13/07/08 - A trip to Fiskars.

I think we got off lightly yesterday when we declined an early morning swim. Out of politeness, our hosts didn't make us go. But it became apparent that when you are staying at the summer house, a swim before breakfast is very much part of the daily routine!! We were not let off so lightly today but enjoyed a very refreshing swim off the rocks, into the calm archipelago waters.

The itinerary for today was a trip to Fiskars, once a booming industrial town, founded in 1649 - now a quaint little village with a stream running down the middle. Cafes & shops now making use of the carefully maintained buildings, and numerous information boards gave us an insight to the buildings around us.

Fiskars' most well-known export has to be the orange handled scissors that are still produced around the world, with the Fiskars brand. Magnus described the scissors before we saw them, saying we would probably be familiar with them. It was not until we saw them that it all clicked, and the school memories came flooding back to us of using the exact same scissors during childhood.

Marea decided a souvenir from Fiskars was required (worth mentioning because we buy very few souvenirs wherever we go) - and 'invested' in a Fiskars knife and sharpener, saying our knives in the van were hopeless. That was news to me, although when we returned to the island and I was put incharge of cutting tomatoes, I soon realised how sharp a sharp knife really is!! I think Marea must have had the same experience the day before.

The evening was devoted to setting the long-line out into the water with all the bait fish that we caught. Our boat to do the job was a 40 year old wooden boat (recently patched up and looking very smart) Lufsen also came along for the ride. Surely overnight all the fish will come in their droves and make all our effort worthwhile. We have money on it!

12/07/08 - Fire starting and Potatisgröt.

After a phone call home for the parents on both sides of the world to catch up with their respective children (timed perfectly to not interrupt the All Blacks vs South Africa test match), we were off to the mainland and Inga where a craft day was being held. A lot of old ways of doing jobs, chores and crafts were being demonstrated.

We saw in action: the making of slats by a cutting plane that was run off the back of an old tractor and then a shed being rooved from the wooden slats.
A grinder that was transforming oats into rolled oats - better known as porridge and a hand operated grinder that produced flour by crushing grain under a large rotating stone, and spitting the finished product out the side.
I had a go at water divining, which actually did seem to work!! Although the professional water diviner could make the stick do alot more than I could, including walking backwards so the stick 'sensed' water behind him and it tipped up and over his shoulder.

There was also a skillful man who must have devoted his whole life to learning all the different ways to light a fire without matches or a lighter. This included using just a battery and steel wool (for scrubbing pots), and of course rubbing sticks together.

One particular highlight was eating the very traditional Perunapuuro (Potatisgröt in Swedish) - which is a potato porridge. Despite our hosts' warning that our taste buds may not be that way inclined, both Marea and I agreed that it was definitely not that bad - our plate was certainly clean by the time we finished!! As explained by Magnus' mother: cook and mash potato (WITHOUT salt), then mix with rye, bake for two hours, then add the salt. The key is all in when the salt is added!!

Back on the island, it was time to try our hand at fishing!! With Martina showing us all the good spots for worms (namly her grandparents' drainage ditch), we had a decent supply of bait, and were ready to start hauling them in!!! Marea turned out to be the worst fisherwoman of all of us - didn't you know Marea? fishing is about patience. Not deciding its boring after 20 seconds!!!! (In my (Marea here) defence we were short one fishing rod and fishing is boring if Daniel is agitating for his turn)

Any how, mainly thanks to Martina's skill, we did manage to catch a few small fish - but only big enough to be good for bait for bigger fish later.

The evening meal provided yet another challenge and experience for us. That being getting all the meat and flavour possible off well armored crayfish. It is definitely not a first date meal, with bit of crayfish pieces flying all over the table as we try to break them off, and loud sucking noises all around as you attempt to get the last bit of flavour off the poor disected creatures!!

Swedish or Finnish?

Staying with Magnus and Cina, we were soon able to answer some burning questions about Finland and its relationship with the Swedish language.
We are always confused because we always assumed the road signs had the Finnish name first, then the Swedish name - but it sometimes seemed like the Swedish name comes first??
The answer: Which name comes first, depends what part of the country you are in.

Some towns are predominantly Finnish speaking, while some are Swedish. Magnus, Cina and family live in Helsinki of which the majority are Finnish speaking, but they have been brought up speaking Swedish (like 5% of other Finns).
Apparently Swedish was the only official language in Finland until the 1880's when both Swedish and Finnish became official languages and remain so today.
Now days only 5% of Finns speak Swedish as a first language and less and less as a second language but it is an important part of Finnish Culture.

As a guest, it is hard to get our heads around a proud Finnish family that love to hate the Swedes, especially at sport, but whose language and culture is predominantly Swedish (except when it comes to saunas). Still, we NZers ought to understand, after all we speak English…..

11/07/08 - A real Finnish sauna

Shock of all shocks this morning when Marea was out of bed before Daniel; at 0630 she went for a walk!!!!! It didn't last long as she was soon ("whadda ya mean soon? It was 08:00!") back in bed with the news that weather wasn't very good to be outside but by the time I got up it wasn't too bad at all.

However, it wasn't all good, and we soon decided we'd have to change our plans because the quick €10 fix it job from the other day really was a bit too quick. The new bolt had snapped in half, and the power steering was gone again :-(

Four garages later, and some very helpful Finns, we finally found the right man for the job. We were really very lucky as 80% of the population seems to be on holiday at the moment. A couple of hours, and a very reasonable (under the table) €60 later the power steering was back. Fingers crossed this time it will be a little more permanent.

