Utsjoki, Finland - 10th July 2011
By: Eohippus
Hyvää päivää taas, äiti!
Can you guess what that means, mom? Not so hard..
Okke, it means "Good day again, mother!"
You would be surprised to hear your little kiwi speaking finnish nowadays! I have learned a lot from Veronica and Orkku Orava, although Henna is sometimes seemingly wincing for some words and trying to hide a grin in hearing some others, so I´m a bit doubtfull about WHAT kind of language I´ve been learning from my friends!
Before continuing my story of our big trip I want to tell you something great, mom: The blueberries and the wild strawberries are now ripe!
The forest here around the cottage is full of them and we have been eating and eating and eating!!!
Here, mom, wild strawberries!
And blueberries! Njam njam njam!!!!
We all walk here these days around our faces and hands (or paws or wings) blueish-purplish with berry juice.
But now I will go on with the trip.
So we were going ever more northwards, the sun was on the sky later and later until it didn´t set anymore at all, we had reached the region of the "everlasting day". Here the sun will set next time somewhere in August.
In this pic it is about two o´clock in the morning.
We stopped in Tankavaara to see a museum presenting the life of people who were here searching for gold from the rivers.
Some people still do, but nowadays it is more like a hobby, not a serious way to make out your living.
The museum was interesting, and I would maybe like to see it sometime again with less mosquitoes as my company!
There was so many of those that it was hard for us toys to consentrate into anything else.. for different reasons..
Poor Rendolph and Orkku and Torsten were hopping and dancing and cursing and fighting to keep the mosquitoes away, and me and Veronica, we were eating! Njom njom! The lappish mosquitoes are very tasty!
After the museum we drowe to Inari, and there Henna dragged us all again into the forest. How surprising!
We walked along a path and saw swamps and little streams, and fine pine forests.
After some kilometers we found this lean-to and decided to overnight in it.
Soon we had a fire going on and a potfull of tea boiling.
In the morning we hiked deeper and deeper into the wildernes to see something Henna didn´t want to tell us.
Then we saw it!
In middle of nowhere, deep in the wildernes, there is a church, called "Pielpajärven erämaakirkko" = The Wildernes Church of Pielpajärvi.
The church was build in the 18th century when the sámi people living here still were nomads, wandering around with their reindeers. Once a year they get together in this certain place, to exchance news, to keep court, to bind people into marriage and such, and the church who wanted to convert them into christianity very cunningly built the church here, in their taditional meeting place.
Sometimes in vinter nights, a white figure can be seen in the little window of the belltower of the church.. it is the ghost of a priest who hanged himself in the tower..
I´ll leave you imagining this and will continue again tomorrow!
Sleep well!
Your adventurous kiwi bird
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Posted Jul 10, 2011, 5:44 pm Last edited Jul 22, 2011, 8:22 pm by Eohippus
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Alta, Norway - 12th July 2011
By: Eohippus
Hello, mom!
Guess where I just came from? From the berry bushes!!
I have been spending there some hours today *can hardly move* picking berries to fill Hennas freezer for vinter.
Now there is no more room in my bel.. umm.. Hennas freezer and so I wobbled in to make a new uppdate.
Our trip continued more and more towards north.
From Inari we drowe to Karigasniemi and from there we followed the river Teno even more upwards to Utsjoki, which is the northenmost town in Finland.
We crossed the river and were in Norway!
We had reached the real fjell region and could allready see snow here and there on the fjellsides.
These landscapes were so wonderfull that we all wanted to spend the coming night surrounded by them. So we started to search for a suitable place to stop.
In the wilderness of Lappland there still is some state owned little huts here and there where the wanderers can overnight free.
Originally the system was of course created out of necessity - no houses for hundred kilometers if you happen to be in need. Even most of the roads were built in Lappland area only after 1950´s. Until then people were travelling trough the pathless forests and fjells skiing or in sleighs pulled by reindeers.
Anyway, we happened to find one of those huts empy and decided to spend the night in it.
It was midsummer night - the longest day of the year, not that we could have seen much difference there high up - the sun was up and the night was as bright as the day.
Before christianity came to Finland sun (Aurinko) was one of the central deities, told Orkku Orava, and midsummer night was very important, because then the sun was in her greatest power and glory. Yes.. for finns the sun was female, goddess.
In midsummer night she had her wedding with the fertility twin gods of field and forest.
We celebrated the night by climbing all high upp along the fjell, until we reached the snow line and had a midsummer snow fight soon going on!
Next day we drowe trough high and narrow fjell roads until we came again on lower and greener land.
Here we are all posing for the camera. Quite a gang, huh, mom?
More again tomorrow!
Kisses from Zoe!
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Posted Jul 12, 2011, 5:20 pm Last edited Jul 12, 2011, 5:24 pm by Eohippus
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Nuuksio, Finland - 22nd July 2011
By: Eohippus
Hei taas, äiti!
We have had a bit sad days here. Hennas beloved cat Iuku died and she has been very upset.
Well, even I miss the old cat, although she liked to tease me sometimes saying things like "Hi, little birdie, could you check if there is something stucked between my back teeth?"
I valued her cunningnes and her good humour.
Now we have here the yonger granny cat still keeping us company, and she is totally different - a REAL pussykins!
I could leave just hatched kiwi babies under her care without hesitation.
After coming back from our trip to Lappland we rested coupple of days doing little and eating lots of icecream, and then we went to Helsinki for some days to take care of Hennas mothers two kittens while she was away.
In her apartment we were investigating everything!
And watching old finnish films from TV!
What a joy! Can you believe it - Henna doesn´t even have a television.. I think she has been reading too much Thoreau!
And then we were investigating more.
Henna said she is happy she normally lives in the little cottage in midle of forest with us, because otherwise the neighbours would soon call the police, suspecting there is something fishy going on.
We were just making a bit noise and singing a bit, mom!
And playing to be pirates, arrr!
Henna introduced us to some of her mothers toys and told us to learn some manners from them.
But really, very nice dolls they were and polite and all, but a bit boring! They didn´t even want to come with us to drop water balloons from the window!
So Henna thought it better to take us outside, and we walked to the centrum. There was Helsinki Pride march going on.
We marched from the Lutheran Cathedral to Kaisaniemi park, where there was a free concert and people having fun.
After the consert we went back to Hennas mothers apartment and started a lively game of "Robbers and police" and Henna told us she will take us to see a nice island next day. What can we learn from that? Those poor well behaving dolls never get to see nice islands!
I´ll tell you more soon, mom!
Your Zoë
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Posted Jul 22, 2011, 8:11 pm
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Pihlajasaari, Helsinki, Finland - 26th July 2011
By: Eohippus
Hi, dear mom!
It is your little (gaining weight) kiwi bird again!
You could tell my greetings for all the toyvoyagers visiting you!
It is a wonderful way of living, the toyvoyaging!
One day in Helsinki we took a small ferry to Pihlajasaari, which is a very popular place here to spend summer days.
I was trying to spot some fishes in the water, but they spotted us instead!
They came to peep if we have any fishing equipment with us, and when they saw we didn´t, they started to make faces!
What manners!
On the island there was a very nice little beach for swimming or sun bathing.
Henna told us there is also a nudist beach on the other side of the island, and that some sailors have a habit to sail slowly pass the beach, using binoculars..
I don´t quite see what´s the big deal - I´m nude all the time!!!
There was a cute row of little cubicles from 1930´s to chance the swimming suite on.
We were playing on the sand for some time. We were imagining to be camels walking thousends of kilometers over a desert.. but that made us very thirsty and we went to search for a café.. or maybe an ice cream booth.
We found this very nice café in an old beautiful building, which was someones summer villa hundred years ago.
I had a giant cake! Njomm njomm!
Then we went to walk to other parts of the island. Not to the nudist beach, anyway.
We found an interesting little canal.
Then we left back home, but in our way there we stopped to have some icecream!
What a swell day!
Love, Zoë
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Posted Jul 26, 2011, 9:38 pm
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Nuuksio, Finland - 1st August 2011
By: Eohippus
Hip hei, mom, it is Zoe again here!
How are you? I hope very well!
I´m having a great time. The late summer here is really something!
The nights here in southern Finland are already dark, but now we have here beetles which glow in the dark (glow worm, Lampyris noctiluca).
It´s only the females which are sharing light for their surroundings, what else. Always so much more enlightened than males. (Wheee Rendolph and Torsten got pissed off when I told them that! )
Yesterday we walked trough a ripe hay field just harvested, and spent a wonderful hour hopping in the hay piles!
Jeeeeehaaaaaa! It was very very fun!
The hay is also fantastic to rest on after hopping like crazies.
Now I´m going to show some things we have been eating lately.
Raspberries are now wonderfully juicy and sweet! I spend often couple of hours in the raspberry bushes..
There is lots of red currants too!
The branches are hardly able to stand the weigh, so it is good I´m making the load a bit lighter!
The first black currants are also ripe, although most of them will come a bit later. They are good and very good remedy against flue too.
The white currants are great too but a bit hard to spot! I had walked past this bush without seeing it many times!
There is still lots of wild strawberries too! Njom njom!
This is a stone bramble (Rubus saxatilis).
There is lot of these growing in the forestand they are delicious, but many people don´t know they are edible.
Yesterday we went to pick mushrooms.
We found all sorts of mushrooms!
We dragged a mushroom book with us and tried to recognice them, but Henna who was checking our prey was looking shocked seeing some of the mushrooms we had picked.
These are edible ones. (Amanita vaginata).
We found chanterelles, njam njam!
They are one of the best mushrooms growing here!
We picked as much as we could, and found more and more all the time!
Our little baskets get full many times, and we emtied them into Hennas bigger basket. She seemed happy too.
Then we went back home to make food of the mushrooms!
I cleaned and sliced the chanterelles and Veronica was slicing the onions.
Then we added some spices and herbs and some butter.
We lit an open fire and put the fryingpan on it. Open air cooking is so much fun!
Then we buttered some slices of rye bread and spread the mushroom-onion-herb mix over the slices.
And then we ate!!
I´m sure you would have liked it too!
It is good, mommy, that I don´t wear clothes, otherwise they would all be too small for me now!
See you again soon!
Kisses from Zoe
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Posted Aug 1, 2011, 7:17 pm Last edited Aug 1, 2011, 7:33 pm by Eohippus
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Korkeasaari, Helsinki, Finland - 15th August 2011
By: Eohippus
Hello, mommy dear!
The last week here was a bit subdued, because Henna was reading to an exam and asked us to help her by behaving in a bit more peaceful way than normally.
We decided to do even better and help her to study!
We were reading and underlining the parts that sounded important to us.
Rendolph is standing on his head after reading the sentence "Art floats in an ethereal realm of symbolic meaning above the physical world over which technology seeks control." And no wonder.
Henna was doing that a lot too (standing on her head, not floating)
We had to strengthen ourselves to survive the awful text every now and then.
After seeing some of our underlinings and side scribbles ("What has the big juicy fishes and fluffy lichen to do with the behavioral approach to archaeological data?") she asked us to go to the uni library to search some material for her instead.
Here we are going trough some interesting web pages..
We went all to our own directions in the big library to find such things we thought would help Henna in her studying.
With archaeology you never know what can be useful! Better invstigate all interesting looking things!
We were all studying hard during those days!
After two days of behaving and studying we all had quite too much energy. So we decided to have some mercy and go somewhere else.
I wanted to go to Helsinki zoo, because I had heard it was doing great job by rescuing finnish wild animals and also taking part of a worldwide program to rescue endangered species.
The zoo is situated onto an island called Korkeasaari, and it is possible to get there either along a bridge or in a ferry.
I took the zoo bus from the Helsinki centrum.
When this zoo was opened for public about two hundred years ago, it was of course only a place to collect "funny and rare animals" and exhibit them to people.
The cages were small and not at all suitable for their inhabitants.
Behind me is the old cage where they kept polar bears.
But nowadays most zoos are really doing valuable work for helping animals, not to exploit them.
So nowadays in this zoo there is only some species to be seen who don´t get easily stressed by the staring audience. The other animals people cannot see at all, because that would annoy them too much.
