Sunday saw the first serious snow fall of the winter in southern Finland, even the Finns officially decided this was a
lumimyrsky - a snowstorm. (Although the ones I was with just said 'Pah! This is just normal Finnish winter weather!'). We had been staying at a
cottage in Rönnäs near Porvoo where the snow had been of the decorative type only, and were heading back during the day, stopping off at
picturesque Porvoo for
kahvia ja pullat as the snow fell (
sata lunta) and the snow ploughs and gritters got to work on the main roads.
We were dropped off at Konna's dad's place to pick up his keys, as he is going to Cyprus for the rest of the winter. Out of the window we watched the wind shaking the street lights as the snow flew past horizontally. We trudged across the car park to Itäkeskus and the bus station, there was already ten centimetres of snow blanketing the uncleared lot. The bus was the first sign of anything not running smoothly as usual, running a few minutes late as it slithered in and out of the uncleared bus stops. Back at home the snow piled up on the windowsills and was blown across the glass like unconvincing fake spray snow. We heard on the news of a few flight and train delays. 'Imagine if we had been in England' we said, 'we would have got stuck in the first lane trying to leave the cottage, or if not there on the main road where the snow plough hadn't run through yet. And can you imagine London buses trying to run in 10cm of snow? Or the trains?'
2 comments:
Hmmm... The busses are from Italy, the drivers are from... who knows where they are from... so would this be why the bus got stuck for 5 minutes?
nothing to do with the snow and ice then?
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