Finland: Leaving Jtown, Helsinki or bust: Fri. Oct 5

As the winter rains are starting to settle in, Harriet, Kai and packed up to head south for the winter to Faster Barbro's apartment in Helsinki. This is the last leg of our 3-week trip (*sniff*).

I picked up my new Finnish passport yesterday afternoon from the Police Station in Jakobstad. It took 7 days to get (that's without a rush) and cost 46 Euros. Of course, getting passport photos from the photo studio in town cost 13 Euros - and the photo looks just as crappy as $2.00 ones from a photo booth!

This morning we visited Fammo and had dreamcake (drömtårta) and pepparkakor from Sjöberg's bakery in Jakobstad. Good stuff! Fammo gave us each a package to take home. Yummers!

Next time we'll be back is for her 95th birthday party in 2009. And Kai will be 4 years old!

What was really cute was that Kai is completely unaware that Fammo is 93. In this picture, he is eclipsing Fammo after climbing all over her. He tried to jump on her, get her to give him a horsey ride and yanked on her arms pretending he was falling. She survived! Meanwhile, I was a little worried and I asked if he was bothering her but she said no. I guess once you're a great grandmother you've learned how to play with kids and not throw out your back. I, however, am still learning that lesson.

We caught the intercity train leaving Jakobstad at 15.30. Kai and I played in the second story kids playground in one of the wagons. What a great idea to put one of those in. I even went down the slide too.

Faster came and met us at the Helsinki train station and we took a taxi back to her apartment on in the Dromsö neighborhood. Tomorrow I'm off to Åbo (Turku) to relive my youth (I lived there for 4 years while working on my master's degree in geology).

Finland: Kokkola...Archrival of Jakobstad: Thurs. Oct 4

Today, we entertained the enemy and visited the city center of the neighboring town Kokkola. The Swedish name for Kokkola is Karleby, and I'm not sure how the Jakobstad and Kokkola became rivals, but I've heard many a joke about "Kokkola bo." (Residents of Kokkola.) Unfortunately, none of the jokes are fit to print.



(Here is a photo of the pedestrian street that runs through the town's shopping district.)

In Kokkola, we visited the Rukka factory outlet and H&M. I didn't even know they had an H&M "up north" here. True to form, it carried precisely the same stuff as the Helsinki store.

My mom was excited since there was a Robert's coffee where she could procure a latte, and Kai and I rode the escalators ad infinitum. Turns out that kids can do that...if they have their parents along.




(Here's Kai sitting on a bench. Notice the Rapakivi granite trim underneath. In the U.S., this building stone is known as "Baltic brown.")

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Kokkola. When I was 5, I spent a week in the hospital there and I remember the nurses were very nice, that in the surgery room there was a picture of a red and white mushroom that a kid had drawn, and that there was an awesome gameroom down the hall where Mike got to play - but I didn't!

Afterwards, we went to visit Fammo. She seemed very cheerful and had been out for a long walk with another lady. Kai and I actually walked past them on our way to Fammo's apartment, but we didn't recognize Fammo and she didn't recognize us! Overcoats, hats and sunglasses will do that. The weather, though crisp and a bit windy, was downright balmy today, peaking around 13 C (about 55 F).

Tonight is our last night in Jakobstad. I picked up my Finnish passport from the police station today and tomorrow we leave by train for Helsinki. It's been a great stay here in Jakobstad - even the trees in town rolled out the red carpet with the best fall foliage that's fit to see.

Finland: Lappajärvi ho! Wed. Oct 3

Kai's first impact crater!

We made it to the big impact crater! It was a fun day. Between the meteorite museum at Kivitippu hotel and driving around the central uplift island of Kärnä, it was a rock star kind of day. I think my mom and Kai had fun too. Here a few pictures.

View of foggy Lake Lappajärvi from the southern tip of Kärna Island.

At the meteorite museum at Kivitippu, there are some great display boards, dioramas and evena real meteorite that landed near Borgå (Porvoo).

The impact crater diameter extends beyond the

lake's boundaries. The impact crater is 19 km long - Finland's biggest.

A vast layer of melted bedrock, which geologists call suevite, is present in the Lappajärvi area. Locally, this rock is called kärnite and is mined for use as a beautiful building stone.

This photo is of the floor at the Kivitippu Resort. You can see the blocks of unmelted host rock in the grey melted matrix. The grey material got so hot it was glass!

The island of Kärna has beautiful birch forests, in addition to an exciting geologic past.

Finland: Nykarleby adventures: Tuesday Oct. 2

Today we explored Nykarleby. I got so excited when we parked next to a sign that read "WALLENDAHL."

