Book Signing, Lentopallo, ja Lahdessa

One Monday after school, Georgia, Emily, and I walked down the Suomalainen kirjakauppa for a book signing.

Sofi Oksanen is a famous Finnish/Estonian author. Almost everywhere you go here you see posters up with her picture. Her new book just came out so she is doing touring for that, but I didn't get that one since it hasn't been translated into English yet. I did buy a copy of her book "Puhdistus"
 and the same book in English, the "Purge." The "Purge" has won many different awards and has even been made into a movie.

It was so cool to actually see her in person and get her to sign my books. How many people travel to Finland and meet a famous writer? That was a great surprise, and I can't wait to read her book in Finnish and English. (Image above; Georgia (left), Sofi (back), Emily, then me).

On Wednesday instead of having class, I was on the lentopallo (volleyball) team representing our school at a tournament. Since there are no school sport teams, these small groups for tournaments are the only real teams there are. There were origionally nine of us, but two of the other girls decided not to stay and play, so there was just seven (half of the team being exchange students).
We only had one practice the previous day and then played the next day at a sports center. There were five different teams and we played three games, rotating in and out. In the end, we came in fourth place, just off the podium.
I'm not much of a volleyball player, but I did pretty good and got better as time went on. It was a lot of fun playing that day.

After the tournament, Georgia and I walked down to the harbor to our favorite coffee place.

Why is it that I always spill my coffee when I go there? Oh well, it was still very good, and they have the best pulla.

We also walked to the Wood Architecture Park and looked around at the different things inside. Back at school, we are both in woodwork class, so it was interesting to look at the new designs and maybe even find some ideas for our own projects.

Since Helsinki was the 2012 World Design Capital, there are a lot of special places showcasing works of art all around Finland. There were tools, swords, tables, figurines, etc., all made from wood ("puu" in Finnish). Some of the things were really beautiful and must have taken a lot of time.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. It is finally 5pm here, but the sun has already been down for about an hour now. Christmas is also begining to come to Lahti's city center as I learned this morning.

Winter is coming. Soon there will also be the tree lighting ceremony and a Christmas market, and it's only November.

Day Trip to Porvoo; The Second Oldest City

Last night I went to a Halloween party for one of my friend's from my language course, who actually is from Seattle too. She came to Finland through AFS and unfortunately is leaving at the end of this year. I dressed up as a cowgirl/reindeergirl (because this is Finland and I was wearing a shirt with reindeer on it). The party was in a rented warehouse and we watched the scary Finnish movie, "The Sauna." Luckily I haven't been scared so much that I will never be able to go into a sauna again. I had a great time and it was really nice to see some familiar faces and meet many new people too.

 

Today once everyone was up and ready to go, my family drove down south about an hour to the quaint, old, little city of Porvoo.

 Porvoo is the second oldest city in Finland. If Lahti hadn't been destroyed during WWII because of the radio towers, it would look very similar to Porvoo.

 The old part of the city consists of two main streets of different little handycraft shops, but there are also many other narrow, winding cobbled streets of old buildings that are just residential areas.

 Porvoo is the Finnish name for the city, but there is a great majority of Swedish speakers living here and the Swedish name for the city is Borgå, which means castle by the sea.

 I really liked this sign on one of the buildings. It talked about an man who lived in this house well over a hundred years ago, and he "dreamt that Ireland and Finland would take their place amoung the nations of the earth" one day. I really liked how that sounded, so it was actually kind of nice to see that there.

 I am discovering that there are many churches in Finland that date back to the middle ages. The Porvoo Cathedral was believed to have been build during the13th century.

 Over the years, with the changing of hands there has been a bell tower added, most likely from Russian rule, resembling that from the Russian Orthdox religion.

 The main church itself is pretty massive in size, with a wooden roof. I find it absolutely amazing how these buildings were constructed almost a thousand years ago and are still standing tall. I think that most modern buildings wouldn't stand a chance at surviving even 200 or 300 years.

 The first room you enter is the weapons room, where back in the middle ages everyone would leave their weapons before entering. Upon coming into the main church, you are greeted by much grandear. In the back of the church there is an organ on the second floor, which is very common for a Lutheran church.

 There were a lot of nice paintings on the walls, including some origionally done in the middle ages which have endured all of this time. There were also a lot of different symbols and figurines. I found it interesting that there was some different writing which I had also seen in many other churches, but I had no idea what it was. As it turns out, it is an acient religious script, which resembles today's arabic.

 There were many sailors who came to church here, and probably many who also lost their lives out at sea, which is why there is a suspended model of a ship. There were many different paintings of saints, a statue of one of the Russian tsars, and interestingly enough, a painting of a unicorn. I was really surprised that a mythical creature was depicted on one of the pilars, especially since you can tell it was painted in the middle ages. In general there was just a lot of different, priceless pieces of religious memorabilia.