The big turtle certainly didn´t seem to be in any way annoyed - it was just cutting the grass vigorously.
The hen was saying the living in the zoo was all right, although the screaming brats sometimes gets on her nerves.
This nice fellow is a dwarf mangust. He was living in a big family, mainly digging tunnels.
Some animals made me a bit hungry.
And some were a bit scary. What are these, anyway? They look like some dinosaur infants to me.
(Aha, Henna is shouting they are axolotls. )
The caimans were so still I thought them to be some statues first, but then I could see this one breathing!
These birds were asking what kind of bird I am. When I said I was a toyvoyager kiwi, they said the zoo would ceratinly be interested to have such a rare bird living there.
But I said I´m a VOYAGER, so I have to voyage.
I was still visiting a donkey
And chatting with a goose.
But then it started to rain so heavily that I went back home.
I took the ferry this time.
See you soon again, mom!
Have a good time!
Zoë
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Posted Aug 15, 2011, 11:29 am
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Kopparnäs, Inkoo, Finland - 21st August 2011
By: Eohippus
Hi, mum!
How are you? I wish you are well!
We have been doing lots of trips to pick mushrooms and berries and herbs and first apples and just to cook coffee on open fire and eat all sort of delicious provisions.
I´ll put here some pics of a trip we made to Kopparnäs in Inkoo, about 30 kilometers away from the cottage in Nuuksio.
We stopped in Karjaa marketplace to see all te wonderfull things they were selling there.
Well, actually there was no need to buy anything, because we can pick ourselves from the forest and Hennas yard about all the products we saw on the market.
But it was nice to watch all the things anyway, although that made us all feel very hungry!
So we asked Henna to driwe fast to Kopparnäs so that we could start eating right away!
When we get there we just checked the map very briefly to see to what direction the fireplace was and then we run there in a hungry queue!
We collected tinder.
And then I chopped som firewood for us.
We had the fire burning and coffee cooking faster than ever before!
And then we get into the real business!
Aah, cookies!
Ooh, nectarines! (These we had to buy, as much as we are trying to be self-sufficient.
And sweets!
And then I ate a fish! I ate it so fast there was only the bones left when Henna came to take the pic.
A nice smoke after the lunch.. naah, only joking, mum, these are liquorice pipes!
And then we were not able to move a muscle for an hour, we were so full!
We could hear Henna muttering something like "Of course, I COULD fill them up every day like this..
After the hours rest we were ready to explore the surroundings.
We found a very interesting tree.
The more twisted around a tree is, the better shaman drum it makes. And if it is a needle tree twisted clockwise or a leaf tree twisted anti-clockwise it is the best possible, because with a drum like that it is able to travel to both directions, up and down. (Henna was lecturing again, she gets so enthusiastic about things we don´t have the heart to stop her.
I found a beautiful butterfly. I was too full for even thinking of eating her.
Then we found a ruin of a cowhouse.
We climbed on the top of the hill.
And found a bronze age grave mound made of stones.
And sat watching over the sunny sea.
And then I met a lizard, a slowworm (Anguis fragilis). They look a bit like snakes because they dont have legs.
This one was very friendly and asked if I want to share a beetle with her.
She also told me some of them can reach the age of 50!
Then I found swan egg shells. By the size they could have been kiwi eggs..
Then we were laying a bit on the warm rock. It is fantastic to listen to the waves and seagulls.
After all the exploring we started to feel a bit peckish again!
So on our way home we stopped to fill the emptines a bit.
When we reached home we went to sauna.
It is a very old sauna, and the ceilings are blackened with the smoke and it smells of tar. A lovely smell!
It was about 60 degrees in the sauna - no one of us likes a very hard sauna.
Henna said some people sit in the sauna when there is over hundred celsius degrees.
We were sailing with the water ladle in a tub.
Then we pulled speed from the brim and made the ladle go round and round and round.
Henna said it is great we are able to turn everything into a play. Healthy brats are just like that.
Now it is time to go to bed.
A good night kiss from your little Zoe
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Posted Aug 21, 2011, 11:07 pm Last edited Aug 21, 2011, 11:24 pm by Eohippus
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Lemu, Finland - 14th September 2011
By: Eohippus
Hyvää päivää, rakas äiti!
