Our Founder and CEO will be sharing excerpts from her diary that she kept while living and studying at University in Tampere (2011-2012) and Oulu (2013-2015). The following is the first entry, from the beginning of the trip over to Tampere for a semester.

August 10, 2011

Finally, we are at the airport! The weeks of packing and months of planning are over. I am so lucky to be able to be able to go on a trip/adventure of this magnitude. Just at the airport alone, we have had several memorable moments. First, we had to repack Mom's gigantic suitcase. Totally my fault, but hey, like Dad asked me as he loaded my gigantic (and very heavy) suitcase into the van, "what, are you living there or something???” It was my purse inside my purse that ended up saving us! Katherine also discovered while sorting her make up for liquids and gels that one of her glitter containers had EXPLODED! It was all over the make-up bag and, after she dug around in it to pluck the liquids and gels out, all over her hands. When she went through security, a TSA lady noted, alarmed, that there was a powder on her hands... But all three of us got through without the infamous pat down. PTL! At our gate we got accosted by an older gentleman who thrilled to see Katherine's "Decking Champs" synchronized swimming shirt. After wearing out on that, he spotted the Gustavus sweatshirt in my lap. Guess what? He had a couple of granddaughters in the nursing program there. He was very nice.

On the plane, finally. Really, MSP to Chicago goes by in a blink. Chicago's airport is a zoo! And very confusing. There are five terminals and we arrived in T1, but had to get to T5. Uff da! The train was pretty cool though. Also, because we had to switch terminals, we had to endure another security check point. They had a body scanner, but I did not have to go through it. Wahoo! Kat and Mom still had to though and Mom got a bonus pat down. More later!

-Elizabeth “Helvi” Brauer

Founder and CEO, Luumu