torstai 23. syyskuuta 2010

Reunion in Pyhäranta, Finland!!

That red spot is where the journey took place: Pyhäranta in southwest Finland.

This my journey, about 1420km. Our guests Beatrice and Freya travelled only between those southermost spots (the northermost is the place were I live)

12.8


This was something I had been waiting for a long time. For a year, exactly. I was on my way to Helsinki airport to see some old friends of mine - Freya from Germany and Beatrice from Italy, the girls of South Carolina! :-) Finland has still the heat on - the hottest summer for some 100 years keeps continuing, some 30 degrees that day. I had made a sign for them: "Welcome to Finland, Freya and Beatrice!". There I sit waiting in the arrival terminal in Helsinki-Vantaa airport. I was so nervous for some reason, thinking what if they don't appear? My nervousness proved unnecessary, when Freya came to view, being one of the last ones coming from the plane! Cheerfull hugs and we had to go to completely other side of the air port where Beatrice was about to arrive at any moment. We made it, and even had to wait for some 10 minutes. I hadn't seen Beatrice for 2 years, so there was reason for excitement. There she came, and I was let to hug her as well! There was also Kaarin, a friend of Beatrice, welcoming her. Bea had met her in the Netherlands that summer. We all took a bus to the centre and checked the main sights - train station, churches, harbour, market place... well, I don't know anything else in Helsinki to show, it's not one of my favorite cities. Also this time it was so full of people rushing from place to place - tourists, locals, businessmen etc... We took our first visit to Hesburger, a Finnish version from McDonalds (Bea and Freya thought that's funny) and ate tortillas that broke into our hands and were full of horrible jalopenos. We also found the most scariest toilet in Finland with gas and sprinkler centre in it - we needed a toilet card to use it? I wasn't brave enough. The light was greepy blue because of the drug users. Not a good first impression of Finland.. We had to take a train to Turku, Henriikka was going to host us by the Baltic sea in Pyhäranta. We all had tucked our suitcases into one small box in the train station. They hardly made it in, and we hardly could open it because it was so full. But the thing was that we saved 4 €uros by tucking all the bags to same box (actually 3 big suitcases). The journey from Helsinki to Turku passed by taking pictures of traditional Finnish train stations in Salo, Kupittaa and some other places...



In Turku Henriikka came to pick us up (and Bea went to toilet in a train which almost left before she came out). It didn't take long until we were in the backwoods and our foreign friends thought we had driven it all the way to Lapland.. yep- the distances are long, we're still in the most populated southern Finland (even you can't see any sign of life around). After an hour we arrived to Henriikka's cottage, which was just too perfect for our Reunion - new, luxorius cottage + and old, small one + outside toilet + sleeping barn with an ocean view, sun setting gently and weather so nicely warm. It can't get more Finnish than that. Our "tourists" took the first 100 pictures and we made fun poses in front of the sun set. And of course, talked, talked and talked more! So much to talk to! :) We played some card games and finally tried to sleep, but being so tired we couldn't. Finally we fell asleep laughing...


The sunset
The magical lights after the sunset


In the morning
 

13.8

It felt so good to get up in the morning when the sun was shining and it was already hot outside. Not usual in Finland, our guests are really lucky.  That day we went to visit the city of Rauma, about 20km from Henriikka's place. Even I hadn't ever been there. It really was beautiful - the old city was all wooden, about 200-300 hundread years old (true- we don't have long history like Italians or Egyptians, but it still feels awesome to see 300 hundread years old wooden buildings still in use). My feet hurt, I had choosed the wrong shoes... We tried to find a cheap place to drink some soda, but of course those elegant cafeterias were too expensive for us (one small soft drink costed from 2,5€ to 3€). We saw the old church and the even older church, which had burned down (like our oldest city, Turku). Then we returned to Henriikka's place, and did something really traditional Finnish things: played Mölkky (I suck, Freya won) and heated the sauna (and drank sauna beer). Beatrice thought sauna is too hot, but Freya was brave enough to sit on the top. Still, we couldn't throw much water to the sauna stove. Water in the ocean was warm (about 20c), but the bottom was covered with nasty plants. Some friends of Henriikka arrived while we were swimming. They played music so loud and had a great amount of alcohol with them! We continued swimming, and made a ambitious plan - to swim to the island nearby. And we did it! But I'm sorry to say that we don't have any pictures to prove that, because they couldn't hear us due to the loudy music... The music and our screams "pictureee" echoed along the serene ocean...