It´s Zoe again writing from Finland.
The autumn is now really here. It is raining most of the time, the yard is a big puddle, and the leaves of the birches are turning yellow.
The aspens and rowans are turning red instead, I don´t know why, but it is very beautiful and I would love to take some photos of the trees if it stopped raining.
So we have had to spend lots of time inside, and we have been mainly playing games suchs us Hide and seek, Tag, and competing in different things, like "who can make the most scarying sound" or "who can make the funniest face".
So when the rain stopped one day, Henna pushed us out of doors and told us to run and scream as much as we need to.
We went for a walk..
We were admiring the color changing trees.
And climbing in them.
We saw sunflowers in their all glory.
And ready made hay bales on the fields.
We saw a very inviting path that took us to the forest.
There we were laying on the wonderful, soft moss.
And investigating everything!
Inside the forest there is an old cottage where no one lives in, because people say it is hounted.
There was some old pans and kettles from the cottage rusting on the yard.. no on had dared to take any of them either..
I would not like to encounter a pissed of ghost either, asking after his kettle, that´s for sure!
Anyway, we were making some coffee on its backyard and didn´t see anything suspicious.
Maybe it would have been different if we had been there at night time..
There was a dead standing tree in the yard. Here they are called "kelo" and they are very important in the forest, because woodpeckers and flying squirrels live in them.
I found a cute little house for myself too.
Then we saw some odd pieces of art in the trees.
They´re somehow trendy at the moment - instead of painting graffitis some of the teenagers are knitting these colorful "clothes" for trees/traffic signs/lampposts..
I think it´s cute.
Then we found an interesting looking little cave under a big block of rock.
We roamed inside and found a narrow tunnel, trough which we were just and just able to crawl.
From the tunnel we came into a bigger cave.. quite big enough to spend some time in.
Outside the cave there was this row of small standing stones.
They led us to this bronze age burial mound. One of the biggest in Finland!
Of course many of them have been destroyed by people searching for treasures, or by priests wanting to wipe out even the remnants of the old religion, or just by stupid people who think it is cool to destroy things.
It was a very nice view from the mound..
And ripe lingonberries growing everywhere!
We came down from the rocky hill and found a beautiful lake.
And a boat!
And so we were sailing back home!
We celebrated our day with applepie..
I hope you have some applepie too, mum!
Your Zoe
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Posted Sep 14, 2011, 3:44 pm
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Zoological museum, Helsinki, Finland - 22nd September 2011
By: Eohippus
Hellurei, äiti! ( = Tinkety-tonk, mother! )
It has been raining here every day!
Even the poor squirrels on the yard are sulking with all the rain, and they look much skinnier too, poor things, when their furs are soaked and their whiskers are dripping water!
We have been mainly playing Monopole.
We have turned it into a quite new kind of game with five gameboards instead of only one, representing other planets and ocean bottom and other dimensions.
Yesterday Henna got a package from Portugal..
We opened it, Henna retreated somewhere else to read a postcard very full of very red hearts, and meanwhile we started to help her to investigate the package.
It was full of wonderfull looking things!
But of course we had to find properly out if they really were as wonderful things as they seemed to be.
They were!
Henna said she felt quite like the royalty in former times, not only because of receiving such delicasies, but also because of having a bunch of tasters!
Today it seemed to be a sunny day and we went fo a walk.
It was wonderful to see the sun again!
So we were sitting and letting the sun warm our faces, and feeling the breeze and smelling all the wonderfull smells of autumn.
And playing a bit too!
But rather soon the clouds sailed forward again, and it get darker.
It started to pour again, and we were running to find some place to hide, but soon we were all very wet little toyvoyagers, brrrr!
I was keeping rain in a hencoop.
The rain stopped for a short time and the others decided to go home to investigate the portuguese package a bit more deeply, but I decided to go and see the zoological museum.
The first section was all sorts of molluscs. I felt my mouth starting to water..
The feeling was increasing in the fish section!
Next I went to see the fossiles and bones.
Actually, I´m thankfull the molluscs are not this big anymore!
Who knows what they would come up with?
