Arriving in Stockholm, Sweden - 16th November 2009
By: Delenna
God morgon! Thant's how they say "good morning" in Swedish. Early Monday morning we woke up for buffet breakfast: they had all sorts of dishes there! Porridge, cereal, breads, rice pastries, eggs... etc. ect. On our plate is only the first bit we had.
After breakfast we went on the deck to see the surroundings as we approached Stockholm, the capitol of Sweden.
As we docked we saw the front part of the ship open and cars drive out! It looked weird from above...
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Posted Nov 22, 2009, 7:16 am
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Arriving in Helsinki, Finland - 17th November 2009
By: Delenna
Here we are, arriving back in Helsinki. The Baltic Sea was calm on our way back too. The island we pass by is Suomenlinna Sea Fortress (a Unesco World Heritage Site). It's a really narrow place we went through! My host said that if I'm with her next spring/summer we'll go there, to Suomenlinna. She said it's a lovely place during summer, a popular picknic place too.
I'm tired but happy that I had this opportunity to see the capitol of Sweden! Now, we'll drive home and rest - and eat some tax free candy
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Posted Nov 22, 2009, 7:37 am Last edited Nov 22, 2009, 7:38 am by Delenna
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Helsinki, Finland - 17th November 2009
By: Delenna
As we walked from the harbour to the main busstation I got to see some sights in the capitol of Finland: Helsinki. It was a rainy day but we didn't let it bother us much. Helsinki has about 500 000 inhabitants and is located only 1h drive from Porvoo.
There's the Uspensky Orthodox Cathedral and the Presidential Palace. The president of Finland is Tarja Halonen, she's the first female president in this country.
We walked by the Market Square towards the Cathedral at the Senate Square. The green phonebooth is not the regular Finnish phonebooth. You can hardly find the regular ones as everyone has a cellphone nowadays. My host guessed it's somekind of an attraction itself for the Finns - and not all tourists carry cellphones so... And it suits the small street it stands in! Next to it were that couple and their reindeer wishing people welcome to the souvenir shop.
I also saw the Main Railway Station and the statue of the 3 smiths.
On the main street is the Parliament House, and the white building is the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and the statue next to it is the riding Mannerheim (one of our former presidents) - and a corner of the main Post Office on the right.
The last photo shows the main busstation! It really doesn't look like one... Probably because the busses are underground and everything else is a mall.
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Posted Nov 30, 2009, 8:10 am Last edited Nov 30, 2009, 9:16 am by Delenna
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By the Baltic Sea in Porvoo, Finland - 22nd November 2009
By: Delenna
Wuff! This is the Baltic Sea - or the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic sea. Anyway, did you know that the creator of Moomins spent her summers on a small island nearby? No wonder Moominpappa loves the sea!
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Posted Dec 3, 2009, 6:12 pm
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Porvoo, Finland - 25th November 2009
By: Delenna
Today I went to the local sightseeing tower with my host. We walked from the other side of the hill where you can see to the old town. In the tower I got a relly good view over the city of Porvoo! Porvoo is the 2nd oldest city in Finland. It has almost 50 000 inhabitants of which 33% is native Swedish speakers (finnishswedish). Porvoo is only 50km east from Helsinki, the capitol of Finland. It takes less than an hour to drive there.
The story tells that the sightseeing tower was made by a giant: he heard that they were building a church in Porvoo and got angry (apparently giants don't like churches) and threw a stone all the way from Sipoo (where he lived, a place not too far from Porvoo). He didn't either aim it too well or his arm wasn't in good enough condition as he missed the church.
The stone has been a place to gather for festives a hundred years ago. Kids were told that babies were picked up from under the stone. Around 1880 they made the stairs and it became a sightseeing tower. Nowadays kids are told that a stork brings the babies - which is weird because you very rarely see storks in Finland...
The red shore houses in the last photos are also part of the old town - and the most wellknown attraction in Porvoo. The brochure tells this about them: The shore houses are now red, but they got their colour only in the late 18th century. Red ochre paint was used to paint the shore houses in honour of King Gustav III's arrival from Sweden. All of the houses along his route were painted, in order to make them more beautiful. The red ochre also helped protect the logs from wind and sun damage. Exotic fruits, wines and spices were brought to Porvoo, and the shore houses also served as intermediate storehouses for coffee an tobacco. Today the shore houses are used as private living quarters and storage space.
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Posted Dec 3, 2009, 6:20 pm
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Porvoo, Finland - 27th November 2009
By: Delenna
On this rainy day I went to meet Santa Claus! He was scheduled to arrive on an old train to attend the Grand Opening of Old Porvoo's Christmas. There's no trains operating to/from Porvoo anymore - just the old ones on tourist seasons (summer + xmas). Santa came on a "Lättähattu" ("Flat Hat"). It's a Dm7 type "train car" which were built in the 60's mainly.
Before we met Santa we took a look around in the old trainstation area. They still have some old trains there (I think they must be very rusty, standing outdoors all the time). There's a sort of a shop where they sell nostalgic vintage stuff (and newer handicrafts). We followed their small model train while waiting for Santa's arrival. It was fun to look at.
