I guess the best word, which describes the last week is spontaneous random adventure :lol: . It started with a peaceful Monday morning in Sweden, but ended with less peaceful late nights somewhere in the Baltic Sea :oops:

Monday - Tuesday

My responsibilities at my old new job are becoming more significant and more varied so that on Monday and Tuesday I was appointed as the official paparazzi of the that mysterious company :cool: . The only thing remains to increase the salary for this risky and hazardous job :cool: . Monday and Tuesday were really busy, full of meetings, quarterly reports and so on. I guess the purpose of these meetings is to accentuate that the main reason for being successful is not because we have a strong and tall CEO :lol: , but actually it’s because of us, every employee who is making the company more successful day by day. To motivate us for better results and to perceive this successful first quarter, our manager reserved a small boat and invited us to go for a short-long trip to a nice and lost island.

After some traditional Absolut Swedish food:

we were ready for some tango moves :smile:

since it was a natural park, alcohol was forbidden and everybody respected this rull :roll:

even the exclusive RAMBO :lol: :

More pictures from this event - HERE

Wednesday

after the boat trip on Tuesday and not drinking any alcohol :cool: you may imagine how motivated I was to work :mad: . Life is Sweden is so spontaneous and unpredicted, that I am not surprised anymore.
This time Mr. Mallon called me:
Mallon: hey Ion, what are your plans for the next 2 hours?
Ion: 2 hours or 2 days :lol: ?
Mallon: how about to take the ferry and go to Finland?
Ion: ohhhh no, again alcohol :lol:

The thing is, that most of the exchange students from SSE went on Wednesday on a trip to Finland, Baltic countries and Russia. However few students cancelled the trip, so some free tickets were in the air :-) and without any modesty I took one and the opportunity to see the country of sailor men.

The cruise-ferry

The trip took around 15 hours and you got to see how younger people party together with senior citizens and also how they play the slot machines like they’re in Vegas.

Speaking about cruise-ferry it’s a new type of ship. The enormous demand for sea travel in the Baltic (approximately 15% growth in recent years) together with the ferocious competition between the existing lines has promoted the development of so called cruise-ferry. The English word “ferry” is used to designate a ship that allows passengers and vehicles to travel from one port to another. Ferry designers always try to increase the number of passengers and vehicles, and also improve the turnaround time (loading and unloading) and the crossing time. The factors previously mentioned (demand and competition) have made the atmosphere, the comforts and the leisure activities on board more and more necessary.

So, the ship itself has become a tourist destination as important as the two ports. This has allowed the operators to increase their revenues from passenger sales and services (duty free stores, foods, casinos, etc.). This represents up to 40% of the total revenue, allowing companies to lower, or at least maintain, present prices.

It is quite unlike anything I have seen before. Normally I tend to think that to be scenic an area must have significant undulation if not mountains. Here there are none. The islands are so low that a ship like the one we were on could be spotted even if there were two islands between us and it. It is the sheer number of islands and the immense sense of peace which give the voyage its character.

And now you may ask yourself, why 25 springs on 2 boats :!: :?: - yes you are right :smile: , somebody just turned 2,5 years and now has the official permission to buy alcohol without showing his birth certificate :lol: