For our last day in Joensuu, we began our day with breakfast at Greenstar and then headed over to the Finnish high school, at which students gave us a tour of the local high school. It was extremely interesting to compare and contrast their curriculum and school day with ours and talk to the Finnish kids who took us on our trip around the high school.
We then headed off to the Metla-talo, which is a building that has a buffet on the first floor and the tax department on the second, at which we enjoyed more Finnish cuisine. Right across from the Metla-talo was a research institute at which college students study. There, we got a virtual tour of the lab facilities and witnessed a femto laser micromachine, which is a machine that ionizes air particles.
Following the research facility tour, we packed our swimsuits and headed out to an EPIC challenge member’s house, which had many sauna rooms in it and was located near an ice lake. We enjoyed fresh meat and fish cooked by a self-started bonfire and then participated in a Finnish lifestyle tradition dubbed “ice saunas”, in which you jump into a lake with freezing cold water and then run to a sauna to warm up. We went back to the hotel to pack for our journey to Helsinki tomorrow. Good night!
