Shout Out From Tampere, Finland

Less than 24 hours ago, I found myself traveling once again out of the country to attend this year's Global Health Course at the University of Tampere, Finland. I am one of four Filipino doctors who will be participating in this year's Global Health Course, a diploma course usually offered to countries such as Chile, Nepal, Tanzania and Finland and The Philippines of course. I left Bacolod at 10:35 in the morning of May 31. My wife and two kids brought me to the airport. The last time I left them for a month was when I went to the US to attend a leadership program at Northern Illinois University. The four of us: Doc Paul, Doc Gene, Doc Ryan and myself, left Manila at around 8 pm, heading to Helsinki via Hong Kong.

It was a 10-hour trip from Hong Kong to Helsinki. We arrived at Helsinki at around 6 a.m. (Helsinki Time) and boarded the bus to Tampere at around 8:15am. We arrived at Tampere around 11 am.

We were then brought to our apartment where each of us was given a room of our own. We were also given an internet account so that we could access the internet through wifi for free (thus my blogging today). I was able to leave messages to the family back in the Philippines, telling them that I have arrived safely.

After some hour of rest, the four of us decided to tour around the center of Tampere to basically look for some cheap grocers where we could buy our food and supplies. We walked to the center of Tampere, after passing by Valintatalo which is the nearest grocery in our apartment.

We had "lunch" at Hesburger and took a stroll around the area. We then brought our food and supplies at Sokus. We walked back to our apartment and arrived at around 6pm where we met some of the Tanzanians who will also be participating in the Global Health Course.

I look forward to the course hoping that I will be enriching myself both personally and professionally as a public health doctor. In fact, I still need to do some readings later and although I feel tired, I need to read some chapters required of us before sessions start tomorrow.

"Mieluinen jotta Suomi"