Finally Santa and his train arrived! He was really nice and Santa-like He greeted everyone and talked with children - and some toyvoyagers
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Posted Dec 6, 2009, 6:41 am
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Porvoo, Finland - 27th November 2009
By: Delenna
After chatting with Santa we walked towards the Old Porvoo and The Opening. The Old Town is full of small shops selling handicrafts and other quality products.
The Opening of Old Porvoo's Christmas wasn't as Grand as they let us think. Some people (including Tsar Alexander I !!!) gave speechees, then Santa sang with us and finally Santa gave kids candy in that big "teepee". There was also a torch parade but the people holding he torches were kids and thus hard to see behind all the mass of people. My host said there had been an Opening of Porvoo Christmas (with more stuff to see & do) last week.
After the speeches and stuff we did some window shopping. They have this competition of who has the best window - people can vote and there are prizes to both winners and voters. That little Moomin House in one window is allways there - they just redecorate it to every season. Obviously they were celebrating Christmas too
Oh, and do you know what those red bells are made of? Those hanging above the streets? Plastic buckets!
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Posted Dec 6, 2009, 6:46 am
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Making Christmas cards, Finland - 1st December 2009
By: Delenna
My host l-o-v-e-s crafts. She has this huge amount of supplies all over the house. Today we helped her make cards for lonely seniors. A "craft-supply-shop" (Tiimari) gathers christmas cards and Helsinki Missio (an organization that helps people in need) deals them out to lonely older citizens. My host likes to make people happy and she loves carfts so this was perfect for her. First she told us how to make a snow lantern card. That "lace" cutter was really hard to use! But only because the card was so thick. We added some snowflakes and yellow glitter and there it was! We also made cards with hearts, old christmas stamps, christmas trees... etc. It was really fun! We tried to be carefull with the glitter but I think everyone sparkled afterwards We made 13 cards. It's awesome to think that 13 old people will get a card from us and hopefully be happy, maybe our card is the only one they get.
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Posted Dec 8, 2009, 10:13 am
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Porvoo, Finland - 4th December 2009
By: Delenna
It had snowed a bit so we went to enjoy it in a park. The park was nearby the Porvoo Cathedral - you can see the clocktower and roof in the background. We clombed on these trees as they looked like they were made for it
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Posted Dec 8, 2009, 10:11 am
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Loviisa, Finland - 13th December 2009
By: Delenna
We drove to another tiny town (population 7400) east from Porvoo. This town is Loviisa and it took us only 30min to get there. The town was founded as a frontier and fortress town in 1745 on land beloning to the Degerby Manor and was originally called Degerby. King Adolf Fredrik of Sweden visited Loviisa in 1752 and decided to rename the town after his wife, Queen Lovisa Ulrika.
The church is called "the church in the middle of the road" as it stands in the crossroads of two main streets of Loviisa. It was finished in 1865.
This is the very center of Loviisa; the church and the market place, surrounded with tourist info (pink house), police station, gym (yellow house)... They had a really cool looking lamp in front of the police station!
The last photos show the bastions (or actually one of 2) that were built to protect the big road. Nowadays there are only ruins left and the area is used as the set of various plays in the summer.
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Posted Dec 14, 2009, 7:15 pm
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Loviisa, Finland - 13th December 2009
By: Delenna
After climbing up and down the bastion we walked thru the old town towards the Laivasilta area. They had an xmas market there with lots of special handicrafts for sale. It was hard not to buy anything... After the market we walked thru the older town. Some of the Traditional Christmas Homes were open for public but we didn't get to go in any of them. They're called TCH although they're regular homes decorated in different xmas styles (more old than new) and they serve coffee and bakings.
Finally we stopped to eat.
Lastly we tried to find the orthodox church but found only the bells... We took a look at the Bonga Castle thru the snowing weather. Bonga Castle the atelier-museum of the artists Riitta Nelimarkka and Jaakko Seeck and located in the town centre, next to the church. Over 200 works by Nelimarkka are on display, covering a period of about 20 years (ranging from colourful textiles to oil paintings and drawings). The building itself is over 100 years old.
One last look to the center, sitting on an anchor... And then heading home!
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Posted Dec 14, 2009, 7:22 pm
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Porvoo, Finland - 15th December 2009
By: Delenna
Today I got to bake gingerbread cookies with Leonard, Banyo and Gary Boldie. My host has all sorts of cookie cutters and here are some of the less traditional ones. These cookies we baked for old people in my host's previous job but I was promised that we would make more for ourselves later.
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Posted Dec 15, 2009, 5:37 pm
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Porvoo, Finland - 15th December 2009
By: Delenna
After the gingerdreab cookies had cooled we decorated them with white and brown (chocolate) icing sugar. It looked quite plain but again - my host promised there would be more choises next time. Thankfully we didn't have to decorate all the cookies we baked...
We got to taste them too, it was delicious!
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Posted Dec 15, 2009, 5:40 pm
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