I received this from a guy I'm helping sometime with Tech. Support. He is from Finland but working in Wisconsin.
He is a good friend of rally driver Mikko Hirvonen. He even build a car for him here a few year back a 57 Chevy with a 454ci.
Mikko is driving this in Finland will try to post a pic of it. Anyhow here what Mikko send out.
> Subject: Christam story
> Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2010 10:30:07 -0800
>
> Hi everybody
>
> I thought i try to cheer up your day..
>
> i know this maby a bit sad, but i came up with a story about my trip TO
> China. I´m not the best writer, at least not in english, but i´m sure
> you understand the most of it..
>
> I hope it makes you laugh, that was the only meaning anyway. i would
> say, i had quit a colourfull trip from portugal test to China.
>
> In attachments is a story about it.
>
> Merry Christmas to everybody
>
> R: Mikko
> --
> Mikko Hirvonen
Christmas story
Now when December has just about started and everybody are getting exited about Christmas and waiting the holidays and time to meet friends and families, I thought I tell you a small story how my December has started.
I Love, what I do, so this story is only meant to make you laugh. This also gives you a small idea what else I have to do when being a rally driver. I just had to write about this. I don´t always laugh when things go wrong, but sometimes it can give you the best laugh as well. And for me, the last few days have gone completely wrong, like the whole year maybe, but at least I can still laugh about it….
People sometimes come to me and say what a glamoures life it has to be when being a rally driver. Well, yes sometimes it can be. I mean, I had my few lucky times to fly with private yet, and had a change to go with a helicopter from Monaco straight to a test site up on the mountains. Even got to fly helicopter ones from Spain to Corsica. But those times are rear. But in a way, that is the beauty of doing what I do. I really don´t need that glamour, but I´ve being lucky enough to get in to a position where I have had a change to experience all that and can now say that I´ve done it.
But for sure there is other side of the story as well, which hapens lot more often but gives you a good laugh. One place was in UK, just before rally of Wales this year, where my hotel room was so windy that the curtains where really moving when the wind was blowing to the window. The heating didn´t work properly so it was so cold that when I worked my e-mails and all, I had to have my back against the battery and work on the floor to feel warm.. And the shower. Well, there was more water coming down outside than it was my in my bathroom. So I was borrowing Jarmos shower instead.. That´s what Hotel life can be..
Anyway, I said I tell you how my December has started so let´s get in to it.
Ofcourse, end of the year is always really busy time in Rallying. Specially now when the rules are changing and new cars are coming, so everybody are really busy with testing and normally there is quit a lot of Pr stuff to do before the Christmas as well. I started my December with a test in Portugal. Two days before we where suppose to leave though, my co-driver Jarmo gave me a call and said he can´t go. He has never mist a test or a rally so it was a bit of a surprise what was going on. Since our big crash in Finland he has had a bit of a pain in his shoulder, but always thought that with time it´s going to be fine. So he did all the remaining rallies with a sore shoulder and taking pain killers if needed. After the season he finally got all the scans takeing and got news that it needs to have an operation to get it fixed. Okay, timing was good. At least now he has time to heal it before season starts again, but I needed a co-driver, quickly, to the test.
Scott Martin, Matthew Wilsons co-driver was free and everybody knows him well in the team and wise verse, so luckily he was willing to do test. Anyway, we are driving the same road up and down all day so notes are not so important. You get to know the road, but for sure notes do help and it´s good to have a guy in the car who is used to be in a car, can read pace notes, take times and write all the notes down in a car when we are doing changes to it. So we needed the notes, but obviously Scott can´t speak Finnish so I needed to do notes in English. That wasn´t easy but looks like I have being playing Colin McRae rally enough to be able to make some kind of notes and Scott did give some good tips as well what we could use. Looks like playing those games helps you to come rally driver after all . First runs where quit exiting, but in the end it worked pretty well and Scott being very good co-driver, helped a lot and the whole test went really well.
So that part of the December went well, but the travelling is a whole new story… First of all, going anywhere thru Paris airport normally ends up in disaster. U either miss your flight or loose your luggage. This time though, I thought, that just in case, I take my overalls with me in hand luggage. I didn´t loose my luggage but sure enough my flight from Paris left 40 min late and I missed my flight in Lisbon…Like I said, It´s bloody Paris… Every time. Okay, not really a big drama. There was another flight from Lisbon to Faro but only after six hours of waiting. Easier and faster to get a rental car and drive down there then. So after few buss rides back and forward from terminal to terminal to find out about my flight and hunting down my luggage, I finally got a rental car, all my luggage and got on to the road and drove to Faro. About 250km.. All good so far.
