The ‘Legendary’ ESN Cottage Weekend

Personally I was a bit skeptical about how ‘legendary’ this weekend would really be. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I managed to meet some new people, which was very strange for me. When we were split into groups for the cottages (there was 60 of us – we would never fit in the same one), I agreed to go in one where there was nobody I already knew (which isn’t hard really, since I hardly knew anyone anyway). But it was great. Our cottage was the biggest and nearest to the Beach, the main Restaurant, the BBQ area, and it had the sauna!

But before all that was ‘The Amazing ESN Race’ (They do like their positive adjectives). We were split into teams (again I was with only one person I already knew) and sent off with a map to go to various points and complete tasks. These included traditional Finnish sports, such as Wife-carrrying, Welly Boot throwing, and a kind of Baseball (which I was terrible at, the bat is skinnier than for rounders and I wasn’t exactly great at that at school). We also had a Finnish Fear Factor, where we were blindfolded and asked to taste different Finnish foods. I had my first taste of Salmiaki, which is salt liquorish. Its an acquired taste I think…


Unfortunately we didn’t win. Although, we must have come second at least I think, as we seemed to score high at most of the tasks. After the race, we had some free-time where most headed to the beach to relax and go on the rowing boats. It took me a while to get the hang of the oars, but in the end we managed. And the views were beautiful. Although it was the Baltic sea, like all the beaches in Finland, all you could see were islands. But it meant it wasn’t too rocky on board the boat.


After dinner, we had a bit more free time, where I decided to have a paddle in the sea, but soon after decided it was absolutely freezing. So we headed back to the cottage to get ready for Sauna. To begin with, it was just girls sauna, and we just about fit in the room. A few individuals that I decided were insane went to swim in the sea after each ‘round’ in the Sauna. However, I soon gave in, and went down to the sea to try it for myself. It was very refreshing actually. After time came for a mixed sauna, our sauna got very busy indeed, so I gave up and got changed and headed to the BBQ area to relax.


We had a bit of a party in the evening, but I was so relaxed after the sauna and the bbq, that I didn’t make it much past 2am before I was heading for bed. We were then woken up at 9am to head for breakfast. Cleaning the cottages started at 10am, and I had the painstaking job of walking along the beach in the morning sunshine looking for the odd bottle or cigarette butt (of which I didn’t find either – just some socks).

Just as we were about the leave, it started raining. So we had a quick picture in front of the restaurant and then onto the bus to head back to Turku.