Riga, Latvia
on March 2006
Sometime on January I got a wonderful idea: I still hadn`t took part
any show in Latvia so I just had to get there with Uno. Like I had
made an order the Show Calender "told" that Latvian Winner 2006
would be held on March 2006. As a result
Annemari, Saija, I and five dogs (Uno, Mauno - Jack Russel, Myytti -
Bullmastiff, Rulla - Welsh Corgi Pembroke and Eemi - same as ahead) headed
to Helsinki on friday 17th March at 6.00 AM to get a ferry to Tallinn,
Estonia. The start weren`t so promising: We left a
bit late from Kotka becouse few problems with the car and the packages and
unfortunately missed the ferry with less than 5 minutes.
Luckily we got the last car place from the next ferry and after few
hours waiting finally
were on our way to other side of the Suomenlahti. |
After 3 hours ferry trip and 4 hours driving (road wasn`t that good
all the way...) we finally arrived to
the Riga just to notice that we had only an idea where our hotel
would be located. We didn´t have a proper map so as a optimistic girls we at first
tried to found the hotel by surfing around the streets on the part of the
city we thought the hotel to be. As you can imagine it didn`t
succeed very well... When I finally had give up and bought a proper
map we found the hotel quite easily.
In order to make the rest of the weekend not so easy Myytti -
bullmastiff "decided" to get herself a urinary infection. Those who
know how girls smells (in males mind) when they have an infection propably
can imagine that life with Uno wasn`t very easy and nice after that.
We had booked one big hotelroom for all of us but after one night
whining and walking back and forth in front of Myyttis cage I
marched to the reception and booked own room for Uno and me.
On saturday we spend our day on the Latvian Winner Show with very
nice results (you can check them from "Updates" page). The show day
started with "nice" surprise... Becouse we couldn`t take all of the
dogs inside on same time so we had to leave Eemi and Rulla to the
car for about 5 minutes. When we came back we noticed that Eemi had
decided that canvas cage won`t stop her so she had litterally eated
her self through the brand new cage. You can imagine Saija was glad...
After the show we did some shopping in Riga and headed back to the
hotel. Despite of tired feeling we managed to take a little bit
sparkling wine for the days winners. Luckily the next show day went without
any bigger problems or un-wanted surprises (and to mention - with
very nice results).
After the show we started our home trip. We spend the next night in
nice and quiet hotel in Pärnu (I think we were the only guest in the
whole hotel) and early in the morning drove to Tallinn to catch the
ferry (on time). Also the ferry trip to Helsinki went nice if you
don`t count that I had succeed to leave the light inside the car on
so our battery was totally empty when we should have been droven out
from the car deck. Luckily few nice guys helped us a little and we
got out from the ferry. The guys didn`t say it loud but all the time
I could imagine what they thought about ladies on wheels...
I have noticed one thing when travelling around with Uno: a trip
is not the trip with at least one or two misadventures during the trip!
Thank you Saija and Annemari again for a lovely companion in Riga. I
surely had a nice time.
|
|
Uno and Myytti on their very
own bed |
Tarto,
Estonia on November 2005
Once again I had a good idea: We should definitely take a short
high-cultural weekend trip to old university city, Tarto (in
Estonia). It didn`t take so much to confirm my grazy friends - Saija
and Annemari - that their dogs also should be shown abroad in
November. After little arrangement at work and in personal life we
(= five dogs and three girls) were on our way to Tallinn, Estonia.
The ferry trip in the beginning of November brought to mind a roller
coaster... The wind and the sea was cruel and our ferry arrived to
Tallinn a bit late.
In Tallinn we walked the dogs a little bit and did a "little"
shopping. Car trip to Tarto was interesting. We left Tallinn on 5:00
PM and already then it was dark as hell outside the city. It started
to rain and I felt that wet asphalt sucked all the light coming from
our headlights.
|
After four hours (it`s only
+150 kilometres from Tallinn to Tarto but the weather and the road was
awful) hard-core driving we finally arrived to Tarto. We started to
search our hostel with my improper map but as a great orienteerers
found it surprisingly quickly. The hostel was a nice surprise! Very
clean and nicely repaired old brewery building. Our room was big and
very cosy. The dogs were relieved after long travelling and first
few hours in the hostel room played like little puppies. Tired or
not - we headed to the city to get some late dinner and few beers...
