Travelog for: Hippoda

Hello mummy!
Finally I`m at my new host`s place! I know you were worried, yeah? But I`m fine but tired.
I met several interesting guys here, hope we`ll have fun together. But first I should have a rest.

Hello dear mummy!
Finally I had my first walk around Moscow. And the first place I visited was :

Hello mummy!
The weather was not very fine - it was going to rain, but we had very active walk through Arbat street, nice bridge near Kievskiy railway-station and so on
You can see mummy I have a new friend Mioche!

Hello mummy!
At the last day of the month we decided to visit Mr.Medvedev-the resident of Russia and went to Kremlin. Kremlin is great and interesting place, unfortunately Mr. President went somewhere so we didn`t see him

Hello mummy!
Guess where I am! Hehe, you have read already - yes I`m in Germany!
We were going to Paris an had a 11-hours stop in Berlin!
I walked through the Tier garten, visited Unter den Linden and made photos with y favorites cathedrals. Everyone was happy that I was with them because I can speak German.
I miss you mum and my Berlin visit made me closer to you.

Mummy!
It is Paris....I have no comments to make! Just look!

I have arrived in Finland!
I'm in this small town 50km east from the capitol. This place is called Porvoo. My host ran some errands after picking me up at the post office so I saw quite a few different parts of the town. Those colorfull boxes are "electricity boxes", they're painted by the local artschool students which is cool as the boxes are normally greenish-grey, very dull. The houses are in the Empire district.

The statue shows the national poet J.L. Runeberg. This statue is in a park in the city center which I saw next (or mainly the busstation and its surroundings).

The two last photos are taken on the other side of the Porvoo River, in the newer part of the town. It's quite snowy don't you think? 

The story continues where I last left it: on the other side of the River Porvoo. The local artists' association and the local schools had a project called "say it with flowers". These paintings are it, they block the view to an ugly construction site 

Porvoo Art Association organized jointly with the artists, students and schoolchildren a "Say it with flowers" event where the Porvoo Art Factory's fence is decorated with paintings.

Painting Event is to give first taste of the positive creative spirit in the art factory on the future. The event is supported with materials of the building company Hartela, K-Rauta Porvoo and Rautakesko.

Children, teenagers and adults all take part in the event. Porvoo Art Association, Artists' Society in Porvoo, Porvoo Art School, Inveon school, Haaga Helia and primary schools.

On the fence is a reserved space for all people of Porvoo, who are welcome to paint their own flower greetings.

Happy Independence Day Finland!

We visited the Noark Miniature World on the edge of Porvoo. There are several different miniature buildings and dioramas and they keep making more! I could see the local church and the Colosseum for example. During the hoiliday season they now also have an exhibition of creches from all over the world. It was really interesting!

This christmas was different for my  host as she hosted her reletives as well. They (all 6 grandparents of the kids and 3 siblings of the hosting couple) came to my host to celebrate xmas. There was food, tv cartoons, presents and a few shows performed by the kids  It was all fun to watch! It's uderstandable that my host didn't have much time to photograph me but at least here are some pics:

1) the gingerbread train my host is very proud of (she makes a different gingerbread thing every year)

2) some of the  cards my host has received

3) The Tree

4) it was really cold outside!

Iloista joulua! Buorrit Juovllat! Merry Christmas! Nollaig chridheil huibh! God jul! Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan! Fröhliche Weihnachten! Joyeux Noel! Q Ná merye i turuhalmeri! QISmaS DatIvjaj 'ej DIS chu' DatIvjaj!

I went to the local sightseeing tower with my host. Unfortunately there was so much snow everywhere we couldn't climb on the tower  Instead my host tried to find a geocache nearby but again, too much snow...

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...

HEUREKA
He made a fieldtrip to a Science Center in Vantaa. My host had got free tickets from a friend to the whole family! The Science Center Heureka is a very cool place to learn about the environment, science, physical phenomena and stuff. You are allowed to try everything yourself, no need to keep the kids away, yelling ”Don't touch it, just watch”. As they say on their website: ”Heureka's exhibitions are interactive. The main exhibition has over 200 exhibits from many fields of science as well as a number of activity points. In addition to the main exhibition Heureka houses two temporary exhibitions.” I could lift a car with my bare hands! And fly on a carpet! And make a movie! Classics!

There's also a planetarium where we watched a show about the birth of the universe! I learned that we all have 1 teaspoonfull of stardust in us, the same stuff that made the stars in the very beginning of everything

Oh, and we saw rats playing basketball too!

There was also a murder mystery to solve but because of the kids we didn't pay much attention to it.

My host went geocaching again and took me and Banyo with her. This time we had to climb in 1m snow to get to the cache - and then we had to climb up high to a tree! 

Yes, I call it climbing in the snow as my host had to lift her feet up properly, too much to call it just walking.

Afterwards we drove via the riverside. The red shorehouses are 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.

The second last photo shows the new "shorehouses" that were built a few years ago. They are regular houses, they just wanted them to fit in the surroundings an therefore they resemble the old shorehouses a bit.

Some more geocaching (this time we didn't find it as my host mistakenly remembered it to be a winter-cache when it wasn't, back in the spring!)... with a view! The weather was so clear we could also see the Nesteoil's oil refinery of Porvoo - and somewhere behind the trees was home as well 

This spot is near the Haikko Manor. The area is nature conservation area.

This is what they say in the description of the cache:

History:
During the Krim War in 1854 an optical telegraph line was built between Hanko and Kronstadt in St. Petersburg. The messages were forwarded with semaphores and it was used only in the summertime. The distance between stations were about 10 km and the message was read with binoculars. In the summer of 1855 the line was continued from Hanko to Uusikaupunki. That time it covered the whole coast of southern Finland.

The nearest telegraph stations to the Telegrafberget in Haikkoo were the Telegrafberget of Kulloo and Myllymäki in Porvoo. The stations were run by the russian soldiers and messages were sent around the clock. It took 500 men to manage the whole line between Hanko and Kronstadt.

The telegraph line was used only two summers after which it was replaced by the electrical telegraph.

Telegrafberget's nature conservation area was founded in 1961. Today it is owned by the town of Porvoo.

The text above is based on the text of the area's info sign.