Baltic Adventure part 1: Helsinki and Espoo

This week I made my way to Altoo University (thanks to a grant from Grønt UiO) in Espoo Finland to participate in a two day seminar hosted by the Nordic Sustainable Campus Network. The seminar brought together representatives from several Nordic universities concerned with promoting green issues on and off campus. While efforts such as setting up on-campus recycling programs and making it easier for students to bike to class are positive in of themselves, the most important role these kind of university organizations fulfill is that of providing an example to the rest of society. Needless to say the seminars where very interesting and I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend and meet so many wonderful people. Anyway after the conference was done I decided to poke around Helsinki a bit and then head over to Tallinn for a couple days (which I will cover in tomorrows post). Finland was really quite beautiful... though it was incredibly cold; when I arrived the thermostat marked a chilly -22 Celsius. It was however really pleasant and I really enjoyed trekking around the campus snapping photos and then making my way in to those world famous Finish saunas. I have to confess that I thought the whole sauna thing was just a stereotype... well it turns out its not, saunas are everywhere... in most apartments, in student housing dorms, in hotels, community centres, you name it! Being Yucateco the idea of making yourself that hot on purpose (upwards of 80c.) seemed rather counter intuitive... but I have to admit that I came to really enjoy it! Anyway I hope you enjoy the pictures and that you come back tomorrow for the Estonia pics!