Day 11: On Top Of The World, Then Crashing Down To Earth

I knew Sunday was going to be an exciting day. I wasn’t aware exactly how exciting it would be, though.

The plan for the day was to take a bus tour to the Koli National Park, about 45 kilometers outside of Joensuu. Mary Beth and I had breakfast, then walked to the university to meet up with the bus. We met up with Phil, Aaron, and Phil’s family who had joined him. We boarded the bus and hit the road.

On the bus, I got a chance to meet (or at least listen to) some of the other participants from Mary Beth’s conference. There were people there from England, Turkey, Lithuania, Tunisia, and a number of other countries. I will confess to being a little jealous of the opportunity Mary Beth had to meet and make friends with people in her discipline around the world like that.

The drive to Koli was uneventful, if a little slow—in Finland, while you drive on the right side of the road, buses drive pretty slow, and you have to wear a seat belt. But as we drove through the woods and to the park (on a drive that was eerily similar to the stretch of I-80 just south of Minneapolis) it became pretty clear that it was going to be a beautiful day.

To start the tour, we had to ride a glassed-in elevator up the side of a hill to get to the main area of the park. Well, at least that was the plan. Mary Beth and I were in the last group that were planning to go up the hill. As the elevator came down, an elderly couple who were in the elevator waited for the doors to open so they could get out. And waited. And waited.

After about 15 minutes, it became clear that the doors weren’t going to open anytime soon. So our only option was to head up the stairs. Not exactly the start we had in mind, especially with Mary Beth in a surgical shoe nursing a hairline fracture in her foot (because, of course, it couldn’t be a trip to Europe without Mary Beth having something in her foot broken).

We did make it up the stairs, though, and got ourselves oriented before the tour started. Our tour guides warned us that while the hike was only about a kilometer, it was a “challenging” hike. Mary Beth decided that the stairs were challenge enough and elected to take in the displays at the base rather than accompany us. Reluctantly, I left her there and went on the hike.

Our tour guide was named Ape (pronounced ah-peh) who was very nice, although his English was a little sketchy. He told us that we would be walking up three peaks; the “man peak” which was the highest, the “woman peak” which was the second highest, and the “bad boy” peak which was the smallest.

Hey, I don’t make the names, I just report them.

For the next hour or so, we hiked through an amazing forest, gradually heading upwards until we reached each of the three peaks. The peaks themselves were basically sheer white rock, with no stairs or handholds to get up and nothing but gravity and balance to help you down.

As someone who is not particularly fond of heights in the first place, this is not something that should have appealed to me. But apparently I was just into it, as I scampered my way up each of the three peaks. The only time I really was cognizant of what I was doing was when I sat down on the far edge of a rock face (the one facing down towards the ledge) to take a picture of Phil and his family. As I turned around to get up, I started sliding toward the edge and what would have been a … considerable drop. I’m sure I didn’t really slide all that far, but the time it took to find a foothold and stop myself was the one point of the afternoon where my whole “fear of heights” thing really came back to me.

But oh, what a view. I will admit that I never really understood the attraction of mountain climbing. I get it now. Standing on top of those peaks, you could look out and really feel like you could see forever. I could feel the breeze blowing by me as I took in the sights, seeing the trees far below me, the lake that feeds the Pielisjoki River, and the land in the distance on the other side of the lake.

But it was Ape letting everyone know that the land on the other side of the lake, about 100 kilometers away, was Russia that really helped me appreciate the reality of my situation. Yes, the forest and the lake was beautiful, but those are things I can see back home. But to see Russia? Russia, fer cryin out loud? I realized how far from home I was, and what an amazing opportunity I was being given to experience something I never would have dreamt of just a few months earlier.

And, yes, I did have the voice of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin running through my head, saying “I can see Russia from my vacation.” I decided to keep that to myself and to Facebook, though.

During the walk back down, Ape was asked about wildlife in the area. He named off a few before trying to come up with the English word for “martes.” As he grasped for the word, an international game of 20 questions erupted, with guesses (and accents) ranging from butterfly to horse sprang from the group. Ape eventually landed on “bah-jeer” which a smart and particularly handsome hiker (ahem) realized was “badger.”

