Part Two Point One: Operation Arctica Snowstorm - The hours before the DVD-Shooting

So time for the second part about "Operation Arctica Snowstorm".

Friday, April 15th 2011

Woke up 7:30AM, heard the quietly noise of a notebook-keyboard. In the first moment i thought what for a strange dream, looked to my right side. It was no dream, Patrick laid on this bed and had been surfing in the internet since he woke up. For this I have just one description: Internet-Junkie.

It had been noticing the first time since our arrival in Finland that we are in far far away from home, that today is the day. The day of the DVD Shooting.

So I rubbed the sleep out my eyes, walked to the bathroom for taking a shower. Wide awake, fit, full of vim and vigor - LUDI INCIPIANT.
 Time for a small breakfast, because we had been buying the day before cereals + milk, I decided to take my breakfast today at the desk in front of my notebook. Checked mails and myspace, so I also vistited the myspace page of  Tony Kakko . Hooray!

A new status: "The outside Finland part of Europe rocked! Loved it! Thank you all for showing up! Finnish leg on it's way, already done few shows, but been too lazy ass to write anything before today. :P Preparing for a practice round of tomorrow's huge DVD shoot in Oulu, Finland! The stage looks awesome! Pyro's and lights are set and there's A LOT of them, acoustic guitars have new strings etc etc. It's gonna be big! Be there or miss something memorable. ;)"

We will be there and don´t miss something  memorable. We traveled more then 2000km just for this gig, to be part of this amazing event.

Round about 9AM we left our hotelroom, because we had to buy  traintickets for our trip at the next day to Kemi, Tornio + Sweden. It was so easy to find the railroadstation just straight ahead the street.  After this item of our agenda, it was time for sightseeing, townhall, cathedral, harbour, the nice parks in Oulu, the castle...

At  1:30PM we was back in the hotel, time to relax a shorte while, check mails,  for skype..."what have I done" . We ran more when 4 hours trough  Oulu, yesterday the same and tonight is the concert of the year. I´m feel a little bit tired, but show must go on. 2hours later we decided thats time to have lunch, so we packed our stuff for the concert his night. The 2nd DVD Shooting from SONATA ARCTICA - unbelievable we are here in Finland, we will be part of this show. Next stop McD in the pedestrian area of Oulu. Again fastfood, urgh! After a McD menu we went to the Club Teatria at the southend of Oulu. When we reached the Club there was a few hardcore fans which stayes over night in front of the club or stand more or were there since wee hours. Amazing, awesome.

So we stand  now beetween so many hardliners, the most of the fans was from Finland, but in crowd was  hiding a few other nations - France, UK, Holland. After a while we got the infomation door opening 8PM. Oh no it was 5PM, 3 hours more cool my heels. More and more fans arrived at the concertlocation, more and more diffent languages, suddenly I noticed a female fan who had a phonecall. First she spoke english, later she switched the languages to german. WTF, we are no more alone. There are some other fan from Germany. After she completed the phonecall, I took my courage in both hands and asked her in german, if she live in Germany. 

She smiled and so we was a group of three from Germany.

Later we allied with the 2 girls from UK and their finnish friend.  3 became 6 *gggg*

Time went by and more an more fans reached the location.

8PM Door open. The girls from UK decided that she will run to the stage and reserve space for our group. Just the other german fan got inside the Club Teatria lost. So I searched alone for the funny girls from UK, surprise I found them...the really reserved space. Space in the first row, right side. The same side like my last two SONATA-gigs. In front of Henrik and Marko. DVD-Shooting first row, it sounded like a dream. I was soo happy....

More about the concert tomorrow in this blog.

Stay tuned.

Greetz

Kerstin "Kes"

Part One: Operation Arctica Snowstorm

Hi crowd!!!

Sunday late evening my airplane from Finland landed in Muinch. Now I have the time to  write more about Operation Arctica Snowstorm. I will split the days to single blog now the first day of the operation. Bad news i have to cancel the documention because of technical problems with my cam. Sorry.