There was couple of dinosaur sceletons too.
I started to think about the film "Night at the museum" I saw some years ago..
I was watching a presentation about evolution of humans and other apes, couldn´t see much difference..
The mammal- and bird section was the most interesting one.
This is a short-beaked Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus).
It is from the same part of the world than we, kiwis, and it is a rather odd mammal, because it lays eggs like we birds do too.
This is a Helmeted Guineafowl (Numida meleagris) from Africa, and it is a very interesting bird, because as a baby, before it learns to fly, it has thumbnails in its wings, so that it is able to climb trees to be safe from the beasts.
This is a The snow leopard (Uncia uncia or Panthera uncia). It is a highly endangered species. It has been estimated that between 3,500 and 7,000 snow leopards exist in the wild and between 600 and 700 in zoos worldwide.
I hope this one died a natural death too.
These are wild boars (Sus scrofa), but these are still very young. The adult males can weigh even 400 kg here in North- Europe, and in wintertime they have a proper, thick fur like bears.
This fellow was grinning to me from the floor.
I also met a cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)
Who is this one? Not blackbird, not raven, not rook.. do you know, mum? We are here on our wits end.
I took many more pics, but because they are all taken a glass beeing between me and the animals, the reflectons are really too bad.
I´m sending a warm kiss to you!
I´ll be here soon again.
Zoe
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Posted Sep 22, 2011, 6:43 pm Last edited Sep 22, 2011, 6:50 pm by Eohippus
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Espoo, Finland - 4th October 2011
By: Eohippus
Hi, dear mum!
I wish you are well! I am! Although the costant rain is pissing me of a bit.
But yesterday Henna told us that she is going to Portugal after two weeks. I hope it suits you if I go with her, mum.
We said goodbye to Rendolph on thursday and wellcomed Melek to join us on friday.
Now I´ll show some pics from the past few days.
I painted the cottage one day last week when we had a sunny day.
We all wanted to do it, and so Henna put us to compete of the privilege by showing who has learned to recognise the biggest amount of different mushroom species, and I won!
This is the mushroom I recogniced, and no on else didn´t.
It is a Kuehneromyces mutabilis, commonly known as the Sheathed Woodtuft. It eats rotten wood, but we ate it for dinner!
We decided to go on a rowing trip on lake Nuuksion Pitkäjärvi, because it was Rendolphs last day here and he wanted to get on a small boat.
Here we are driwing towards the lakeshore eating our provisions.
This is the boat we set sail with (although it didn´t have any sails.. )
The plake in the shore is telling it is forbidden to swim in the water.
Maybe because it was very near a dam and could be dangerous.
We tried a lot not to swim.
As able seacreatures we, naturally, were soon taking the lead in the manouvres, but Henna announced she is the captain in this ship and commanded the crew to sit in the bow while she pushed the boat onto the water.
So, here we are sitting like hens in a row.
Then we were admiring the Pitkäjärvi landscapes..
Nuuksion Pitkäjärvi is a very narrow, but about seven kilometers long lake. It was a fjord of Baltic Sea in stone age.
The city of Espoo takes part of the drinking water from it.
Here you can see the trees changing colors.
On the other end of the long lake we stepped out from the boat and went for a walk in the woods.
The rosebushes were full of berries, and were tasting a bit.
We found some mushrooms even I didn´t recognice, they were odly green.
Look at this house, mum!
Wouldn´t you love to live in it? I would!
I was enjoying the rare sun in the shore for some time.
Then we went home and said goodbye to Rendolph. He was so excited!
The next day we found Melek in our post box.
We were all asked to Hennas mothers place to have café and cookies and such.
She likes to feed little voyagers.
We went all for a walk too.
I was spying on some fish..
These flowers are for you, mum!
See you again, mum!
A hug for you!
Zoe
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Posted Oct 4, 2011, 10:41 pm
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Kauppatori, Helsinki, Finland - 7th October 2011
By: Eohippus
Good evening, mother!
It´s my turn to make my update after Kirin.. she managed to write hers, let´see if I had as much luck. There is an awful storm going on, and thousands of homes are without electricity at the moment.