I had forgotten that Åsa's (my second cousin) dad owns a paint store in Nykarleby. I told my mom that we should go in and see if Rolf was working. He was! It was fun to talk to him - he plays saxophone in Jakobstad and is part of the Jazzoo (http://www.jazzoo.fi/). (My mom and I have one last chance to check out Jazzoo here in Jakobstad before we head down to Helsinki on Friday.)

After the paint shop, we checked out a yarn shop, took some pictures of the Nykarleby church. Then we had coffee and a green frog princess cake and then came home. A great day - all and all. For dinner, Bitti cooked up some delectable elk meatballs with mashed potatoes. Yum! Really, what more can you ask for? :)

Finland: Meatballs! The Öja tradition: Monday Oct. 1

Öja is a rural area located between Jakobstad and Kokkola. My mom's family ran a farm there. My mom's Aunt Linnea (in the red coat) still lives out at the old farm and has a tradition of hosting a meatball welcome dinner at her house. Her meatballs are delicious!

Simon and Jonas are my second cousins ("små kusiner"). Simon is sporting the long beard and Jonas is in the red and white shirt. Tetti, Jonas' girlfriend, is in the brown shirt. Kai insisted on renaming her "lady." This was primarily because my mom referred to her once as lady Tetti

Finland: Cute stuff, Sundays, and Lappajärvi: Sun. Sept. 30

Kai, at his best, is an adorable little monkey. Last night he was so incredibly cuddly, wandering around in his pj's giving hugs and kisses left and right. We had a busy Sunday, but filled with great things like Bitti's scrumptious Toska kaka ("Tosca Cake"), playing in the pouring rain, and aimless wanderings around the neighborhood in the stroller.

There's a really beautiful type of hedge that's common in town here. Now that it's fall the leaves of these hedges are bright red, orange and yellow. In fact, so many of the houses around here have hedges I started to think about how it looks a lot like a little English village. I've only seen one house in town with an "American-style" fence - you know, the 6-foot high ones that wrap around the whole yard.

I forgot how everything is closed on Sundays. Which made me a bit nostalgic for my days in grad school here. Sundays were for sleeping in, going to church, meeting friends for coffee and just taking it easy. That type of Sunday just doesn't seem to exist back home for me. But not because I'm married with a kid, more because I just don't think that type of day exists at all in the U.S. anymore. Well, maybe still in the Amish towns.

Today is now Monday so we have one more week left in Finland. I'd really like to squeeze in a trip to Lake Lappajärvi. As part of the geology sightseeing I dig so much.

I went to a conference held at the Kivitippu Resort on the shores of Lake Lappajärvi in 2001. It was a fitting place for a conference about meteor impact sites, since that waters of Lake Lappajärvi fill an impact crater that was created. Sadly, I don't have any photos of the lake and central uplift island, so I'd like to take some this week. And, I read that the Kivitippu Resort http://www.kivitippu.fi/en/activities/index.html has an pool that I can take Kai to, and an outdoor wooded trail and a meteor museum as well. w00t!

The central island of Lappajärvi is home to several suevite quarries. Suevite is the melt rock that forms when a huge impact occurs on earth. In fact, the impact at Lappajärvi was so violent, diamonds can be found in this impact melt. Read more at http://www.somerikko.net/old/geo/imp/lappa_e.htm

 

Finland: Visiting the cemetery: Saturday, Sept. 29

It's tradition in Finland to visit the graves of loved ones several times a year to plant new flowers, shrubs and place candles. This time of year, the traditional flower to plant is heather (Calluna vulgaris) .

Yesterday I went with Fammo Svea, Faster Barbro and Kai to plant heather and pay respects to relatives passed.

Here is a photograph of my grandfather Faffa Heimer's resting place at the Pedersöre cemetery in Jakobstad. That's Faster Barbro and Fammo Svea in the photo. You can see the pinkish-purple heather in the foreground.

This next photo is of my great-grandmother Jenny Irene Wiklund's resting place at the Esse cemetery. She died when my Fammo Svea was just 2 years old.

Finland: Mining the lingonberries: Sat. Sept. 22

Lingonberries - Finland's red gold


Picking lingonberries in the autumn is about as Finnish as you can get. These tart little berries are akin to cranberries, which also grow in the forests of Finland. In Swedish, lingonberries are called "lingon" and cranberries are called "tranbär."


On the northeast side of Agnisholmen, my parents have the cabin they began building in 1977. It was designed by my Faffa Heimer.





As my parents have never permanently returned to Finland, the final sauna oven has yet to be added. But my brothers Mike and Kenny and I spent every other summer here while growing up. You can see Kai hanging out among the lingonberries.