And one thing, I have always being a bit old fashion and always being using real maps rather than GPS. I just bought GPS and right away had to put it on the real use.. First test, Lisbon to Faro went okay..
So, as I told earlier the test went well and it was time to go home. I hate early mornings but as normal, I needed to be at Faro airport five in the morning. Luckily I could still have my homecoming flight from Faro, so I didn´t need to drive all the way back to Lisbon. Checked in, but could only get boarding pass to Lisbon. That´s okay, I thought. Just get the rest of the trip sorted over there. Got into a plain, had a bit of a nap and got to Lisbon. All in time. Went straight to the gate, because it was a quit tight change but no hurry anyway. Said to the girl on the desk that I needed to have a boarding pass. She said “ we don´t have it here”. I thought, well obviously not, but normally they can make you one right at the gate. “Ehmm, yes I think we maybe are able to make you one. Do you have your luggage tag?”. Oh shit. Went thru all my pockets and everything,…….But it was gone. Had no idea where I lost it. Dam, I thought. This might be complicated. She started to go thru my name and where I´m suppose to go and all that, because luggage was checked all the way to Helsinki anyway, so maybe they could find out, which one was mine. They found my luggage, but they system just didn´t recognize it… So finally they just wrote, after being a bit frustrated, a number on a plain paper and said “ that´s your luggage tag number. You get your luggage in Helsinki.” Okay, thank you. How about my boarding pass?? Oh dear. Same thing. They just wrote me a plain paper again, with flight number on it and asked do I prefer window or aile seat. Window please. And she just wrote my seat number on the paper as well. She couldn´t give me a boarding pass from Amsterdam to Helsinki though. But she was kind enough to write me another plain paper which said from where I was coming from and where I tried to get. Fair enough. Got to the plain, which took of on time and fell a sleep straight away..
“Ladies and gentleman. We are just about to land in Amsterdam.” That was the next thing I heard. I can sleep on the planes, I can tell you that . Touch down on time so it was all looking good. But as you all know, it´s been pretty cold start for the winter and it´s colder in Europe than normally. And more snow as well. So, Amsterdam airport was complete mess. But still, I don´t really get it. It can be -30 in Finland and half a meter of snow, and still everything works. Ok, I know they are not prepared on conditions like that, but it wasn´t even close, like what it can be in Finland. It was minus five and just enough snow that you could tell that the ground was white. And it´s all mess. They couldn´t get the planes of the tubes because it was too slippy and they said planes and luggage cars where skidding all over the place, so there was a bit of a traffic jam on the airport. It took us one hour to get from the runway to the gate…. So, that was now my first hour I waited in the plane. I had only one hour change, so obviously thought, I´m gonna miss my connection flight to Helsinki. Luckily, because off all the traffic, that flight was two hours late. I had still plenty of time to make it on time. I walked to the transfer desk to get a boarding pass on that flight, with my hand written plain papers. Said to the girl, that I might have a small challenge for you. But to my surprise, she had a look at the papers, typed my name and luggage tag number into system and said “ it´s no problem at all. Here is your tickets and your luggage is going to Helsinki as well”. Well this is good. I needed to get to Finland to change my luggage, because next day I was going to a Pr trip to China. But it was all looking good now..
It was time to go. Plane was boarding. Everybody got in. I sat in my seat and thought I take a small nap. Again .. I heard the Captain saying that it will take 15 to 20 minutes to find a new slot for the take off, but with all the hassle on the airport, I wasn´t surprised. Closed my eyes and tried to sleep. I did hear some announcement while I tried to sleep but didn´t pay too much attention about it.. Then, I suddenly woke up. Checked my watch and I had been sleeping about two hours. And we were still in Amsterdam airport???? What the hell?? Looked like it was pretty dam hard to find this slot after all. Same story continued for one more hour. And that was a long hour to sit in the plane. At the gate, when it would have been much nicer to sit inside the airport. But, the best part came, when sitting in the plane now for three hours, the captain said. “ unfortunately, our crews legal duty hours are running out, so by this point, we have to cancel this flight “. No way this can be true. This can´t be happening.
