TRIPLEX in Finland

Finland - UN/IHP TRIPLEX.

The day of TRIPLEX was fast approaching and before I knew it, I was packing for it and and heading from work to pick up L and them onto N and H's place in Cambridge. It was all a blur to be honest but I was excited nonetheless. I reviewed my SOPs before I left work and mentally reviewed them as I drove to Ickenham.

Arriving late in Cambridge we found our friends already guaffing wine and eating fine food so we joined in, all excited about the next week. Been a volunteer for two years and the operations officer for one year and it has been exciting and I hope it all comes together in TRIPLEX. The flight from stanstead was with RyanAir and was due to leave around 6AM, which meant an early start from Cambridge. We all decided about 2AM and since I finally went to bed around midnight, it meant that I had just under two hours sleep (!) so not a good preparation work for us.

SG came over to Cambridge to pick us up.....and at 2:30am in the morning we were all half-zombie like. Arriving at Stanstead we were surprised at how full it was. Almost bursting at the seams with individuals, groups and families. We were hoping that they were not bound for Tampere as we were. In the queue we met up with some others also TRIPLEX participants and hence, Tampere bound. The check-in was slow, the security even slower and me and TW were the only two who made it onto the plane minutes before it was due to take off. No sign of the other eight volunteers! Over the next five minutes, NW arrived and soon after all but two arrived. To our horror, the last two could not board and had their baggage off-loaded. Crap. Not a good start. It gets worse, on arrival in Tampere (two hours later) - we discovered that the airline had offloaded more than two person's worth of baggage and ended up removing HC's bag and the spare bag for one of *us*.

Then a two hour wait for a taxi pickup (which eventually came) and an hour drive back.