We came back down and met back up with Mary Beth. After a little souvenir shopping and seeing a film with some photography of the Koli park set to music by famous Finnish composers (please don’t embarrass me by asking who they are), we piled back into the buses for the second part of our trip.

On the grounds of the Koli park is Matilla, an organic and environmentally sustainable farm. The buses parked (including an incredible display of parallel parking) and we walked a fair distance through a beautiful wooded area to reach the farm.

Once we arrived at the farmhouse, we were greeted by the proprietors, who were certainly dressed the part of a couple that own and operate an organic and environmentally sustainable farm (you can see the pictures in the photo album and decide for yourself). We were given a lunch of vegetable soup, homemade bread with garlic butter, herb-infused water, and cinnamon rolls (!), then given license to wander and explore the farm and its grounds.

It was simply beautiful. The day could not have been more perfect, the flowers and the long grass were in bloom, and the farm ultimately provided a very peaceful respite. It was also fascinating to wander the ground and hear the conversations of people from all over the globe sharing the day.

After an hour or so of enjoying the pristine beauty of the farm (which I will say was about enough for me—it was beautiful and all, but I’m pretty sure I’d be bored out of my skull if I lived there) we headed back to the bus for our return to Joensuu. A full day of hiking (with a couple hundred more stairs than budgeted for) meant that I slept for a good chunk of the drive home.

We ate dinner, then the plan was to head back to the room and hang out. But as we walked back to the room, I got to thinking. I remembered putting my passport down on the table in front of our bed on the night I arrived, but I hadn’t really noticed it since. Just to make myself feel better, I thought, I’ll find it and put it in a safe place.

Well, it wasn’t on the table. Nor was it in my camera bag. Nor in the suitcase. Nor the drawer where Mary Beth’s passport was very smartly and very safely stored. Nor in the pocket of any pants or shorts I had brought—after I had unpacked the entire suitcase and looked. Twice.

Indeed, after a good hour of Mary Beth and I tearing the hotel room apart (it’s not a very big room, so that wouldn’t take long), we ultimately came to the conclusion that it simply wasn’t there. But how? Could someone have stolen it? Unlikely. Could it have gotten knocked into a trash bin or a pile of towels taken to the laundry? More plausible, I suppose.

I went down and checked with the front desk. The lady was very nice and very sympathetic, but said that no one had turned in a passport. She wished me the best of luck as I went back upstairs, embarrassed and furious with myself.

Rather than spending the evening watching soccer and baseball, I spent it online finding the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki and planning whether a trip from Joensuu to the capital would be cheaper by train or by plane. Mary Beth, to her undying credit, kept me from panicking too much, having read through the “what to do if you’re a complete idiot” “what to do if you lose your passport abroad” section of the State Department’s website.

So I had a plan for Monday morning. Call the Embassy, get a new passport photo, file a police report, and make travel arrangements for Tuesday’s trip to Helsinki to replace my passport. We went to bed, and I fell asleep remarkably quickly given how mad at myself I was for being so foolish.

DAY 12 SPOILER ALERT!

So Mary Beth and I head for breakfast on Monday morning. I’m fairly well resigned to my to-do list to get a replacement passport, although I can tell you I had little appetite. We ate with Phil, and I told him about what had happened, given that Mary Beth might need to skip Tuesday’s sessions to accompany me to Helsinki and vouch for my identity. Phil was shocked and sympathetic, urging that “it’ll turn up.”

As Mary Beth is getting dressed and ready to leave for the day’s session, she pulls on the nightstand built into the wall near the bed, more for leverage than anything. To her surprise, a drawer opens. I swear to Heaven, I pulled on the nightstands on both sides of the bed the night before, and no drawers opened.

She looks inside the drawer, and of course, what does she find? No, not a Gideon’s Bible (that was on my side). Of course, it’s my passport. The person cleaning our room Thursday night must have seen my passport on the table, thought “this idiot must want his passport in a safer place,” and put it in the nightstand drawer.

Honestly, for about 30 seconds, I couldn’t breathe, much less speak. Mary Beth smiled at me, very much the “oh, and I’m married to this one” smile as she handed me the passport. I put my passport with hers, the relief from both of us being absolutely palpable. I walked with her, Phil, and Aaron to the university, realizing that my plans for the day had changed considerably—and for the better.