Home!

I came home last Saturday, but the week I spent at home let me rest pretty well. The way home was very stressful and I really needed to shed off all the feelings.

When we got to the ferry port in Turku, Finland, and passed the ticket booth, suddenly one of the workers walked up to our car and said that we didn’t have the car booked. Our trip to Finland had a family and car booked, but the return trip missed the car. I think pretty much everyone in the car went in to shock. How were we going to get home now? It was hot and sunny outside, the sea glistened and the ferry was coming in to port.

We had to turn over with the car and dad walked over to the ticket booth to talk. He paid the fee for the car, but as it usually goes with ferry trips… you are not guaranteed a place if you haven’t booked. So we had to anxiously wait for over one hour if we were allowed on board. It felt like several hours passed and I was about to sink in to the car in irritation and fear. Mom tried to comfort me but it felt very bad to be next to the fence with the car while others driving in to the ferry stared at you. We were already scheming plans for the worst possible outcome.

Our ideas:

1. Check in to some random hotel and try to book new tickets with our laptop. During the time we would stay in Finland I suggested humorously that we should go to Moomin World in Naantali, which wasn’t very far from Turku.

2. Go to the Viking Line Terminal and book tickets in Helsinki, which was about 200km away. (NO MORE DRIVING PLEASE OH GOSH NOO I’M DYING WAAA) This was the most probable solution, as dad checked with the laptop (with a blanket over his head because the sun glared on the screen) there were places left there for that day.

3. Book with Silja Line. Dad directly threw that idea through the window and on to the hard concrete. He didn’t like their site and how you did the bookings there, or something like that. Aesthetically I think that Silja Line looks a lot better on the inside than what Viking Line does… the only thing that bothered me was that Tax Free was considerably smaller in Silja Line. (== hardly any candy, which reminds me, I hardly bought any candy from the ferry this time)

4. Dad said that we should take the train somewhere and he would stay in Turku with the car and come whenever possible. Mom was immediately displeased with the idea.

5. Stay for another week in Finland. (NOOPLEASENOTTHISDON’TJOKEWITHME)

Well, our hearts calmed down when the same worker came walking back after we overheard that 14 cars hadn’t come yet and that the three cars (us included) that were waiting would fit. Dad immediately asked the worker if we were getting on, almost begging to which the worker replied “Not if you ask it that way.”. Dad grabbed his hands and shook them through the car window and thanked him.

However, I felt the wait to be very stressing, so next time I want to check that the car is really booked for our next trip.

On the ferry we discussed that my brother and me would be home when mom and dad go to Finland in fall. I thought everything was all right with that, but when we arrived home dad called grandma and had a huge fight with her and blamed her for not us wanting to come. I felt really bad listening…

I wrote a letter to my dad (not because I’m mute, but as I’m very bad at speaking out everything in my thought) explaining the circumstances and that it wasn’t grandma’s fault at all. There had been some great misunderstandings and in the letter I asked my dad to apologize to grandma, otherwise I wouldn’t forgive him for lying to her about mine and my brother’s opinions. He did so, called her with his cellphone in my room so that I could hear everything said. I was very proud of my dad and how he handled the conflict. Everything went excellently.

I think that if I wouldn’t have wrote that letter, I would have still felt very bad after hearing the quarrel and that dad and grandma would still be angry at each other. (Perhaps they are, but… I see it in part solved.)

I wrote too much, didn’t I?

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