Day 15 Wind shear and snow storm in Helsinki

Day 15

5.4.2024

We leave the chalet early in the morning at 6:45 a.m. and drive to the airport. While my husband puts the rental car back in the drop-off parking lot and puts the keys in the "mailbox" at Green Motion, I wait with the kids in the hall at the check-in desk.

It's not very busy. Since I checked us in online yesterday, we only have to check in our luggage.

That's done quickly and after the security check we go to the gate. We have plenty of time now. We sit at the gate and wait for the plane, which lands shortly before 9 a.m. I envy the holidaymakers who are getting off now. I would love to stay another week. I didn't think that saying goodbye to the "cold" would be soooo difficult, but I already miss the winter landscape 😥

15 minutes later we are allowed to board. We are sitting in row 14 - but still have to board "at the back". So we go out into the cold and across the runway into the plane.

We leave Rovaniemi in bright sunshine and fall asleep shortly afterwards. After an hour I wake up because it is quite jolting. Outside I can only see thick clouds. Snow was forecast for Helsinki. Fantastic...

We leave the cruising altitude and the pilot turns on the seatbelt signs. Now we're going down... and it's shaking pretty badly... then we break through the clouds and I see houses and streets, then the runway. It's just a few meters to touchdown, but at the last moment before landing the plane swings to the side, the runway beneath us suddenly disappears and the pilot takes off!

Yuck, how unpleasant! What was that???

When we have reached a higher altitude again and are flying a loop, the pilot calls from the cockpit and reports that there are shear winds that make landing impossible at the moment.

What?????

So we will do a "small sightseeing flight" over Helsinki for 15 minutes and then make a second landing attempt.

My stomach isn't getting any better... What if it doesn't work the second time?? Circle again? Do we have enough fuel for a third attempt???

My son and I aren't having fun right now. I try not to let it show, as my son is always worried when flying anyway. 15 minutes later, the pilot makes a second attempt to land. It doesn't jolt as badly as before, but as we descend, the whole plane suddenly tilts steeply to the side. I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster. The children in the plane scream with joy (the kids behind me even shout "Yippee"), my son grabs my arm with his hands.

"Wake turbulence" is what they say from the cockpit. 5 minutes later we are on the ground. Phew! The second attempt at landing was successful! Wow, I have rarely been so happy about a landing.

We leave the plane feeling relieved. It's just starting to snow. The planes that land after us today are sure to have even more fun!

(Edit: many flights were delayed by several hours because a heavy snowstorm with a lot of fresh snow raged over Helsinki until the night)

We take the express train to Helsinki main station.

Train travel is fun here. Everyone is on time and for €4.10 (adults) and €2.05 (children 7-17 years old) you can buy a "single ticket" (for regions A, B, C) which is valid for 110 minutes - so you can travel as many trains, buses, trams and even the ferry to Suomenlinna as you like.

Ticket info here.

It is now snowing heavily, so we take the tram to the hotel ( Scandic Helsinki Hub ). The tram stops one street away from the hotel. We look like snowmen when we enter the hotel, it is snowing so heavily. Since it is only 12pm, they want us to pay €15 for an "early check-in", even though our room is already ready. We are allowed to "move in" for free from 2:30pm. Pfff, we don't see that. We leave our suitcases in the storage room and want to go out for lunch. So that's fine. We saw a cafe around the corner, where we quickly go and grab a seat. The Fazer Cafe Bulevardi is not the cheapest, but the food is extremely delicious. We enjoy salad, quiche and baked potato with salad and vegetables (all freshly prepared!).

There's a snowstorm raging outside. Totally crazy!

At 1:30 p.m. we meet at the hotel with a Finnish friend of my husband, who invites us to a little city tour in the car. I'm so glad that I don't have to walk around in the snowstorm now 😅

We drive all over Helsinki. My highlight are the Finns who come out of the sauna and lie down in the snow at -5 degrees, as if it were a deck chair on the beach at +30 degrees 🤣😱🥶🥶🥶

It makes me shiver when I see the ladies and gentlemen walking around in the snowstorm in their swimming trunks and bikinis 😄

We then go to Cafe Ekberg (funnily enough, right next to Fazer Cafe) and get the last table. Nobody wants to be outside in this weather. It's snowing horizontally, you can't really see anything anymore, there's a blanket of snow. It's crazy!

We treat ourselves to a coffee/cappuccino/hot chocolate and what is probably the most expensive piece of cake ever (cake €8.90 per piece), I take an almond croissant (€6.90)... ouch... but that's Helsinki! But it's delicious!!!

Because we went for coffee and cake late, we skipped dinner and went to bed quite early. It was a long day. My son was still complaining about the hard sofa, which he had to call his bed for the next two nights, but he quickly fell asleep. I'm excited to see what the weather will be like tomorrow. It's forecast to be +5 degrees - so all the fresh snow from this morning will melt again. What a pity...

Well, let’s wait and see!