 There were two floors that you could go up off the main one. And even more middle age paintings were on the celing up above.
In one area in the very front of the church, you could see where the celing had turned slightly black. Before there was electricity, fires and stoves were used to heat the massive space. Smoke must go up, and so the ceiling has therefore blackened in some areas from the smoke.

 There were also some different large, wooden crests lining the walls above. I think the Porvoo Cathedral has turned out to be one of the most beautiful churches I have seen since coming here. I do enjoy seeing all of the different styles and seeing how things have endured so long, and changed over time as well.

 After visiting the church, we walked through the main streets a bit, going into the different handycraft shops. The symbol on the sign above is what you will find on any product "made in Finland." This is how everything here is easily identifyed as having been crafted here Suomessa.

 Since it was a Saturday, most places were only open a few hours today, and everything will probably be closed tomorrow. That has been one of the hardest things for me to get used too. Coming from America, most things are open 24/7, but here most everything is closed Sunday and the hours aren't very long. Just something you have to think about if you do come to visit. Even in Helsinki, things close early. We planned it perfectly so that things were open and we weren't squeezed for time to see things.

 The streets of old town were actually bustling with people, but they look pretty desserted in this picture. When I am older, I would love to own my own little shop in a street like this.

 For lunch I ate meatballs (lihapullia), salad (salaatti), carrots (porkkanaa), garlic potatoes (valkosipuliperunat), and a piece of bread (leipa), with milk (maito) to drink. The food was very good. Meatballs are actually a pretty common food here in Finland, and one of my favorite dishes too.

 While here in Porvoo, we had to stop at the Brumberg Suklaa (chocolate) shop. They had all sorts of different Brumberg treats, and they were much cheaper than at the grocery store. There is also the Brumberg Suklaa factory, so sometime I have to come back and go on a tour of that.

Porvoo is a very nice town in Southern Finland. It's old town boasts good food and nice little shops, but there is also now a bigger more modern side too, just a bit further on through the streets. I had such a great time there.

After that, we drove down to Vantaa, a suburb of Helsinki to visit my host grandparents. Yesterday they came over and had coffee with us on their way from Lapland. They will be staying at their apartment in Vantaa for a little while before returning back up to Utsjoki in Lapland (where I will spend my Christmas). Tomorrow is father's day, so we had some cake and kahvi and chatted for a few hours, before returning home to Lahti.

It has been a really good day! Have a good weekend!

Snow & Jää Makes for Liukas Conditions

This weekend we got more snow! On Tuesday morning when I awoke, I looked outside expecting to see some snow as the weatherman predicted. Just as he said, everything was covered in white.

 My host mom took our dog out for a walk in the morning and came back in and said that it wasn't too cold or slippery. She did fail to mention it was still snowing, so it came as a shock when I opened the door to leave for the bus and the flakes were still coming down very quickly. I didn't have time to go back inside to get my thicker gloves and hat, but I was dressed warm anyways. By the time I did reach the bus stop, I was covered in snow though.

 The temperature hadn't been too cold, so snow was falling, but the ground was almost completely slush. Everything looked beautiful, but walking around you found your feet getting wet from all of the melted snow.

 I have my camera with me just about everywhere I go, and I really enjoy walking around, so sometimes I get off the bus early to walk a bit further. I passed through a desserted soccer field and this was on the side of the road. Just some snow covered planks of wood that I thought looked cool.

 Perhaps sometime soon I will be skiing on this pathway instead of walking. That thought comes to my mind quite often when I pass through the familiar path.

 There are many tall trees here in Finland, with the exception of up north in Lapland. The sun begins to set around 4pm now and is down by 5pm, so it seems that much darker because the trees block out most of the natural light from the sky during the night.

 This is of the sunrise early Wednesday morning on the way to the bus. The temperature had dropped a bit, so everything was frozen; a much more enjoyable change than the slush we had the previous day.

 It was so nice to see some blue sky, because for the last several days everything had been dark and cloudy. The blue the goes so much more with the snow and the sun actually is able to come out for the few short hours it is up. Pretty soon, the sun will be setting at 2pm so you need to make the most of it while it is up.

 It actually snowed a bit more during the day, but didn't really stick too much. Pathways were really slick, especially downtown, because of the snow which had melted and frozen over creating much ice (ice is "jää" in Finnish and slippery is "liukas").

 Just something to keep in mind is that dirt pathways are far less slippery than roads and cement paths, because the snow doesn't melt as quickly and the surface won't be quite so slick even if it is wet.

 When I first heard about the darkness in Finland, I became a bit scared. I wasn't too sure how I would feel with only a few hours of daylight, but things haven't been too bad at all. The snow really helps to lighten things up, but even without it as long as you keep on doing things you'll be fine. I am outside in the dark all the time and have no problems with it, plus it is safer here to be outside when dark. You get used to things, although it takes awhile for your body to register that is is only 4pm when you feel like it should be 8 or 9pm.