The storm started yesterday evening, and we had a little bird, Emberiza citrinella, overnighting here. It was totally soaked and wanted to come in. In the morning it was sunnier and we let it go.
Now I´ll put here picks from Helsinki annual Herring Fair.
We took a tram to the Kauppatori market square.
The Herring Fair of Helsinki is a tradition which has its roots somewhere in the 16´th century.
The best time to catch autumn herring was and is in the beginning of October, and the fishermen of course came to the big "city" to sell their catch.
There was lots of stands selling different herring products, and also many fishingboats, and the fishermen (and some fisherwomen) were selling their products straight from their boats.
Some boats were also selling traditional bread.
"Silakka" = herring
We were walking amongst the boats and stands and I started to drool, seeing all that fish!
Finns are crazy about their herrings, and I understand them so well!
Every year there is this jury tasting tens of different herring dishes, and products, and then choosing the winners - the "Best Herring Cook" and the "Best herring product" of the year. Those are very honoured titels.
I want to get into that jury!!!
The fantastic products they where selling were for example salted herring, smoked herring, herring in different spice sauces, herring in vinegar with garlic and other wonderful things, "Silakkakukko" - which is a bread, herring baked inside..
The others were not quite so enthusiastic about all the herring, but I started to think a new possible occupation as a capten of a herring boat!
Although I would maybe eat the main part of the catch myself.
There was also many "swimming" herring restaurants selling wonderful dishes.
This old lighhouse ship was also working as a restaurant - bar.
The others went to see some church, but I was sitting outside with Henna, and we were feasting with herring doughnuts, well, kind of - there is no suitable english term for those delicious things.
The others were hungry too, and we went all to have some coffee and buns.
Today we found post from Klubwerks, a small leopard roamed out from the envelope and said "Mraurr!"
She is a bit wild!
We went to see the stormy sea today.
We lit a fire and made some coffee.
And ate some choc. cookies.
The weather was like crazy - it was shining and raining and shining and windy as hell.
Then it started to pour rain, and we came back home.
So, I managed to write the update, although the light was flickering every now and then in worrying way.
See you soon, mum!
Kisses!
Zoe
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Posted Oct 7, 2011, 8:03 pm
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University, Helsinki, Finland - 13th October 2011
By: Eohippus
Hyvää iltaa taas, äiti! (Good evening again, mother!)
The weather is turning cooler here in Finland. Last night the temperature already went under zero, and it has been raining fleet in the northern Finland.
Tonight there is a full moon, and I saw the fox we are feeding on the yard, it was shiny red in the moonlight.
Yesterday Henna had an exam, and while she was there fooling people with long sentences, we toyvoyagers went to see a bit around in the uni.
This is the building where Henna had the exam. Not a very interesting place.
Helsinki uni has spread into several buildings in the centrum area. This is a rather new one - it has a big auditorium , and that´s why big part of the exams of the humanistic faculty are kept here.
There is students' union elections coming, and there was different parties and faculties and organizations advertising their own candidates.
We crossed the street to see an older university building.
This is the newer side of the uni main building.
This is the entrance hall. In older times it was the students smoking room.
During the year 1968 student revolution these corridors were full of students staying there overnight.
They get what they wanted - a part for students in the uni decision making.
We met some important looking chaps. At least if the length of the moustache tells anything about it.
This one had also long hair growing in his ears.
The floors were paved with chalk stone, and there was lots of fossiles.
We walked onto the older side of the main building.
There was lots of copies of classical greek and roman statues.
In these pompous surroundings Henna has been eating her carrot sandwiches for rather many years.
Notice the strategic positioning of the leaf.
This guy doesn´t have as good strategy.
I could see the Lutheran Cathedral from the window.
Quite nice views.
Then we went to see the university main library.
It is a very beautiful building, and looks like there could very well be some secret passageways and rooms for forbidden books or secret societies.
Its ceilings have great paintings.
There was going on an exhibition on finnish cartoons.
This is where it is possible to read microfilms.
After going trough the collections we went to drag Henna out from the other building and went back home.
I´ll be here soon again.
Many kisses for you, mum!
Zoe
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Posted Oct 13, 2011, 11:37 pm
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