Finally I have reached my home too and can write some words about our trip after District Conference at Vail.
On Sunday ( April the 30`th ) we started do descend from the mountains back to the “Denver area” Highlands Ranch/ Centennial. On the way down we had a nice lunch at Tommyknocker house in small town between the mountains. The view again was marvelous!
On the 01.May we visited the Centennial Airport and the Sullivan Detention Facility- now we have being twice in jail during our trip…where must be something wrong with us… ;-)) !
The 02.May started with meeting with Centennial and Highlands Ranch Rotary Clubs.
The departure time from Denver DIA was 17.50, so we went to the airport 3 hours (…as demanded. Since the Leyla had different direction: Canada, she had do leave us already after lunchtime.) before and made our check- out and fingerprint check as well. By the mean: the outbound team from Colorado came with same plane for their tour for Finland and Estonia.
The flight to Frankfurt took almost 8 and a half hours + 3 hours waiting over there + 02.30 hours flight till Helsinki Vantaa. After landing we had welcome greetings from our district “heads”, which after we proceeded to the harbor for ferry.
21.40 a ferry docked at Tallinn. “Good bye” hugging for team-members and drive to home started!
The emotions from America are still overwhelming and I still have some difficulties with getting used to Estonian time. But, I am happy, what I got such an opportunity to travel so far and had a wonderful time during this trip within a very nice American people and our team.
Thank You and Welcome to Estonia!

In the District Conference

This is the last weekend and the culmination of the trip. Yesterday we attended the flag seremony, Finnish flag was carried by our Finnish exchange student. She reminded me of the saying "youth is wasted on the young", this amazingly beautiful girl was so annyed to see her own picture on the slides shown to the big audience in the room. How come it goes so that you are never satisfied with yourself, when you are young, you still feel insecure and then when you get older, you hope you would still have the enrgy you had when you were young. Energy is something I would need right now, the last days have been just trying to stay awake through the program and the blogwriting has suffered as well.

Yesterday night we spent with the team, and now we seem to realize that in a short time, we will not see these people, we have grown accustomed to spend our days with. Even though everybody is happy to get home to their families, we still want to enjoy these few days.

I hope people will write to this blog also after the trip to reflect the learnings, when we have had time to think about what we learned...

now have to run to our presentation

Good morning from Leyla as well

Denver really is a nice city, just the right size, not too big, but also plenty to see. We have met so many people, and funnily enough we have also run into our new friends in the city, and that is fun!
It seems that the schedule is loosening up a little towards the end, and I have to say it suits me at least. But, on the other hand, when we have more time, we also have more time to feel homesick and miss the people waiting for us at home. Everybody has been asking what are the biggest differences between our homecountries and U.S. Somehow everything is very similar but yet somehow different. The clothes people have, houses, cars they are basically the same but still you can recognize we're not home. hope someone else in our team can pinpoint it better.

Few peculiar differences:
-the sound of the highway when you're driving on it. We call it the American road sound. it seems that highways are made from pieces so you get this funny dudum sound when driving on it.
-the way to make a bed. I don't know have other's found it as difficult, but I feel I have to fight my way to bed every evening. The sheets are wrapped so tight, there bis many layers of blankets, and on the top the bed is covered half-way with pillows... So you have to dig the bed out first before you can find your way to the dreamland...

just to mention a few. we have to recommend the girls who are coming to Finland and Estonia to start a blog as well, maybe they can describe the differences better!

Saturday

Morning people!
It is Saturday and I thought to give a small briefing about what we have done since my last comment. Wednesday afternoon we went for Denver museum and Old Town tour. The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies was powerful… and a bit scary as well.
On Thursday morning we had a presentation on Denver club, which after we were branched off for vocational visits. Day ended with dinner in nice “country-club”.
Friday we were handed over to next club-members ( Westminster ). Tour with them started with Denver Botanic Garden visit. Fabulous place! Evening program was magnificent: our hosts, Leyla, Andris and I went to the theatre, while Juho and Raivo got dose of sport.
Today we will have lunch with outgoing team- cool! Afternoon program is in work…but the rumors about it are made me ( at least ) curious. That’s it in short terms.

It is one hell of a job to cache some internet in here with laptop. But today I succeeded to do what.
Yeahh...Lauri left us alone with snowstorm. Fortunately we had a very nice house for vacation days-so: perfect. It is a quite sad, what Lauri needed to leave so quickly, but c'est la vie...
Anyway: I want to let him do know, what we enjoyed his company a lot!
Not only the breath taking Rocky Mountain and magnificent program with fantastic host-familys will make the day unforgettable, but also the team-members with bright personalities! Keep going!

My last minutes - Lauri

Two weks have passed very fast with many interesting events and visits in Boulder, Broomfield, F.Morgan, Evergreen, Conifer and Keystone. All the days have been full of activities and no time for sleeping or shopping. The days usualy begin from 6-7 in the morgning consist at least two-three visits so for the evening we have been tired like after hard day in office. We have made a lot of new friends and have discovered that the people even this small area of Colorade differ very much from eachother. And the nature - just fantastic.
We have had great team with a lot of fun, singing, joking etc. and it is somewhat sad to leave them behind here in the middle of snow and forests. There are many things that I will not see, but I am very satisfied with all the days I have spent here and wish to all of my teamfriends that the following two weeks would be as intresting as the ones we had.

Lauri

Having a break

Today we got up to Keystone, there's still snow in here, but only some. This is the break with the team only, and the team seems to enjoy it!

We spent last few days in Evergreen/Conifer/Baily area, had excellent vocational days on Friday, and some free time yesterday. My wonderful hosts, Nancy and Jim, took me up to Estes Park, we stayed in a beautiful house and really did rest. And this morning I got to ride! In this altitude it is really hard work, I was exhausted after few minutes of trot. First I treid a western pleasure horse, she was a bit annoyed to me, I kept too close contact and couldn't stop, turn or make her go forward. Then I got up on a swedish horse, and felt like home!

Yesterday I got first pictures out from my computer and hopefully will be able to add some here.

In Fort Morgan

Now we are in Fort Morgan ,little town between fields. Here you cannot see the mountains anymore, but the view is flat, and currently dry. Yesterday we went to see where Pizza Hut cheese is made and then on the evening we had a reception, where boys finally found Fat Tire beer, and enjoyed it... We exampled Estonian and Finnish singing tradition. This morning we went to see the local airport, and now we are heading for a Rotary meeting.


It is +25C here so freeze in Finland! Well, next we are off to Mountains and I think it's then colder again.