On saturday Saijas dogs competed on Tarto International Show. Saija
had a little difficulties to be in two places on same time (both of
her breeds was scheduled to shown at same time) but she managed
quite nice with her "little helpers" (Annemari and I) running back
and forth between the two rings. As a result from first day we got
one new Estonian Champion as Myytti (Bullmastiff Bullcastle`s Lady
Jane) was chosen as Best Of Opposite Sex. With a good reason we
spend the evening partying Myyttis new title in nice Italian
restaurant with my "Ridgie friends" Anna, Johanna and Mikko. They
had also came to Tarto to participate the show on next day.
On sunday it was Unos and Maunos turn to conquer the rings. Under
the same judge both of the boys got very close to winning place:
their result was BM-2 with res-CACIB. Orange was the color of our
day. I wished the winners (from kennel Bawabu, FI) good luck for the
finals and with good spirit we started our trip home. Car trip was
once again very long and very dark. After few near misses we finally
arrived to Tallinn just to notice that our ferry would be more than
an hour late becouse of the wind. We spend the extra time on the
harbour and build up a brainstorm for puppy names...
The car trip from Helsinki to Kotka was one of the hardest I´ve ever
had. The ferry arrived to Helsinki around 02.00 AM and already
then we had been awake almoust 19 hours. Annemari and Saija did
their best to help me not to fall asleep while I was driving. We had
to do few refreshing stops on our way but after all managed to
Kotka. I (and also Uno who doesn`t ever sleep in the car) really
didn`t need to think what to do when I got home.
This was the very first trip (for me) that nothing bigger unexpected
happened during the trip. I quess it was due the good company. Thank
you Saija and Annemari! This was our first trip abroad together but
I´m sure it wasn`t the last. |
Sandviken &
Öland, Sweden on September 2005
On our last show in Sweden Unos champion CAC was twice so close that
it kept bothering me. I deciced that I would try to get it one more
time... Swedish show calendar showed me an opportunity to take two
shows on same weekend (if I only would be crazy enough to drive
about 650 kilometres between the showplaces...) I was pleased to get
Unos breeder Sanna (and Uno was pleased to get her sister Alma with
him) to take the trip with me.
We left from Turku early on friday morning and spend a nice day on a
ferry. In the evening we arrived to Stockholm and started a car trip
to Sandviken. On our the way to Sandviken we got a good idea to walk
the dogs a little bit and drove off the highway somewhere around
Uppsala. After half an hour
running on the field we were about to hit the road again, but our
van (MB Vito) wouldn't start! There were no prior problems so we
were both very surprised. After many many starting tries and few bad
words we made a phone call to Finland. Luckily we got the right guy
on line and finally some "MB guy" started to take care of our
problem from Finland. After several calls and few hours waiting a tow
truck finally arrived and took us to local MB garage. Very soon we
noticed that wasn't easy to get the car fixed as even taxi picked up
some very expensive part from Stockholm. We stayed at garage till 5:00 AM and then
finally were ready to hit the road. I drove us to Sandviken and we
decided to sleep for 2 hours at gas stations parking place.
In the morning we were ready to go to the show, but our dear friend
Vito wouldn't start again... I made some calls to MB service and
Sanna called to our friend who kindly came to pick us up. We had to
leave the car to the gas station. Ridgebacks had already started
when we arrived to the show place... I almoust run straightly to ring with
Uno.
For a nice surprise Uno placed BM-4 and got the needed CAC. So after
all the troubles and sleepless night we finally got something nice
from this trip.
After the show we got a drive from Anu and Ain (Lottas "mum and dad") to the gas station
and heard that Vito had to be taken to MB garage in Gävle. Tow truck
arrived and we followed it. We spent all day there and in the
evening heard that it coulnd't be fixed during the weekend. Luckily
we got a rental van in the evening. At 8 pm we were ready on our way
Öland (about 650 km to the show). On the way we slept for 4 hours
and had tough time in the morning to make it to the show. Trip was
longer than we thought. But we were at show place 10 minutes before
our ring started!
After show I had to do some serious driving when driving back to
Stockholm. We made in time and returned rental van. We drove to the
ferry in Anu and Ain's car (pedestrians are not allowed to this
ferry). Finally at the ferry we were able to relax and laugh hard...
And celebrate Unos new prestigous S & Nord CH title. Vito arrived
to Finland next week. There was only one little part broken...