Sure enough, it was. Oh man. I really needed to get to Finland… But what could I do. After the first blow though, I was more laughing about my luck than cursing it. After all, it´s been a bad year so what could I expect. So, took my stuff and got out of the plane into a big question mark, that what next. All most all the flights on the board seem to be cancelled and while we were stuck three hours on the plane, everybody else, which seemed like half a million people, were already waiting they turns to find out, what they are going to do next. The cues were massive. It would take hours before I could find out which flight I could take to Finland. I knew Georgina, who takes care of all my Pr stuff, was flying to China one day earlier, so I gave a emergency call to her to explain what´s going on. It did not look good. I hate cueing. I tried to find all the possible ways to find some answers without cueing, but wasn´t too lucky with that… Then I thought. I can´t just wait here, because that could take the whole night. I know people.. People, who have used private planes. I wonder if someone could help me with that. So, started to make phone calls and luckily people were helpful and I found out, that it would be possible. Fantastic.. What a way to fly home from this mess.
Mean while, Georgina had found out, that all the flights to Helsinki, even from next morning, were cancelled as well. That´s it. I needed to get out of Amsterdam. And private yet would be awesome way to do it… But there was one little issue with that. It would cost 13000 € to take that flight. Ouuts… I mean, I know it´s expencive, and even more when you have to fly that plane from somewhere else and pay all the airport landing fees and all that, but 13000€.. I wasn´t that desperate. I had to thank my friends for the help. To find out, would it be possible and they were willing to send the plane as well, so thank you. But I had to turn it down. And maybe to my luck, Georgina also found out that there is a flight from Dusseldorf to Helsinki next morning and there is a room as well…. Fine.. Book it. That would be about 220 km drive again. Travelling opens your eyes, as they say.
So, we agreed with Georgina, who was just getting into a plane and flying to China, that she books the flight. Books me a hotel room in Dusseldorf airport and I go and get a rental car to drive down there. But, I would need to get my luggage as well. I needed to get back to the other side, because when trying to figure out what to do, I got out off the airport and went thru all the ticketing offices to see if they would be less cues. No luck with that. Obviously. I got back thru the security, back to the baggage arrival hall and noticed, that I really wasn´t the only one trying to get my luggages back.. Jeesussss. The amount of people over there. That point I gave up. I just left it. Thought, that I don´t necessary need it now. I deal with it later. Plus, I still only had that handwritten note about it so it might be too complicated. So if some off you people who read this, travel somewhere in Europe and see a lonely blue bag with Ford oval in it. Take it, it´s probably mine ..
Now I needed to rush to car rental offices. Any office, any car would do if I just could get going. It was surprisingly quite over there….. And I soon found out why.. While, again, being stuck in the plane for three hours, the rush hour had pashed. Many people had a same idea, again, to get a car and just get the hell out off Amsterdam. Asking from Europecar. No. Sorry, no cars left. Avis. No. Sixht. No. But finally, good old Hertz. And yes. “We have two cars left.” I´ll take it, I´ll take it… “They are small cars and have no winter tires on them.” That´s okeyyyyyyy. just give me the car. I was happy. “ Which one would you like to take. We have three cylinder Daihatsu…” I was laughing already. “… or a pink Fiat 500????...” Yes. I´m not joking. I mean. I couldn´t believe it first, but yes. Hertz in Amsterdam airport, had a pink Fiat 500. Seeing me laughing the girl said. “ Okay, looks that I don´t even have to ask.” She had a good cense of humour, so she was having a laugh about it as well. But, it got better. Just when she got all the paper work done, a very smart looking business man came in with a black tie on and suitcase and all that and asked. “Do you have any cars left.” “ We have one left.” said the girl. Guess which car it was going to be . I couldn´t help laughing. The girl never said at the desk to the man about the colour. We left from the office about the same time and when we got to the cars, I could see that pink Fiat from far away. My three cylinder Daihatsu wasn´t far away either and when I got to my car and he got to his Fiat, I had to shout to the man. “ I like your style.” And the guy just started laughing. He could laugh about his bad luck as well .
Now the time was about 20.30 and I had about 220km to go. I could only hope, the motorways were not completely blocked because of the snow. I took my new GPS, which was proving to be very handy after all, and typed Dusseldorf airport in it. I´m sure with that I could find the Sheraton hotel as well, which Georgina booked just before she got on the plane. So I got on the road, laughing along the way how my private yet flight had just changed into a drive from Holland to Germany in my three cylinder Daihatsu . It sounded like driving something whit V-6 in it and those 155” wide summer tires were slippy enough on the slush and ice to make the driving interesting..