Only delayed by 3.5 hours we finally got on our way to the southern coast and the Barösund archipelago. We were to meet Magnus and Cina whose daughter Cecilia is currently in New Zealand experiencing New Zealand farm life at home in Piopio. That makes us lucky enough to be able to experience a Finnish summer house and Magnus and Cina's fantastic hospitality.

We met our new hosts at Fagervik, a tiny little picturesque village that once upon a time mined and processed iron that was in the area, it was very pretty, boasting one of only 4 private churches in Finland. Next stop was a drive to the end of the mainland, a ferry trip over the Barosund channel, another drive across the main island where we left the van, and onto Magnus's small boat for a quick 5 minute motor out into the archipelago to the small island of Lökholm (Onion Island), lastly a two minute walk and we had made it to a very pretty place indeed!!

It seems like Magnus's family own the whole island, as his parents have a the 'big' house just below Magnus and Cina, then his sister also has a summer house on the other side of the island. Oh but I nearly forgot to mention that we are to also spend the next few days with Luftsen a 75kg Riesen Schnauters. That's a whole lotta dog!
There wasn't yet time to relax - first job was to take the boat to Inga (in Swedish, Inkoo in Finnish - see extra blog) - to pick up their youngest daughter Martina from the bus.

After a very nice BBQ (Mum and Dad - I hope you are looking after Cecilia the same way we are being looked after!!), we experienced a real Finnish sauna, followed by jumping starkers (when in Finland…) into the sea, then back into the sauna - very refreshing.

10/07/08 - Music and all that Jazz.

I (Marea) have with us a fairly good collection of the standard classical repertoire and as we travel, so continues our musical education with context. We are sitting down after dinner listening to Sebelius' Finlandia. In Norway I made Kerryn and Daniel listen the Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite and here, Sibelius is Finland's most famous musician (after Lordi, the Eurovision song contest winner, of course;-).
On another musical note we have arrived in the town of Hämeenlinna on the first day of the Linna Jazz festival. We arrived in the town centre about 1700 to some awesome sounds and happily found a spot to sunbathe and enjoy the music. When that finished, we drove to a camping spot (by another little marina) then took an early evening walk along the lake front, past the medieval castle into the town, being seranaded along the way by jazz from a cruising boat. On the way back we stopped for a beer in the evening sun, listening to some more jazz sounds coming across the water.
This blog is a little backwards but it ended so pleasantly and after the last few weeks of very average weather today's sunny 18° was a very welcome change.
So to goback to this morning we drove to the city of Tampere and cooked up French Toast with a view of one of the city's lakes. Tampere is sandwiched between two of the area's three thousand lakes and after breakfast we took a walk up the "tallest ice age ridge in the world" which is between the two lakes. After all our flat forest walking recently, the climb up, then 140 steps to the top of the viewing tower was a bit of a struggle!
Tampere was a beautiful city, although it is nicknamed the Manchester of Finland due to its industrial roots. After we had walked around trying in vain to find the tourist information, we gave up and simple enjoyed the stroll and the people watching.

After a swim and some sunbathing we headed to Hämeenlinna where as this 'upside down' blog mentions at the start - we got caught up in the city's mood for a bit of summer jazz!!

The beard lament.

It's true it's gone:-(

The red wooley mammoth is no longer. Apparently the Daniel's birthday present to me was to keep the beard until after my birthday. Thanks, I think?

Still I know that certain a Mrs Verry was not very appreciative of Daniel's facial hair, so at least someone is happy.

I did suggest that Daniel buy a razor and let me shave various beard/moustache/sideburn combinations all the while taking photos for prosperity - but, We were NOT amused. In fact We were not amused by the whole beard growing process! But I did convince Daniel an official photogragh was necessary if only for his children's amusement.

Perhaps the self inflicted pain of removing the beard with a (probably blunt) electric razor was Daniel's punishment for all the complaining "it's itchy/it's scratchy/it gets food stuck in it"

But now that it is gone I expect I'll see Daniel's brother Phillip soon; he did promise certain consequences should Daniel get rid of the beard.

09/07/08 - Woody Woody Woodpeakers.

The coolest thing we did today was see a couple of woodpeckers at the Helvetinjärvi National Park near Virrat. We got some good photos, though even in sport mode they are a little blurred because the birds peck really fast just like the Woody Woodpecker cartoons.
The worst thing that happened today was Daniel shaving his beard:-( But first we had a Cosmo photoshoot including Daniel chopping wood!

On Friday we are due on the south coast of Finland near Inkoo which means putting some miles on the clock, so today it feels like we have been driving all day but it has actually only been about 3 hours but we have just finished dinner and it is 23:00! We are near the city of Tampere and we have parked in one of our least memorable spots yet. By rights we should have a beautiful lakeside view, but all the summer houses seem to have taken all the lake side spots. It was late and we both are tired and so did not persevere with our search. I moot moving on before breakfast, especially if there is some sun for a change.

Dinner was concocted from the our reserves store, Tuna Pasta, the old travelling staple. These reserves are kept for occasions when supplies or supply is low, because grocery shopping is an epic adventure not a simple task in a foreign country. Not only do we not know where or when the stores are open but nor do we know the stores' layout and we can't read the labels or cooking instructions. Unless we want to be really boring eaters, sometimes we have to ask a random shopper for a translation. though only once have we been really caught out. In Norway Kerryn and Daniel decided to buy a one kilo block of cheese in a brown plastic wrapper because it was on special. It was cheese alright, but the plastic wrapper was clear, it was the cheese that was brown! We later read in the lonely planet about this "sweet brown goats cheese". Both Kerryn and I refused to eat it but Daniel is still slowly working his way through it.