This is my first trip report. Myself & 5 other students were chosen to travel to Finland for 2 weeks work experience, along with 8 other students from a different class. An exciting piece of news in itself, but also WE WOULD BE FLYING WITH EI!!! I concealed my delirium in the classroom as only a true plane-fan-in-the-closet can when I heard that information, & applied for my Gold Circle membership STAT! I was so happy, as I hadn't flown EI since 2004!!

So on the 2nd of April I turned up to the airport @ 1.30pm, where I found fellow students freaking out over overweight bags. I slinked away with my wonderfully underweight 19.7kg suitcase with the cries of "I'M PUTTIN SOMETHIN IN YER CASE!!" ringin in my ears. Other students had turned up @ 12.30pm, to get an early start on the drinking, a great idea I thought, & rather wished I had done that too. We checked in at the awesome T2, where I had not been since leaving MIAspotter off in February .   

Security went without any problems, apart from one of our girls who needs to be surgically removed from her mobile phone, which of course set the walk-through machine off. Youth of today, & all that.   

I dashed off for a wander in the new terminal. There was a Porsche & Audi R8 there for some reason; I was too lazy to take any pics, but I had a good look. Shops were ok, if out of my budget. Why can't Penney's or Dunne's be @ the airport!? Anyway. The Slaney bar is cool, with a window looking out at the apron all on one side, where I saw EI-DVM! The retrojet, what a little beauty!



I was starvin, so headed upstairs to check out what was on offer. Two nice places called Flutes (which kind of cracked me up) & Harvest Market caught me eye, although I couldn't really afford it....so it was onto an even nicer restaurant called Burger King. The poor girl workin that day was new I think, she kept makin loads of mistakes & I had to wait ages for my food. But we've all been there, so I didn't complain.

I went back to the bar to try to catch up with the imbibing. 2 Jack Daniels later, it was time to head to the gate. YAY!

Some en-route spotting:





Flight no: EI 628

Aircraft: Airbus A320-214

Entered service: 13th May 2005

Seat:    can't remember...but it was a window one!

Reg: EI-DEN

Name: St.Kieran/Cíarán

Cruising: FL350

The flight was around 80-90% full.

The only exterior pic I managed to take of poor Cíarán (I have a cousin called Cíarán-funny)



Our class study a module called Ready For Take Off where we learn basically how to become cabin crew. So when we were boarding, we were joking with the really drunken fellas from the other class travelling with us, who were trying to sit in the emergency rows, "Sorry, only ABP's can sit derrrr hahahaha" The ccm's ears pricked up at this, & from then on it was love, joking back with us "Do yis want a job?" And then some advice "Do yis wana know the truth? Don't do it!".   I was too busy gawking into the beautiful A320 cockpit to see as much as I could....

I was really struck by how nice the A320 interior was, even for Y, with the panels at the top of the cabin, and the nice seats. With 174 seats, the A320 seemed cosy & not as endless looking as..say..an FR 738. And it was nice to finally have an understanding that the barking dog was the PTU! Scared the crap out of me first time I ever heard it.

EI-CPE, who flew me to LHR in 2004  

ETD was 17.00, but we were holding @ 28 for 20 mins....with an LH Airbus creeping towards us, but we got out first.

Over Scotland:



The Cara 75th Anniversary special magazine was in the pocket in front, which I nabbed for somebody  . I also yoinked the safety card. In order to explain my klepto behaviour to my seatmate, I blamed it on my boyfriend (sorry Christian-but kind of true  ) and said it was for him but it was ok, turned out she was a plane nerd too! Grand job, we had a great ole chat about the Dreamliner, washed down with some more beverages.

Me on my first A320!



A girl from my class believed us when we told her that the clouds outside the window was the snow of Finland to be seen already.   

Shouldn't there be a cheap safety instruction sticker clamped there in your face?



Our routing took us over Scotland, Norway & Stockholm. We arrived into HEL after 10pm, where I spotted an AY 757, & the AY Retrojet! Wow, 2 Retrojets in the one day! WIN! Couldn't take a pic though   also saw lots of FC ATRs.
Signage to arrivals wasn't great, or maybe I'm just lazy because I had to walk a bit. the girls were delighted to find a suicide booth (smoking room) @ HEL.