When I got to the motorway, it wasn´t too bad. They had used salt enough to get rid of all the ice and there was no bad traffic either. Only problem was, that it was still -5, and in northern Europe they just use water for the windscreen wash. Of course, the water was frozen. And driving along the other traffic made the windscreen so shitty, that it was really hard to see where I was going. Of course stopping to the fuel station was out of the question. I just wanted to be moving. So I ended up chasing all the other cars. Getting right behind them and hoping they where washing they screens and hoping I could catch some of the water on my screen.. It worked . You can actually chase someone with three cylinder Daihatsu . It was a bit like playing some game again. Chasing cars, but at least, there was no need to stop now. I was a bit nervous though. Normally, I always had a map to have rough idea which way to go. Now, I didin´t and when GPS said few times “re calculating”, I was getting worried. By now, I already had driving 200km and there was still no sign of Dusseldorf. Hmmmm… Finally I got to German border. I thought I´d been in Germany for a long time, but anyway, I felt better right away. And not long after that, there was a sign to Dusseldorf.
I was nearly there. Following now sings to Airport and getting closer and closer. But when GPS said “you have reached your destination” it did look awfully quit to be the right place. Yes, there was a parking area, runway, wear houses. But absolutely nobody, anywhere.. Shit…. Where am I?? Quickly found out, that I can´t use the GPS properly. I got to the airport, but this one was some kind of airport for cargo and some domestic flights. The international airport was 30km away…….Oh for f…..k sake..Well okay. At least it wasn´t more than that.
GPS got me to the right place in the end. It seemed to be working pretty well. But even more worth it´s money was multiple car charger, which works on basically everything. From iphone, to computer and GPS. And all that, at the same time. I´m always going somewhere so never remember to charge my phone. This time, this small thing, saved my day. If I had no phone either, all this would have been a lot more complicated and no one would have known where I was. But that´s not my point. More interesting thing is, where did I get this fantastic multiple car charger. Well, I bought that from the fuel station in England, following week after rally GP. We were looong time at the fuel station, because I managed to fill our Diesel car full with Petrol. Yes…. . How that happened is another long story, but without that incident, I would´t have this charger now, which made my life a lot easier in Germany.
Okay. After going to the wrong airport, I finally found my way to the International airport in Dusseldorf. And there was the Sheraton hotel with it´s bed, just waiting for me to go to bed and get some proper sleep. I refilled my car, took it back to Herz, and walked to the Hotel. If you being reading all, I´m sure you can guess what happened next.????? Exactly. For some reason, there was no reservation in the hotel and it was fully booked. This time I was in the right place as well.. Time was now about 23.30. After messing around in the hotel for a while, all I could do was to tell them to call in some other hotel and book a room for me. And they did. And they used my credit card for confirmation as well… Walked back to the airport and found a taxi which took me to city centre. We found the Hotel eventually. I walked in to the desk. Gave my passport and said I just called for reservation about 20 min ago…. The guy didn´t find anything… I could not believe it… I wonder where my credit card number went then, because it sure as hell wasn´t confirming anything here. I all most lost it, but then suddenly, the guy found my reservation. Thank god. Around 1 am, I finally closed my eyes and tried to sleep my bad luck away.
The next morning, everything worked just fine. Flight was on time. I got to Helsinki. And because I could charge my phone with my new charger, I was able to call my dad while driving to Germany and asked him to bring some clothes for me to the airport. I had five hours to kill. It wasn´t even close to be enough to get home my self and sort out my packing. But dad was on the case and coming to bring me some clothes to my trip to China. While waiting, I went to the shopping center close by and bought some stuff I lost with my luggages. That was, normal phone charger, shawer, shampoo, deodorant and things like that. You might not believe, but when coming back to the airport with a taxi, I got a message from my travel agency, that my lost luggage should have arrived to Helsinki half an hour ago….. smile on face, I thought.. Well I now I have two off everything.. I found my bag. My dad came. Brought me another bag. We had a quick coffee, because I was rushing into a Sauna at the airport, which I booked earlier.. Yes… We have Saunas even at the airports in Finland. Only thing, when I was rushing to the Sauna, I didn´t remember to give the extra back to my dad.. What ever. For three days trip to China I would have a bit too much stuff, dirty stuff, with me. But at least I was now back on the schedule, fresh from the Sauna end ready to go again.
By this point, I thought I could finish my story and just whish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy new year.. It´s been a long story, but little did I know, that it was going to be even longer from here on. You might think that everything has gone wrong already, but believe it or not. There was more to come…..
