Hei, äiti!
That´s the first sentence of finnish I´ve learned!
It means "Hi, mother!".
I was in deep sleep inside my envelope the whole way here from Germany. We hedgehogs hibernate anyway half of the year, so it is no trouble for me to sleep happily for days, to make the time go faster.
I only woke up when I heard impatient, demanding little voices shouting "Open it! Open the envelope NOW!!! We wanna see who´s inside!!!"
And then my envelope was opened.
I roamed out, and saw three other toyvoyagers staring at me.
They looked very nice!
From left to right, they were Zoe, Kirin and Torsten
I gave them the presents I brought with me, and they asked to send their thanks to you, mum!
The chocolate was very good!
I was showing my travel card to my new host Henna, who was admiring it, and said it was a nice idea.
Only then I had time to wonder about my whereabouts!
I was on a train. Henna was on her way to uni in Helsinki, and had taken the envelope from the post box on her way to the busstop.
I was watching the views from the train window.
My host told me that sadly she had to go and bury herself into the uni library for whole day, but that maybe I could go to see a bit around in Helsinki with the other toyvoyagers, who allready knew the place rather well.
That sounded great!
So my new friends took me on a small sightseeing.
Zoe even rolled a "megaphone" out of a newspaper, and was then shouting "facts" about the sights we saw..
but I have a doubt if all the facts really were facts.
This is just a streetview from a street called Mannerheimintie.
This guy riding a horse is Mannerheim, who, according to our turist guide was famous about "his warm attitudes towards kiwi birds".
Torsten whispered to me that actually the guy was somekind of war hero.. well, I liked Zoes kiwi-bird-friend version more too!
This is the finnish parliament house, although it has some other, more interesting names is spoken language, I was informed.
This fountain is next to the parliament house.
And here we have more Helsinki streetview.
Then we saw these beautiful flowers.
I was checking if there happened to be any earthworms, but no..
Behind the flowerpot was the finnish national museum.
I was sitting for a while on the lap of an urbanized bear..
We came into a park, called Taivallahden puisto.
The autumn is already coloring the leaves here and the trees are very beautiful!
Ooo, the dry leaves on the ground made my nest building instincts wake up!
My wild relatives must be already building their nests to sleep the vinter in.
We sat for awhile resting in a park called Sibelius-puisto after a famous finnish composer Sibelius.
I was talking with Zoe, and we found out we share some common interests, like some favorite foods - snails, earthworms and insects, for example.
This is Sibelius monument, very popular turist attraction, it seems.
It brought to my mind icicles hanging from a rock in vinter forest.
Who says hedgehogs cannot climb a tree?
We walked still to peep a bit over the sea.
Then we came to our home here in Nuuksio, but it was already rather dark when we got here.
Here are waiting for the bus in Leppävaara.
We saw fields and forest.. the nearer we got, the greener it was.
Henna lives in a small cottage in middle of forest.
Here is the cottage where we live here!
The nearest neighbors are kilometers away, there is no running water, but a good well, the forest around is full of mushrooms and berries, and I´m already in love with it all!
I´m sure there is some hedgehogs around too. Henna told me there is elks and bears in the forest, and she is feeding deers, foxes, raccoon dogs, squirrels and badgers on her yard. And an enormous amount of birds.
Now I go with the others, theu are going to show me around here!
I´ll write soon again!
Terveisin Melek (Greetings, Melek)