Moscow is now back from us! We hopped into our private train in Kazan train station.

We got the train!

Placement for the people was already done beforehand and we could just put our stuff in to cabins and have first lunch 2 pm. The food on the train is very delicious. There is two starters, main course, desert and tea served every time on lunch and dinner.

We had first meeting with the train staff and restaurant car personnel in the beginning of the trip.

The staff were very polite and helpful. It is somehow very suprising to get smile and helpful hand always when you were setting up something. I mean, this is not very normal in Russia. You can also be pretty relaxed as there is no scare of getting things stolen.

After lunch, first program was the introduction to each other – get to know moment. We have photobook printed out of every participant for everybody. We also set up “manual Facebook” on the train – participants’ photos are printed on the wall of one corridor and you can post a comment by adding a post-it paper under them!

Morning meetings and some of the workshops are organized in the conference car.

Atso and Hanna from the publication and communication team also instructed people to start working on the articles and preparations for the magazine.

During the evening Markus and Oona kick-started Aalto University Campus workshop – There was preparations and planning material presented to participants of the current state of campus work in the university. Task was to sketch solution for the map, scenery and basic arguments for Aalto campus. Winning team will be chosen on Wednesday by voting after they have presented their solutions. Material will be provided to Aalto University directors and the winning team present their solution to Aalto University vice-rector Jorma Kyyrä, who is in responsible for infrastructure of the university.

Kalevi is preparing Design Emotions workshop for tomorrow.

The clock is around 23:00 at the moment of writing this blog entry. Around half of the people are watching Russian movie Admiral in the conference car and some smaller group is playing banjo drums, guitar and singing Mamba in the cabin next to me. There is different kind of program going on when you just walk by the cabins and have a look inside.

It’s good to have some sleep now to be able to wake before 8 am! Because the train is moving all the time through Russian time zones, there is only 23 hours in a day!

PS. Also have a look at our Voice blogs from the trip through Talky.se service and photos from Flickr.

- Mikko

Tagged: on Sunday, May 16, 2010 · 2 Comments »