Back in Finland — after Estonia (August 28-30) 2009

Hi All –

This is the last travelogue… and it will cover Aug 28 (Friday) through Sunday in Estonia (Aug 30)…

We had a wonderful evening in Espoo — Our friends have a great farm house on a big lake.. the main house is traditional and the other structures include the sauna, and several external houses.. big vegetable gardens, and now they are building a house for their daughter on the property.. she graduated in theater and doesn’t;t make mush money working for a nonprofit.

We all cooked and ate a typical Finnish meal — fish, potatoes, salad, mushrooms, and berries and cream for dessert.. all with lots of wine and drinking.. lots of conversation about American, European, and Finnish politics, the EU, Scandinavia, etc.

Drove back to Helsinki… and spent all day Saturday walking through neighborhoods near and far…

So, the summary of what’s changed in all these years in Helsinki…

It’s much more diverse — when we lived here seeing an African was truly exotic; I remember there was an African American ex-pat who moved from the states to Helsinki and married a Finnish woman and there were television programs about him.. and everyone knew his name — Howard Smith (I think). Now there are Somalians, and Muslims, and Russians, and they say that 40 languages are now spoken in the country. The other change is that everyone, absolutely everyone, speaks English — and they speak fairly well… That was not the case when we lived here.. Finally, the Euro is so strong, we are quite poor with the dollar… In the years we lived here the dollar was strong and we had major purchase power (although not completely as we were students and had very very little money)… Mike and I were reminiscing.. that in the entire year we lived here we bought so few things, we kept a list — some cups and saucers that we used in our apartment and then gave away to friends; two pots; some wood to build our furniture; foam for a mattress; we each got a winter coat and boots, gloves, and fur hats. We got odds and ends of fabrics to make some curtains in our apartment.. That was it!

Anyway, we took the hydrofoil to Tallinn, Estonia on Saturday end of day… and arrived around 6:30 pm… checked into the very elegant Telegraf Hotel in the medieval part of town.. and walked around finally settling on a restaurant that serves “medieval food”… good, but heavy..

Today, Sunday, we walked the entire original center of Tallinn — quaint, charming, and finally preserved. We climbed the tower of city hall — about 350 feet high — through a very very narrow spiral stair — one person at a time… with ropes for hand rails… At the 77-meter point the landing becomes wood planks instead of cement.. because then Estonians could lift the wood planks to prevent “intruders” from making it to the top.. . We also saw the hole the guardsman at the top would use as a toilet at about 80 meters…

Since Mike and I took separate routes around the town, we were pretty dependent on cell phones to find one another.. What did we do before cell phones…

We took the hydrofoil back to Helsinki at 5 pm and took a leisurely walk about two miles to a traditional Finnish restaurant.. for (once again) fish, potatoes, mushrooms and herring for appetizer.. Walked back to hotel and now we are settling in..

Tomorrow I’m taking tram(s) to get my camera repaired (I had a little mishap) and then metro to a few neighborhoods I haven’t visited this trip.. (will walk by Topeliuksenkatu where one American family lived when we were there)… and then meet up with friends to go out to a new neighborhood and planned new communities, and then to dinner.. and to pack.. and we are off — back to the USA!…

Take care.. Hei Hei!

See you in about 48 hours.

Tervetuloa

Fern