Thursday, April 14th 2011

It was 3:15AM, I woke up thanks to my dog, Snoop barked because of a cat or our squatter - the marten. 3:15 in the morning and in 45min my regular wake-up call will ring. Thank you to Snoop, so I had a shower and went outside with my dog. The last time for us two, I felt uneasy to leave my lovly dog back in Germany, but we have to accomplish a importan mission- Snoop will not be alone, he will have 24/7care. A misson in the land "where in the summer the sun never set down", the land of ice and snow, the land of the reindeers, the land of the endless widths. A mission in the homeland of the best Power Metal Band in the world. 
After that I had to kill time, because just at 5:30AM we will start out for the operation. I checked mails, heard music, checked the 4th time my baggage, flighttickets check, hotelreservation check, concerttickets check .... check check check.

5:30AM we start the engines and with every second of this journey we got closer to our operation area *ggg* Short stop to pick up my friend Patrick who travel with me to Finland.
With lighting speed the reached Airport Munich at 7:10AM, to early becasue we had more then 3hours to the departure of our airplane to Helsinki. Now we had to kill time, walk to Terminal 2, found the McD at the airport etc.

Round about 10AM was time for boarding. In a few minutes  we heard the announcement boarding completed. Schedule at 10:20AM the airplane take-off towards Helsinki. On board we got a small snack, sandwich with ham and cheese.  Not very delicious. The black tea and water was ok *ggg*

At 1.47PM (finnish time) we reached the airport just 8 minutes then is boarding time to OULU. Outside the airplane short orientation, gate 30 -  next gate 18. OMG, WTF (Welcome to Finland), so we had  a slalomrun trough the airport.

1 minute before boarding we reached our gate. A little bit sport after 2 hours just sit around in a small Airbus.
We are on time, we are in Finland, not more far and we will reach Oulu.

The boarding also be very quickly completed but our baggage was missing so the airplan have take-off at 2:30PM and touch down was 3:35PM in Oulu. A short and very comfortable flight, because we sat at the emergency exit. After arrival we maked a few photos at the airport and when we came into the airportbuilding our bags played merry-go-around at the baggage conveyor belt. FAIL

At 4:05PM we took the bus to OULU City and we reached the hotel. Holiday Inn Oulu near the city round about 2.5km to Club Teatria. Nice clean room, internet, in the basement was a swimingpool, sauna, friendly personal - good choice for a stay in Oulu.

After a short while at  our room, we decided to go shopping, sightseeing etc.
The trick was we had both our GPS-reciever in the jacket so we knew all the time where we are, knew where are restaurants, bars, supermarkets and many many more. Are able to find back to hotel without asked some for the right direction.

Short stop at McD to take a fast menu. During we sit in the McD we notice a small group which spoke just english and the the english of one girl sounds very german - exchange student maybe. So we decided when we will bring our trays to the wastebins, we will speak a little bit louder.No sooner said then done! We will never forget the expression of this girl. Our new slogan: Get attention, anytime and anywhere, but this is in Finland not so easy, because the most walked around with stare look. We felt as if we are invisible, in Germany you have the feeling you are everytime observed.

A new sense of freedom.

So we went to the next supermarket and I experimented if McD Food + chocolate filled with liquorice get along well *ggg*
Result: No problems I was already ok.

After this we decided to look which route we have to take to the Club Teatria. I was very easy, the most time just go straight ahead one street. When we reached the Club we took a cursory glance to the inner courtgard. Many trucks, transport stand there, so we noticed that will be tomorrow something big.

9PM we was back in the hotel, check mails, write the short timetable to my blog, want vistited myspace OMG WTF, all in finnish - fortunately I knew what german means in finnish, so I was able to change the language. *happy*
Facebook was in german but I had to exercise a longer security-request. *snarl*
Chat with friends at home, with the family, spoke to my dog via skype, Snoop was very confused and search for me *cry*

Round about 0PM we decide to went of to sleep.

This was day number 1, a hard day, a long journey, many impressions, it was very hard to believe that we was in Finland.

Summary: You are invisible in Finland,  you get just spirit and wine in special stores, in supermarkets just beer and cider, in Finland they have curious sweets like chocolate filled with liquorice, the clima in April is very mild. In Germany we had between 20 and 25 °C last days and in Oulu when just 8-10 °C.

Tomorrow more about day number two, the day of the DVD Shooting.

Stay tuned.