 -6 degrees celsius may seem a bit scary, but I assure you it really isn't too cold. I'm not sure how -30 degrees will feel though. If you dress warm and are prepared, then you won't notice the difference in the temperature at all. I actually feel much colder when it's positive 2 degrees celsius, than when it's negative degrees.

 I think we have been pretty fortunate with the weather, but unfortunately it has warmed up a bit this weekend and it is actually supposed to get even warmer. That means that the snow will all melt soon, and then we will be getting more rain instead of snow and things will be a bit more dark and dreary.

 I feel a bit like Monet; "The Painter of Light," because I have just fallen in love with the way light shines on trees. I have hundreds of pictures just of trees in the sunlight. Snow or no snow.

 Lahti, has really become a winter wonderland. The plants have beautiful ice formations and snow flakes all over them. One of the best things is that the ground and all of the plants sparkle in the light, it is just so magical.

 Just one of the ways I went while out walking Laku. I live back, but you can't see my house. There is a huge field that surrounds the housing community I am in. On the west side of the field is a foresty area, a good place for a walk, but I don't go in there so often now, because it is really slick with leaves, and now snow and ice.

On Thurday I had a close call and almost broke my wrist. Thursday is my only late day at school which meant that instead of going on the 7:20am bus, I was on the 8:40am bus, which luckily not so many people I recognize, ride. The bus pulled up to my normal stop near the city center, and I was the first one to get off. The first step I took, I slipped and fell on my left leg and wrist. It was really embarrassing so I hopped up as fast as I could, and slowly, hurried to school making sure not to slip again.
My whole left arm hurt pretty badly, so I ended up going to the nurse and getting some ointment on it, then having it wrapped up. I was fortunate, because I could have broken it. I actually find the situation really funny though, because I had it coming to me. This week during our exchange student meeting, our teacher informed us that the nurses office for us high school students would be closed this week, so jokingly I had emphasized "so don't get hurt this week." Then last night I was talking to my host club counselor about my emmergency medical fund. The week when we got our first snow back in October, my host mom and I had talked about the fact that so many people were showing up to the hospitals with broken wrists from trying to stop their fall. And, well, I just hadn't slipped yet unlike so many other people. The timing was just perfect, which is why I couldn't help laughing despite being in pain.
I wore the bandage for only two days and just took it easy with my wrist and arm. Now it feels back to normal and no bruises or anything. I am really thankful that it didn't turn out worse.
On Friday when I took the bus to school I got off at the square instead of my stop just before it. This time I could see the entire street shining in the light from all of the ice. I won't be getting off there again while there is snow on the ground. Be careful where you step!

Linnaistensuo National Park

Today we went to Linnaistensuo, which is a National Park just outside of Lahti in Nastola.

 It is a small area that has been preserved as a national park, because it is rare to find a swampland so near to a city, and in general it is a nice area.

 There is just one main path the goes around the park. Since Finland has had the most rain ever this year, and snow just melted a few days ago, things are really very wet. If you were to walk over to where the informational sign is, you would have sunk down in a good ft of mud. My host mom actually did and the mud went to the very top of her ruber boots and a bit onto her pants.

 I learned that kuusi is a christmas tree (pine or spruce...), and that sammal is moss. There is paljon (much/ a lot) sammal there.

 There is also a lot of algae and different water plants since it is so moist. When we were there, the air was full of moisture, because it has been very foggy the entire day. It was a bit intriguing how trees and different plants would just appear out of no where. Even the sun looked strange. It never really came out today, but at one point you could see it through the haze and it was glowing white, almost like the moon.

 There are wooden planks that go throughout the park so that visitors can actually get around without getting soaked and so that people do not trample all over the land, and ruin the plantlife.

 Parts of the wooden pathway were very slippery and in some places the wood was cracking and falling apart. This picture of one of the areas where the water has actually risen so much, that it covers the planks. The wood wasn't broken, there was just a few inches too much water there so it was forced under. The good thing about having rubber boots is that you don't have to worry about getting wet at all, so we crossed through the water and journeyed on further.

 For some reason, I kept being reminded of the African savana thinking of the grass and some of the trees. I don't think there would be quite so much water though. I really like the contrast in color of all of the little trees that are just now beginning to grow that stand green amond the red grass and algae, and cranberries too.

We were with my host aunt and uncle and their two year old son, so we didn't go all the way to the end of the park, but we walked a great distance and saw a lot. I am always so surprised when I think of swamps and bogs being in Finland. I would really like to come back in the wintertime and see how everything looks and whether or not there is snow or ice covering the water.

I really had a great time at Linnaistensuo and hope to be able to one day return. Nature is one of the main reasons why I wanted to come here to Finland, and I am not disappointed. I love being outside as much as I can. It makes me want to become a ranger when I return to America...we'll just have to see.

Hope you have a good week and try to get outside as much as possible, no matter the weather there is something to see and do.