Here is Uncle Ben in his Samurai hat. He wears it to invoke fighting prowess for when he must do battle with "huggormar", which are Finland's poisonous wood snakes.
























A Finnish specimen of the "huggorm." (We didn't actually see one this trip, luckily!)

Finland: Fammo Svea! Friday Sept. 21

This is my grandmother Svea. She is 93 years old and lives in her own apartment in Jakobstad. Kai met her for the first time last week. Now they're old friends, he even gives her hugs and kisses too!

I probably inherited my love of coffee from Fammo. She worked at her family's cafe in Kållby for years, before she married my Faffa Heimer. Faffa passed away in 1988. He worked as a "byggmästare" which is something like a building architect. Faffa was a lot of fun, I remember him twiddling his thumbs while he watched TV in his rocking chair. He also used to color in the loops of letters in the newspaper and then it was my job to hunt for them and circle them. Good times!

Finland: The Villa at Agnisholmen: Fri-Sun, Sept. 21-23

Last weekend we went to Ben & Bitti's villa. A villa is a cottage used for weekend relaxation, usually located near water.




Ben & Bitti's villa is located on Agnisholmen, which literally translates to Agnes Island. You can find it on the map located just above the word "Kåtolandet." (Note that water is yellow and land is grey on this map.)




There are so many lakes and islands in the Finnish archepelago that there is quite a lot of waterfront property for such a small country. Most villas are equipped with a sauna - and to cool off afterwards you run and jump in the water.




The island is in the vincinity of Öja and Kokkola, an area renouned for its ginormous population of ticks. These ticks carry a disease called TBE, which Kai and I got vaccinated for before we left the states.

Finland: Jakobstad or bust! Sept. 19 and onwards

We're in Jakobstad now - the town of 20,000 where my parents grew up. We're staying with my aunt Bitti and uncle Ben. (Click the following link to read about Jakobstad/Pietasaari - http://www.jakobstad.fi/index_en.html.)

We took care of some necessities which included visiting the municipal department of health to rent a baby car seat for Kai, and shopping at the local grocery store. My aunt Bitti is driving the cart and Kai is along for the ride.

Here is one of the thousands of glacial erratics (boulders) scattered throughout the city. My mom is standing in front of it, while Kai is checking out mushrooms in the lawn.

Finland: Välkommen till Finland: Part 1: Helsinki Sept 17-19

Whew - we made it!

My mom Harriet, Kai and I survived the 10 hour flight from Seattle --> Copenhagen and the subsequent 1.5 hour flight from Copenhagen --> Helsinki.

Exactly how do you keep a 2-year old quiet on a night flight for 10 hours strapped into an uncomfortable seat? Little plastic animals...

Then we met my Aunt Barbro in Helsinki (that's Helsingfors for all you Swedish-speakers out there) and went to her apartment in the Dromsö neighborhood.

 

Here is Kai munching on hotdogs (korv) in my Aunt Barbro's kitchen.

We stayed 2 nights in Helsingfos, most of our energy battling the jet lag. Or rather, Kai was losing the jet lag battle so that meant everyone was else suffered too.

But we did manage to visit with my second cousins "syslingar" - Åsa, Malena and my former roomate Linda. Luckily, Åsa and Linda have kidlets now too so there was no need to hush Kai excessively.

Åsa, Me, Linda and Malena at Åsa and Mårten's apartment in the Eina area of Helsinki.

Kai kept stealing away most of Casper's toys with the proclamation of "MINE." What can I say - we teach good family values, ones that include greed, taking advantage of those smaller than you...our motto is "if it feels good do it (?!)."

Here's me with Casper - he's a cheerful one.

Mårten, Casper's dad, had a neat creation. He had commissioned the creation of a Wallendahl family crest from a licensed crest-maker. The new crest is registered with the international organization that oversees crests. Pretty cool!

 

Later, we went to downtown Helsinki and went to H&M (my favorite clothing store ever!). And also to Stockman, which is a department store akin to Saks Fifth Avenue or Nordstrom.

Åsa, Mårten and Casper wait in the rain for the 3T trolley car to take us to the city center.

Small children and one parent ride public buses and trolley cars for free. How cool is that? Otherwise, a ride on the bus or trolley costs about 2.2 Euros (circa 2.75 USD).

 

Kai naturally wanted to sit in Casper's baby wagon since Casper was riding around in the Snugli.

Åsa even watched Kai so I could poke around H&M - tusen tack!

 

Kai chillin' inside Stockmans while Harriet checked out some stuff.

 

The next day, September 19, we left for Jakobstad by train. But before that, Aunt Barbro took us out for lunch at the World Trade Center in Helsinki.

Okay, more entries later. Kai only naps so long in the afternoon...