to the Tullinpuomi intersection and my old computer science department house.

See also the Kallio visit.

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.  I never photograph pools, beaches or saunas unless the facility is closed or empty.