After spending five hours at the Helsinki airport, I was a bit tired of travelling, but ready to go anyway. Flight was boarding on time. Like I mentioned, in Finland, everything works… Well, almost. We took half an hour late because all the preparation against the cold whether. But I had plenty of time in Copenhagen. All went fine. Landed on time, but it was a long taxi drive to our gate. It started to be I bit tight and Copenhagen being a very long airport, you can believe that my gate was in the other end… Where else… Had to speed walk.. Because we have decided with Jarmo, that no matter what, we are not going to run in the airport. If we miss it, then so be it.. This time I made it. Just, but made it anyway.
I saddled in to and like normal rushed thru onboard entertainment mag, to see what movies are on. Captain announced that we´ll take of in few minutes… Great.. Let´s get on it… We taxied to the start of the runway and as normal, Captain tested the engines a bit. But I have being enough in planes, to notice that everything wasn´t right this time. Everything sounded fine, but just the amount of time he tried them, didn´t feel right….. And yes. How right was I.. “Ladies and Gentleman, we have a small problem with engine number two, so we have to ask our technician to come over and have a look at it….
I didn´t know what to do… Laugh or cry . I have to be Ironic now. Ofcourse they couldn´t fix it. So we taxied back to the gate and Captain said they have to have a better look at it, but when everything is okay, we will carry on. Thank you for your patience…
3 hours later, they finally said we are ready to go and as soon as we find a new slot we start our flight.. Yeah Yeah, I know the drill. Finding a new slot can be pretty dam hard.. And as you know by know, we spend all that three hours in the plane.. So, when I earlier in the story mentioned when I waited the first hour in the plane, I was now up to seven.. Standing still, next to the terminal. What a way of spending December. Eventually, Captain got a new slot. Taxied to the runway again and got ready to take off… And. Did the engine number two start this time??????? Ofcourse it didn´t.. I mean, if I had any luck, it would have. But in the last 24 hours it just looked that luck didn´t exist. Taxied back to the gate again. Technicians running around the plane thinking what to do. Not long after that that, as expected, Captain announced that the flight was cancelled. Two nights. Two flights cancelled for me. Man… I´m on fire. It was obvious, that I´m gonna be well late from this China pr then. If I could make it at all. And dear Georgina was there already. .
Once again. Took my stuff from the plane. But this time at least, SAS was well on the case with giving information what´s gonna happen next. They arrange a hotel for everybody and a buss drive to it. Time was about 23.00 and the flight was scheduled to go again at 13.00 next day. I would be almost one full day late. And I wasn´t going to stay in Beijing where the flight was going. Ofcourse, I had a connection flight to Guangzhuo, which I definitely was going to miss.
I was struggling to see the funny side of the story by now.. Can you blame me.
Okay. Getting mad or shouting about it is not gonna make things any better so I just took my luggages and went outside to wait for more information. I was on the phone to Georgina as well to ask if there really was any point for me even come to China. I was coming only for two days anyway, so could I just turn around and go home.. No. People in China had done a lot for this, so I had to go.
It´s funny to see people in the sitiuation like this. Everybody running like headless chickens all over the airport. You could tell some off the people where not quit as patienced as me. And there was lot´s of them. Again. When all those people started cueing for those busses, it would take a long time. Specially, when there was only one buss.. Jeeeeeesus it took a long time with that one buss to drive back and forward to the hotel and back to the airport. In the end we got taxi vouchers as well, but it didn´t feel to be much for a help. And after that. You can imagine what kind of a mess it´s in the hotel, when all the people from the Boeing run the reception at the same time….
At 4am, I got my room and got in the bed…
It´s been a helluwa long trip so far. And I´m not even there yet. Miracles do happen though and the rest of the travelling went fine. I was fed up, but I was finally in China. Ofcourse one small thing still happened. Beijing is very big and busy airport. When going to the passport control there was very long lines. Slowly got forward, step by step, and when it finally was my turn, the toll guy got a problem into his machine. He calmly stand up, put a sing on the desk “system failure, please wait”, and walked away. There I was, passport in my hand, almost in China… I got to the point again where I couldn´t believe it. I was laughing. Even the smallest things are going wrong. All together, I was in the passport control for one hour. I did get in to the country in the end got the a connection flight, which suddenly left one hour earlier than I thought, so had to rush in that one but made.
Georgina couldn´t believe her eyes when I got to the hotel.. Are you really here she was laughing. She didn´t believe I had been so unlucky but her mind changed when she helped me to get my luggage into my room… We got upstairs and my room key didn´t work…………
It is quit unbelievable, but for word to word, that´s how my December started. Thank God there is only three and a half weeks left of this year, so there isn´t too many things which can go wrong..
Allthoug, I´m still in China…..
Merry Christmas and Happy new Year to everybody
R: Mikko
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