Gymnaestrada camp Day 4 - Gymnaestrada!

Finally, after we had already been there several days, got to know each other well and adapted to the lifestyle, it was time to get to work. The wakeup was super early on my scale, with the optional breakfast at 8 and the ferry leaving at 9:10. On the first two days only two of the three areas were in use, therefore we were divided in two groups and we headed off to our areas.
I was working in Messukeskus, which was in Pasila, a bit of a ride north from the city center. There was a few performance venues set up, as well as a gymnastics fair and an enormous lunch area fitting about 3000 people at once, capable of feeding all the participants every day. That's also where our job took place - next to the recycle bins near the exit. We had to make sure that people put uneaten food and the plastic dishes in separate places, mostly standing between the biowaste bins and telling people to not throw anything but food in there - "Only food here, plastic over there, good job, thank you, save the Earth!"
Although the job we actually had to do was purely preventive, I didn't really hesitate to go retrieve the few plastic forks people had chucked in despite our instructions, since seeing them in the food waste really hurt my eyes. Needless to say I'm very glad we were given rubber gloves for the job, but my uniform required cleaning in a very short time anyway.

Messukeskus

The lunch hall

Our workplace

Best job ever, yay! I actually didn't mind it a bit, the atmosphere was great and time passed by in a blink. 

After our shift was over it was time to go to the Olympic Stadium to see the Gymnaestrada opening ceremony, which was absolutely spectacular. I guess I'll just let the pictures talk. It ended with everyone dancing the Gymnaestrada dance to official song of the event, which I chose as the song for today.

Delegations from different countries marching in

My camera's wonderful zoom was perfect for capturing one person delegations...

... as well as funny hats.. 

... or some people just minding their own business...

... or Tarja Halonen giving a speech

In Estonian there's a saying "Everything's in order like in Norway"

The largest delegation of all marching in

Here's one of the videos I shot - my camera skills aren't the best but surely it's better than nothing. Expect more videos. 

Elina and Helena the finnish teachers of the camp and also Sonja participated in a dance on the opening ceremony. They challenged us to find them, so I did.

 After the opening ceremony we had dinner in the city in a buffet restaurant that offered such good tea that I, of course, had to nick a few bags. Having eaten, we returned to Suomenlinna for the night.