Once we had dryed ourselves, we joined the others and took one beer. Unfortunately they weren't really capable to speak English, we had problems trying to teach them the rules of the Italian card game, Merda. It didn't work out since they were too drunk... We cooked some chicken and sausages and continued our conversation inside, because there was some mosquitoes and the night was getting little chilly (and one of the guys tried to make too strong booze for us).It's just amazing how we can talk for hours without getting bored, there's always something more to talk. It was like 1 o clock when we finally fell asleep..

14.8



This was the day Emmi was about to join us! Just like yesterday, it was so warm in the morning, amazingly warm. Good day to hit JukuPark, a new water park in Turku. Shopping and clubbing are part of our plans as well. On our way to Turku we saw some clouds coming, but the temperature was still just below 30C. There Emmi stood waiting for us. :) Quick hugs and we rushed to the water park! It was smaller than we had thought, but we still had fun. Especially one ride was really thrilling, I did it like 4 times and every time I screamed like a little kid. Waiting for lunch took almost one hour - why only one grill is open when they have 4 of them? We also tried the public sauna, it was quite crowded and not nearly as good as Henriikka's wooden sauna. It started to drip and wind got stronger - we were freezing even the temperature was like 25c. Sauna felt good.


After swimming we prepared ourselves for the evening - shopping and possibly some clubbing! We had only 1 hour to do shopping and after that we checked the sights of Turku. It was new for me as well, I've been to Turku a couple of times but never really checked out the city. The river and it's surrounding were pretty with all the restaurant-boats. We ate some hot dogs and ice cream. Unfortunately the clubs won't open until 11, se we had to spend the evening some way. We went to a bar called "Porobaari" (=a reindeer bar), ordered some drink and played Uno for 3 hours. The game we played  in Spartanburg back in the summer of 2008! We recalled some memories like "International rules!!" and the legend of ZIZU: "who? me? you?"


After that we went to eat again in Hesburger. Beatrice is only 17 so we had to make a plan for the night club (in Finland they are really accurate and always ask ID, you have to be either 18 or 20, sometimes even more to enter a night club). Plan a) Beatrice is Italian and she didn't know she has to show ID when entering a club and she left it to the cottage b) Beatrice forgot her wallet and pleasepleaseplease let here in she will return to Italy the next day and this is her last chance. First we tried to enter Onnela, with low success - plan a didn't work out. There's another night club called "Monkeys" were you have to be 20 to get in (only Emmi of us is 20) so not a very good option, but worth do try. I went first and he asked my ID - I said like pleasepleaseplease I'll behave well. Then Emmi said she's 20 and she'll look for us. We told that the rest are also 19, so he let us in without asking ID from Beatrice!! Great. It was so early that no one was there yet. We took some cocktails and enjoyed the music. We were a little curious because we thought the club should be bigger, and later we realised there's upstairs were they play some more recent dance music. It was much better! We danced so much, and the DJ playd "We no speak Americano" after 10 minutes I had asked it. Grrreatness! Very good music there, but also so hot. We had to cool off every 15 minutes. A typical Finnish night life - that was it! It was like 5 o clock when we arrived to Henriikka's cottage, we were so damn tired that we fell asleep before even noticing...

15.8



On Sunday we went to Rauma, played some mini golf and did some shopping. I shared the first place with Henriikka in Mini golf! In Henriikka's place we went to sauna and swimming. The air had cooled off a little but the temperature was still above 20. Card games, talking, making funny pictures, having a great time together.. that was it!

16.8

Something special for Monday: a cruise to the archipelago of Rauma: The island of Kylmäpihlaja. There was a light house waiting for us. It was warm but really windy, especially on the boat and in the island. The waves were huge! The island was quite remote but not very special. The funniest thing was the "guide" who wasn't really sure how to explain all those things in English. And I'm not sure if there even was much to say.. But we enjoyed! The best things were the waves, wind and good pictures. There was also a nice flock of birds in the island. Back in Rauma we ate well in Rosso. I took a reindeer pasta. The evening was the same as before!



17.8

The last day together.. We spent it by picking blue berries and cooked "lätty"s. It's kind of a thin pancake, very typical Finnish food. We put some ice cream, blue berries, sugar and jam on it - delicious!! It felt so bad to start to pack our stuff... But the last night was memorable and full of pictures! (in the end we had more than 1000 pictures, all very good quality).



18.8

The last day.. We went to Rauma early in the morning, ate in Hesburgers and took a buss to different directions.. Emmi took a buss to Vaasa, Freya and Beatrice to Helsinki, I to Turku and Henriikka returned to Pyhäranta. It was sad to say good byes. We sang our South Carolina song "All summer long" and hugged each others for some 15 minutes. Finally it was time to go...




The week was full of great quality time and get-together, looking forward to the next reunion somewhere!!