Greetz

Kerstin "Kes"

First day of the operation

Sorry, I´m so tired today because it was a long day. So i write now just a short timetable of my day.

3.15AM
My lovley dog barked and I wake up. FU**.
Took a shower, checked my e-mails and walked the last time with my dog.

4.00AM
My regular wake-up call rings.

5.30AM
Time to start the engines.

6.00AM
Short stop to gave Patrick a ride to our next stop Airport Muinch.

7.10AM
We arrived the Airport. 3:10h before the departure of our airplane to Helsinki.

9.55AM
Time for bording. Let the party started.

10.20AM
Take-off to Helsinki, small breakfast onboard. Sandwich with Ham and Cheese, Tea, Water.

1.47PM (finnish time)
8 minutes to find the next gate. Terminal 1 from gate 30 to gate 18.

1.55PM
Boarding to our flight to Oulu.

2.30PM
Our baggages were on board and the airplane start the engines.

3.35PM
Touchdown in Oulu.

4.05PM
Took the bus to Oulu City .

4.40PM
Reached your hotel "Holiday Inn Oulu" near the city.

5.15PM
Time for shopping, take diner, take a long walk trough Oulu.

9.00PM
We are back in the hotel, time to relax.

So tomorrow I will write more about this day. The things we see, the adventures that we experienced etc.

Greetz

Kerstin

What the hell is Operation "Arctica Snowstorm"

The whole story about Operation "Arctica Snowstorm"

March, 29th 2011
After I was 2 1/2 weeks sick. Acute bronchitis, nearly a pneumonia. No time in my life I was so sick like in this 2 weeks. Every breath I take hurt, every physical effort was to much.

It was round about 4PM, I chatted in ICQ with my best friend Patrick, I told him that I want to do this year something crazy, something you will only one time in your life, somthing that is unforgetable, something that others shake their heads in disbelief.

5PM after a hour search in the world wide web, I got the ultimative idea, DVD Shooting of my favourite band SONATA ARCTICA in Oulu/Finland at April, 15th.

Proudly I presented Patrick my idea and his answer was, that he commit my to the madhouse. He thought that it was just one of my jokes.

Reasons: We vistited just at March, 4th the last concert here in Germany. Met the guys after the show - an unforgetbale moment *ggg*
Patrick went offline, I had to convince him that I`m serious.

That was the natal hour of Operation "Arctica Snowstorm", the next 2 hours I searched for all informations, flight, train, bus, hotel, concertickets.
The highlight was that I´m wrote a military operationplan with case, mission, implementation, operation-support and command-support.
I sent this to Patrick and waited that he is online.

11PM Patrick was back, I said to him he should checked his mails, he got a military order.
He was very suprised.

What do you think, was my work rewared. Of course the first pre-mission of "Arctica Snowstorm" is accomplished.

March, 30th 2011

After we checked our finances, Patrick vistited me and we booked the flighttickets, the hotel und bought online our concert tickets for the DVD Shooting.

This is all just 2 weeks ago and tomorrow we will fly to Finland and friday is the concert.
In this 2 weeks, I had so many things to organize, everything is well-planned, the smallest detail. *ggg*

I will make a documentary from this trip and your adventures in Finland.
The you-tube link you will find in my blog.

Time to pack my bags.

Greetz

Kerstin

Why I will write this blog? And about what I will write this blog.

Hi all,

my first time that I'm write a blog and when not in my native language.

My real name is Kerstin, I live in the wild south of Germany, somewhere in the nowhere.

I´m a funny person, the clown of the crowd and the most importan thing in my live is the music, to play e-guitar, hear music, to compose music sometimes, to write lyrics. That is what I like.

Another importan thing is my lovley dog Snoop(y)

He is an old german sheep dog x german sheperd.

The reasons, why I will start write this blog are simple:

1. To inform friends, what´s new, what will happen, what touched me...
2. To give others the chance to get a broad outline of me and my life.

About what I will write in this blog:

1. My life
2. My feelings
3. My thoughts

First few blog will be about operation "ARCTICA SNOWSTORM"!

What the hell is operation "ARCTICA SNOWSTORM"?

Tomorrow more about the operation.


Greetz
Kerstin