The business class took a taxi to HEL city; us a taxi to Porvoo, whereupon our arrival @ Hotel Sparre after midnight, a group of drunken men thought we were Russian prostitutes and where shouting abuse at us. Ahem.

But that was to be the only bad experience in the town of Porvoo. The people were very friendly & warm, and the students from the local Amisto college organised lots of activities for us in our spare time. I would highly recommend a visit to Porvoo, with it's great cafés, bars, good shopping, beautiful sights, and only an hour by bus from Helsinki.

Porvoo Cathedral



Porvoo



My (tidy!) room @ the Hotel Sparre, Porvoo



Loviisa, where I did my placement in the Degerby Hotel, a much smaller town than Porvoo, but still very pretty.



The gargantuan 500 room Sokos Presidentti Hotel where I stayed for a weekend in HEL. Nice, but we missed the cosyness of the Sparre!



We also had the chance to visit the Kongressi travel fair @ the Finlandia Building, which was a great experience. While the other placement students were scrubbing hotel rooms & making beds, we were quaffing champers & eating chocolate at all the stands!

We also visited Turku, European Capital of Culture 2011. It's not that pretty I think, but it doesn't have to be! We only had 2 hours to explore, which we pretty much spent in a restaurant.

Turku Castle



Soon, after skiing, snow walking, falling in snow, snow bbq's, hangovers and lots of fun, our 2 weeks were over.

Our flight back to DUB wasn't until 22.45   

So we hung around Porvoo til 19.20. I explored more, visiting the old railway station.

We arrived @ HEL around 20.00, very early.

AY advertisement



Sculpture @ HEL



AY desks



Board



Our flight would leave from gate 37. Walking to it it was hard to see any planes as it was getting dark   The AY lounge was en-route, & I squinted in as I passed by & saw Nordic coolness...and saunas! The most important Finnish thing, after Nokia.I saw a noodle bar in the gate area, headed over, saw the price...€14....& bought a tub of Pringles. There was free wi-fi, but the laptop-less of us used the coin operated internet. There was also another suicide booth..... next door to us was an AY A343, heading to Asia.

Boarding was meant to be 22.15, but didn't happen 'til 22.30. At this stage everyone was exhausted & just wanted to get on the plane!

Some pics





Flight no: EI 629

Aircraft: Airbus A320-214

Entered service: 13th May 2005

Seat: 16B (Beside my teacher-who yoinked the window seat, but otherwise is cool, & some weird antsy guy, and the token baby kickin the seat behind, but didn't bother me too much.....)

Reg: EI-DEP

Name: St.Eugene/Eoghan

Cruising: FL 360

Flight around 75-90% full

Well, we filed on to this flight much quieter than our outbound. I smiled at a middle aged CCM & she smiled back. Nice!  
We departed on time, with the moon reflecting on our wing, & the gear doors closing with a thump. Ah gear doors, how I missed 'em, from ages of only travelling on 737s! I was very bored on this flight, but too tired to read, so just closed my eyes. I bought a glass of white wine, marvelling at the watery reflection of the shamrock at the bottom of the cup. I bought a bacon bap off the same smiley CCM. "Would you like red or brown sauce?" "Red please." "Brown?" I suppose she couldn't hear me over the CFMs! Ah well, I never tried brown sauce before, so why not on an EI A320?   Was lovely anyway.

We landed on rwy 28 @ DUB on time, around 23.53. Lovely smooth landing. But then....we had to wait an hour for our bags to come off Eugene...he was being greedy & holdin on to em...come on man I wana go to bed!! They did eventually come out, & then my mammy brother & sister all collected me and drove me home!

Well, had a grand flight on EI. I myself currently am restricted to FR most of the time, but what a difference EI are! I mean, you can get nice crew on FR, but just even the interior makes such a difference. The only concerns I had was the timing, leaving @ 17.00, which seems to a be a very busy time, creating delays. There are only 2 flights a week, Tues & Sat, running from Mar 27th - Oct 29th. Both flights were full, good to see.

Thanks for reading, & I'm sorry it's so long!

Also,if you visit Porvoo, say hello to Iina, Miranna & Johanna!

Finland is great & I miss it a lot! I'm down to my last few bits of salmiakki.....