Tampere

 by Wiebe

Day 142 | Wrong exit

Day 142 | Wednesday August 3

Today started with a meeting at the city of Tampere, they had a project called ‘Eco 2’. It was a big strategic project which had to achieve the 2025 climate goals: to cut the greenhouse gas emissions by 40%. The project covered various themes like mobility, sustainable energy and sustainable construction. They worked closely together with external sources to gain information. A full report will be online later.

From Tampere it was a 160km drive to Turku, which was my next stop. I’ve could have make that easily if it wasn’t that I missed the exit by a kilometer of 20… So when I found out I needed to do 10km to the next exit and then 30km back, so I lost 60 kilometers. At a supermarket I checked an app and saw that there was a charger in Aura which I could make with the range I had left. When my navigation told me I was at the charger I was seriously in the middle of nowhere and had 4% battery left. I walked around until I found a farm were some people were working. It was no problem to charge the car there for a bit. They were very interested in all the aspects of the car, I had to open the hood and trunk and they inspected it all. It was the firs time that they saw an electric car.

After a short period I had enough power to reach Aura, unfortunately the charger didn’t work with my car but there was a supermarket with open plugs so I charged there for 3 hours and then headed to Turku.

A few weeks ago Alba added me on Facebook and invited me to come over. I saw she was a creative person so was interested in what she’s doing. She does a singer / songwriter study and of course sings a lot. While I was at her place she opened her phone a couple of times and started singing through a live stream on Facebook, pretty funny. She had a friend over who also was an musician and together they were making Korean music. In a few weeks there is a Chinese festival here and they thought some people might be interested in buying their music.

Alba lives right in the middle of the city so we couldn’t charge the car at home. Luckily Turku has many public chargers. The evening we spend drinking beers and listening to music in a park. 

Pictures of today

The farm
A night at the park
Alba
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 by Wiebe

Day 141 | Ilmajoki to Tampere

Day 141 | Tuesday August 2

In Finland the weather can change quickly, yesterday it was around 25 degrees and deep blue sky, today I woke up the sound of thunder.

Goal for today: Kangasala, close to Tampere, one of the biggest cities in Finland. A 210 kilometer drive which I couldn’t make on one charge. My host Michel had a friend in a town under the smoke of Tampere so he called him if I could charge there. He seemed interested in this project so it was oke to go there. He told Michel that he was at work till 6 o’clock so he couldn’t meet me but his wife was there to receive me.

When I got there around 3 and ranged the bell I was surprised that he opened the door. He left his job earlier just to meet me, cool stuff. Marcus, originally from Amsterdam, had been living in Finland since 1998. He met his Finish wife who worked at the embassy in The Hague. Together they got 3 daughters which where about the same age as the 3 sons of Michel. Marcus used to work for Nokia, the infamous Finish mobile phone maker who are nearly dead. He now does the same work for another big international company, designing electrical parts. I joined them for lunch and had homemade blueberry pie as desert, that was already the third time I had that. It seems like it’s part of the daily routine here and if you ask me it should be introduced everywhere.

https://www.facebook.com/PlugMeIn/photos/ms.c.eJwzNTQ3NzQ3MLUwMTY3NjPUMwXzjSxMDQ1MDAxMoXxjAwjfGADkaglv.bps.a.466370933571974.1073741835.211949022347501/517717058437361/?type=3&theater

Then on to the final destination, Kangasala. There was bit of miscommunication, my host entered his address on the map and left a note that this place was still under construction but I could sleep there or at his current house. I forgot that and drove to his under construction house. I didn’t had enough battery to drive to his house but luckily he had an open CEE-red 16A socket so within 30 minutes I had enough to reach his house. My host was Jarkko, a Fin who lives here with his wife, daughter and son. He told me that the house he is building is supposed to be near zero emission.

Jarkko works as an programmer and seems to be very interested in all kinds of technology. He has some gadget in his house which I had never seen before. He was cooking chicken in a pan with some kind of device which keeps it continuously on the same temperature. He doesn’t drive an electric car yet but is very interested in the technology and developments. Sometimes he has to go to Estonia or Sweden for work and than rents a Tesla to get around and he already pre-ordered the Model 3, he is a wise man.

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