In these last days, there has not been anything significant, so I(Karmelo) will explain briefly my opinions about the people around me.
In a world where your only goals are to pass your university exams and to study as less as it´s possible, I have come to Intotalo(Finland) and the people who are around it, are people that they have their dreams and they do everything to achieve them.
They work very hard every day, some achieve their goals, others don´t reach as far as they would have like.
All of them I have learnt something: if you want a goal, you have to do everything possible to achieve them. In the worst case you will not get it, however you will know that you have done all you are able to do.
Besides, to get this aims you don´t have to wait until tomorrow, or the following year, if you can do now: JUST DO IT!!
I would like to say, that to get your aims, it´s not necessary to be working every day and 24 hours!! But the time that you are working, don´t waste it!
Finally, I am going to write a few words of the book, I´m reading from Richard Branson:
“Believe it can be done
Have goals
Live life to the full
Never give up
Prepare well
Have faith in yourself
Try and try again
Help each other”

Now that the Swedish guys have gone it's time to make a feedback as we usually do when something that we have been doing is finished. This 3 weeks have been special in some way, as we were taking part of the "road tour" that was the project of t he Swedish, so now we are going to start knowing which is the real routine of Intotalo.Speaking a beat about the academicals aspects of this 3 weeks, we must say that after every activity we made a feedback as I had said previously, for this feedbacks we have used the Motorola questions that are the next ones:1-What went well?2-What could have gone better?3- What I have learned?4- What can I do better the next time?With these 4 key questions, you enter in a learning circle by yourself and you can go improving your actuation little by little.

But apart from the feed backs we have learned which are the Intotalo’s values, that are graphically shown in the graphic above (I1, D2, E3, A4).

But this is not all, between other many things that we have learned this last two weeks we must underline the lesson of Progress economic value that we have received. In this lesson, Nic explains us the importance or adding value to what we do and he did it with a simple example that we all could understood the process and the value change of the Coffee, that when is still in grain is very cheap, just some cents, and then is getting more and more expensive as we keep adding value to it and every time we are getting more money for a smaller amount of coffee. This case also is represented graphically in the graphic that I (Mikel) had made and shown above.

After the weekend comes again the work! So we have started again... We had a new presentation for the snowpolis day and this time Nic wasn't there with us, he preferred to keep in the margin and give the protagonism to us that are the ones that have to make the project really. Even like that I think that the presentation have gone better than the other day and we have been able to answer all their questions and to get the control of the meeting was have been very nice for us. Like in the previous presentation Anssi, Kalle and me (Mikel) were presenting and Andreas and Karmelo helping.

In the meeting we have arranged that we have to meet every week since the event is happened and that we have to send them a rough approximation of what is going to be the budget for the event and a provisional time table. When they ask them what theme they preferred, the all answered that they wanted the Snowpoly so we will make the first Snowpoly day!!!

After that we have gone to see a company that works for the TV and then we moved to our new accommodation, a student apartment in Kajaani, which was founded by the great people that works in Intotalo.

As we said, we have gone to Kuhmo and there we meet with the “low profile” team, that are the young of the “Into station” another organization similar to Intotalo, but that is still starting in the little village of Kuhmo. We bough things for dinner and we went deep into the forest until we arrive to a small cottage by a frozen lake. Was a small but very nice cottage with a chimney, ancient and electric kitchen and without current water, so we have to take it from the lake. There is also a sauna.

We make fire in the chimney and cook different things like a salad and a potato omelet in order to make something from our country. Before having dinner we played who, how and where was killed game, was very funny. Then we had dinner and the once that want went to the sauna. We must say that we have never seen so many stars in the heaven, really amazing. Everybody has been very nice with us and when we were about to go they say us good bye by singing a traditional Finns song.

We returned to Kajaani and we went to the Hotel that is where we are going to spend the following couple of days, until we can go to our definitive accommodation in a student’s apartment.

In the evening we meet with Anne and Atte in Intotalo, they have bought Finnish traditional food for dinner, what was very nice in the major part and after dinner Nic meet us and give a little concert with the guitar. After all this we went to a bar were a Jazz band was playing. It have been two very nice days.

Today, we have gone to Kuhmo, this city is 100 Km by car from Kajaani.

First of all, we have visited the music school where a lot of musicians started making their way, then we have walked a little bit around this city where almost everything was snowed, the bridge, the buildings, and what have been amazing is how many ice was in the lake.