Thank you Sanna for nice company during the trip. Also big thanks to
Anu and Ain for prestigous help. This trip was maybe the hardest
I`ve ever had but after all I got many many new experiments (nice
and not so nice). At least I learned to respect the 8 hours sleep,
working cars and warm, soft bed even more... |
|
In Hillerod Danmark June 2005
My friend Anna (=Fridas "mother") and I decided to take a little weekend trip to
Danmark to take one International show in Hillerod (actually I was
the one convincing Anna to take the trip with me). As a systematic
girls we had detailed plans where to be and when (friday evening
6.00 PM in Helsingborg, 18.20 in Helsingör...) but as a result of
suprises after suprises our trip was totally different than we
thought.
About 20 km from Stockholm we stopped to get some diesel to our Van.
When we where about to leave the gas station some odd finnish guys
asked us to stop. After little discuss cleared up that they were
about to go to VW Beetle festival to Mantorp and needed some power
to their ´59 Beetle. Well - as a Beetle person myself (I have ´72
Beetle at home) I just couldn`t help myself for helping the guys.
And why shouldn`t I? |
Uno and Frida ready for
weekend trip |
After loading their battery
guys (btw - from Oulu and Kajaani) were so pleased for our help that
they definitely wanted to offer us a breakfast. That suited us well.
I don`t exactly know what happened but somehow we ended up to spend
almoust the whole day with those funny and nice guys. We were not in
a hurry so all together we started to search a Biltema to buy a new
"ladare" to their Beetle. And becouse their "ladare" was broken we
needed to drive behind them in case there would be problems with the
Beetle. Luckily Mantorp was on our way... The guys tried really hard
to change our minds and get us to Beetle festival with them but we
didn`t wanted to miss the show.
Finally we said goodbye to guys and started a real roadtrip to
Helsingborg. After few hours driving we arrived to the city and
found the harbour quite easily. 20 minutes ferry trip and we were in
Denmark. Nobody on the board wanted to see any papers of the dogs.
We drove 25 kms to Hilleröd (which we btw also found easily) and
booked to our hostel. The hostel was located near some huge park
which we understood to belong to the summer house of Royal Family.
In the evening we had a little walk with the dogs in the park and
found the park even bigger and more beautiful we thought. As a "sack
lunch" we had a bottle of wine and few beers so the walk somehow got
longer and longer. One of the things stayed my mind was that there
were HUGE black and red snails everywhere in the park. First we
thought there where a lot of odd colored dog poop everywhere but
then realized it was something else...
On saturday we we fresh and ready to take the show. There was +30
ridgeback entered and they all looked very nice. Before the ring I
was totally ready to get back home without showing Uno at all. As a
nice suprise the judge picked Uno 1st with CQ of 10 open class males
and finally as 2nd best male. Our luck was that the winner was Multi
Ch, Multi W Kinyemi Anzi A´Fora so the needed CAC and CACIB ended up
to us. Frida didn`t had as good luck as we did and she placed as 3rd
best bitch. The CAC went to 2nd.... So close. Well at least we had
something to bring home.
On our home trip we decided after all to stop off in Mantorp (after
several "please" - calls from the guys we helped in Stockholm). We
had to get to the ferry on 8.00 AM so we had all night time to drive.
We arrived to Mantorp about 9.00 PM. The guys had cooked us a
wonderful barbecue dinner (thank you for that) so we felt a little
bit spoiled after about four hundred kilometres driving. We had made
a deal with Anna that the one who´s dog did better in the show
didn`t need to drive to Stockholm. So I was the lucky one. We stayed
up the whole night (well - to tell you the truth I took a little nap
in some point) drinking a little bit beer and wine (Anna had to
contend with Jaffa) in a very good company and early in the morning
again (and this time the last time) said goodbye to our new friends.
Anna had to do some very serious tasks to keep her self waken during
the final hundred kilometres to Stockholm. But we made there and
after being about 26 hours wake you can imagine the nice, soft bed
in the ferry feeled good...
Thank you Anna for a lovely companion during the trip. I can`t
remember having so much fun for a long time. Thank you finnish guys
for a fun, food and beer. Thank you kind judge for giving Uno a CAC
and thank you Danmark for being such a lovely country. I will
definetly come back some day - what do you say Anna, there´s a show
in Hilleröd every year...? |
|
|
|
|