After lunch, we went to a museum where we have seen different photos and weapons from the winter war between Russian and Finland before the second war world, just after visiting this museum we have gone to a place were is recreated one of the scenarios of Kalebala the most famous Finnish book, that is consider in Finland as the “Don Quijote de la Mancha” in Spain. We have been given a sweet drink (similar to a tea but very sweet) and a kind of what in Spain is known as “Bomba” but with a marmalade of berries. Here we have been challenged to give them ideas of what they should do for attract people in summer. They have a lot of people in Christmas time because they have often Santa Claus in there, but in summer is not body going in there, so they have asked us for new ideas.

After this we drove to another museum, but in this case about the animals that habit in the surrounding forests and in Finland in general.

Today, we have realised one more time how fast the finish people eat, it’s incredible, in 20min. they are able to eat a salad with tomatoes, chicken with pasta, bread with rice or butter ( typical meal of Finland) and of course taking their coffee, we don’t understand.

Tomorrow, we don’t know how the day is going to be; but the only thing we are sure is that we are going to sleep in the middle of the forest, around the trees, animals… sounds funny let’s see…

We have spend 3 days discussing how the snowpolis day should be, what we should do, how and so on and the previous day to the presentation we present our ideas to Nic, Heidi and Anne. Has been like a kick in the ass, they didn’t like our idea and they make us see how lost we were. After this we felt really depress and tired, he had spend the whole day thinking about, and the 2 previous days also and now we see that we completely lose our way. Actually the critic has been a bit hard but I feel as it has made us to waken up.

After discussing if we were presenting the next day or not we decide that we all were going to try to come the next day with new fresh ideas in order to make it happen and possible even if we felt that perhaps was a better option to change the day, but was not a good starting to delay the presentation, so we went home.

Once at home we relaxed a bit and take our minds out of all that stuff of the snowpolis day. And once that we were relaxed the Swedish guys came with a great idea of making a theme around a international day, we spend some time discussing and developing the idea and we came out that Snowpolis have 5 floors and so each floor can be a continent and each company a nation inside that continent.

Then we went bed, but we continue to search for some ideas with our laptops, and was then when I (Mikel) have the idea of making the “snowpoly” day becoming each company in one street of the famous board game Monopoly and were each company have to complete different tasks and games of other companies in order to get their card and like that in some way “own” that company.

So the next morning we meet in Snowpolis Intotalo to share our ideas. We start to get a bit enthusiastic about the fact of present it that day, because we came out with some great ideas, so we start to prepare the presentation and to search about the Snowpolis companies in order to have a general idea of what they do. So we split up in two groups, the ones that have to present and the ones that were going to find the information.

The presentation went well, they liked our ideas and they look as they were kind of enthusiast with our ideas, so we have complete our first task that was to sell our product to the intotalo people, but this is just the beginning, in a couple of days we have to presented again as the hotel manager and someone else were not there for the presentation and if we are allowed to follow with this task we are going to be in charge of all the organization and everything so we will have the opportunity of learning a lot!!

Not only we were knowing each other, and speaking about our lives and long-terms goals, but also we were playing different games like curling.
Curling it´s a fantastic game such as difficult, however we were playing a match where we did two different teams. We had a really good time together.
But, the aim of this game, was not only to have a good time, as when we arrived again, to Intotalo, he said us, that this game had a direct relationship with business, and he explained us his point of view.
He told to us, that when you trough the stone your team partners help you to get your target, that is to set the stone in the middle of a red circle, so in the business happens something similar, as when you decide to set up a business, your partners must help you, to achieve your goals.

The truth is that till this point Nic and all the people around us are behaving very well with us, we have lots of information about Kajaani, Sotkamo, and their surroundings like what to do, what is it, where is… We also have been given a empty book and a pen-drive in order to work and write our ideas or take notes.

The first days in Intotalo have been introductory, meeting new people hearing where they are coming from, why they are there and which are they future projects.

The second day two Swedish came also to Intotalo for three weeks in order to develop their own ideas inside a European program of developing projects in the northern Europe. They are Kalle, who wants to be a TV presenter and producer and Andreas who is a song writer and a bass player who wants to make from his hobby his way of life. They are very nice and they are going to life with us, in the same flat for the next weeks.

Once the introductions are made and all knew roughly each other we made some games in order to collaborate and to get to know each other better, in few words to break the ice between us.
Now that we know something else from each other was time to start working. We had a meeting with the responsible of Snowpolis (one of the paces were Intotalo is located) both the hotel thief manager and the main responsible of the technological park. They challenge us by giving a event to develop in the following month, consisting in getting the whole complex to a especial day with the Snowpolis environment where they all can know what the other companies are doing and make relationship between them.

So we start making a brain storming about how should be the day, what we should do, in which way are we going to focus the day, what are we going to understand about the “Snowpolis life style” and so on.

We got up, and this time, we get our breakfast!!! We make our suitcases leave to Kajaani. After taking the free bus that the Cumulus airport hetel offers, we arrived to the airport.

When we arrived to Kajaani, Nic waiting us. Kajaani´s airport is not as big as we have thought, just few planes can land in it.

Nic, is going to be our coach in the following three months, he is around 1.85 m.high, and of normal conplexion, he has a long hair and he seems to be a great person.

Then, he brought us to see an amazing lake where we can see the horizon and the white snow. It´s a good start!!!

After that, he takes us to see the main street of Kajaani, the truth is that is not very large city, and Nic explains us the most important places of this city as the super market, the restaurants, the bars, the theatre...

Then, we went to Intotalo, Intotalo if you don´t know is the office where we will have to work the following three months, this place is not very big, however it seems very comfortable place to work, with no classes at all, there is one meeting room, some smaller rooms to work in group, a kitchen, and other spaces with confortable chairs and compters. Here we meet three youngs, the grafic designer, and other coach, they welcome us open-armed, and were very kind with us.

Intotalo´s decoration is a little bit peculiar, it has an only one rooms where the coaches gives their opinion about the projects wich are presented. The people that work here can be visited or seen without de needs of through a door, in our opinion is a good office to interchange your ideas.After visiting the office we go to eat together. We ate some burritos and burgers. Nic gaves us here his first “lesson” and we speak about several things like the importance of being careful, about innovation, and those things that in Intotalo gives huge importance.

Then, we went to our accommodation to about 30Km to Kajaani. Once we arrived there, we realized that we were in the middle of the forest surrounded of a lot of trees covered by snow. But it doesn´t matter we are in FINLAND, a realy amazing place!!!!

Everything starts the 7th of March of 2009 when we first met in Bilbao’s airport to start our trip to Finland. We took the first flight from Bilbao to Frankfurt were we had to take another plane in 2 hour time in order to get to Helsinki. You should be careful if you are going to Frankfurt’s airport, because is so big that you can get easily lost, but fortunately we get the right way and we arrive to our gate in time.

In case that you are staying in Helsinki for 1 or 2 nights as we have you have 2 options, the first one is to take a hotel in the centre of Helsinki and get there as soon as you arrive with all your things and like that you already are in the centre in order to see the city, or you can also stay in a hotel near the airport where you have a free bus every 20 minutes from it which takes you to the door of the hotel and maybe go next morning to see the city. We choose the second option and we think that was good, we were in the Cumulus Airport Hotel who has a pool, sauna and a buffet breakfast which was quite good. Also if you are coming in a weekend you can be interested in going to have a beer around here. If you ask in the hotel reception, they will give you a VIP card to go to Flamingos disco were you have not to wait, you have free entrance and you can enjoy a lot either with direct music, in the disco or in the karaoke. It’s also important to know that you can’t enter with your coat so you have to pay the wardrobe 2€ and then is also important to know that a beer is about 5,5€, so be careful about what you ask.

An advice for those of you that are interested in coming to Finland, you should look if you have change the hour of the alarm, if not you can be without breakfast!! As happens to us the first day, so we took the bus (4€) and get to the centre of Helsinki. We also must say that you shouldn’t be worry about asking people about anything, most people speaks English and they are very happy of helping you in what they can. Once in the centre, we took the tramp to see around little bit, because you can get with the same bus ticket any bus or tramp in the period of 1 hour, so don’t throw it away!!!

Helsinki isn’t a very big city for sight seen. You can see it in a morning just walking around. The most beautiful places to be visited are the train station and its surroundings were the national theatre and museum is, the Cathedral (which is the highest building in the city), the Orthodox Church and the harbor and its surroundings.

For having lunch you can go to one of the many restaurants of the city or you can also save some money by buying the lunch in the supermarket, where you can get hot food as lasagna and chicken for around 6€.

After a bit of more sight seen we get to the hotel and after relaxing a bit, we went to have some dinner. We arrived around 21:15 and everything was closed so we had to walk back to the hotel and we eat some things we had bought from home. It’s important also to know that they usually have dinner around 4 or 5 o’clock and that the restaurants close at 21:00.