Trip to Porvoo

Greetings!

Well, another night with not enough sleep. But getting better. We seem to be in this pattern of waking up about 3pm, and not being able to get back to sleep for a couple of hours. I set the alarm for 9am just before the second sleep, and we got up just in time for the end of the breakfast at the hotel.

And not a bad breakfast. I guess I was prepared for both limited variety and quantity, but I was dead wrong. Eggs, bacon, sausages, breads (lots of great grains), cereal, fruit, juices, sandwich meats, salads, coffee (Pat says rather good too), and several teas. And speaking of food, I have to tell you about the Nepali dinner we had last night. A block from our hotel is the site of the one of the top ten shrimp dinners I've had. Ever since my parents took me to Anthony's Fish Grotto each year on my birthday as a kid, I've been looking for shrimp dinners which match my memories of those I had at Anthony's. Pat reminds me that nothing will ever match childhood memories, but I have nevertheless been ranking shrimp entrees with her for the past 30 years. This one was in the top ten. Coming on the heels of the shrimp salad I had at the Greek restaurant (Minos) on Saturday, it could have been just another competitior. Minos had the entire shrimp (head and antenna, legs, and full body) combined with octopus in a great mound of cucumbers, tomatoes, and lettuce with grated cheese.

Septar served ten large curled shrimp on salad bed with portions of dahl, safron rice, a really excellent piquant sauce, and large soft nan to soak it all up. Add a Foster's beer to it, and I was thanking the chef. Pat's chicken dinner was good, but clearly not the quality to write home about. Tonight's dinner location hasn't been chosen, but we're headed over to the Church of the Rock (carved out of a granite mountain) for a bell concert by a group from Washington state, and will eat later.

Porvoo met the tour guide description of the place to go to if you've only one trip out of Helsinki. Its craft shops, restaurants, and artists occupy two long winding cobblestone streets up a hill from the river to an old church, built in the late 1500's. Unfortunately, the church burnt down recently, and they now sell photos of the fire. The shops are a bit too cute, and the restaurants competed with a great breakfast. We better enjoyed walking the wider town area, and got a good understanding of the great variety of co-housing projects, condominiums, and rentals packed among small parks and businesses. I remember when co-housing caught on in the U.S. that the pioneers had copied models from Finland. The country has a reputation of having the best housed populace in Europe, and we saw many examples of well-designed living spaces on very little land. It really makes me wonder how we have gotten away with doing it so badly.

Unfortunately, I learned a valuable lesson in camera use today. When using a camera you haven't used for a while, test it out before you depend on it to capture a day's photos. The photos in yesterday's post were from the smaller camera that we bought for Pat's trip to Poland last year. Today, I took the camcorder which I discovered yestrday needed re-charging. Once re-charged last night, I forgot to switch off the night use feature I had on the last time I used it, and the photos I took today came out verrry light. Nothing PhotoShop can't fix (when I get home), but resulting in nothing I can post today.


So here's some from yesterday that took some work to rotate before I could post them.






For a look at all of the photos that have turned out okay so far, click on:

Helsinki Photos


Here's hoping that our trip tomorrow to two of the islands off the coast of the city will include some photos which can be included, and we're off now to the Handbell/Choir Concert.

Walking through Helsinki

Greetings!

Getting to bed last night at midnight, except for two hours from 3am to 5am, Pat and I slept until 11:30am this morning. Our planned day on one of the city's walking tours was cut a bit short, but we definately enjoyed the first long sleep we've had in three days. Trading luggage for a camera, map, and guide book, we visited churches, museums, and some very well-organized public places.




It may be because a major portion of the year the city is covered with snow, but I am very impressed with the design of their businesses, transportation, and residences. Just off one of the main squares is a building which houses the bus station, metro system entrance, major shopping center, and large grocery store, all sitting under hundreds of high rise residences. Since many of the other metro stations are also in office and business complexes, I can imagine not ever having to go outside on some winter days.




Although I could have guessed that Helsinki had a fishing industry history, I wasn't prepared for how many beautiful ships (large and small) were collected in the harbor. They all looked prepared for cold weather sailing, but still had that serious racing edge to them (strong sails and trim designs). I know that someday I'll take Pat into a sailing adventure.

We visited the Finnish Design Museum and walked through the area of town known as the Design District. Pat has been the furniture, fashion, and art expert in our family, and I now see more clearly the Finnish influences in the things I've seen in homes and offices. Buildings that are sleek, look very functional, and yet combine a bit of art nouveau ornamentation, seem to be everywhere. I also like the human column figures holding up huge ballestrades on the older facades.

Which brings me to a question I'll be looking to find an answer if I can, "What makes Finns Finnish?" I'm trying my best to store the sound of their language, but will I be able to differentiate them from the Swedes, Danes,and Norwegians in the coming weeks? The Finns have many cutlures living in Helsinki, and I sense that may be true for each of the capitals we will visit. It may not be the best environment to learn the distinctions well.




Tomorrow, we take the bus to Porvoo. It's an old Finnish medieval town, founded in 1346. As I write this, the Wimbledon Men's tennis match is being broadcast quietly on the digital television on the desk beside the laptop, and Pat's reading on the bed behind me. We're going to try to stay up a few more hours tonight to see if we can sleep for eight hours straight. The room we're in has a dark curtain, and I've given my eye mask to Pat. I'm optomistic, and we need an early start to the travel to Porvoo.

Arrival in Helsinki

Greetings!

It seems like we been sleeping almost continously since the last post. That's not to say that what we've seen of Helsinki hasn't been interesting. It's just that, with the exception of the Greek dinner we just had, nothing really worth commenting upon has occured. And then there's the no-quite-resolved jet lag, allergies, and time change.

Wait, let me take that back. There is the vivid memory of the rain while rolling our bags ten confusing blocks from the train station to the hotel in light, short-sleeve shirts. I've a suggestion for the city planners - street signs! Thanks very much to the staff of the Cafe Java for directions.

We've four days and nights (remember, long days - almost no nights) before we'll take ferry to Sweden, and we've decided to see the city and central museums tomorrow (Sunday) and head for the town of Porvoo on Monday. We'll decide what to do on Tuesday and Wednesday later, but a trip to the archipelago south of here is potential.

Sleep

Greetings!

We bought neck pillows and sleep masks at REI before we left. I have discovered that the trick to neck pillows is not to over inflate them. That's easy, because they inflate so easily with your breath. And every instinct says make them floatable.

But if they hold your head too far off the back of the seat cushion, your head falls back into the space between it and the cushion. That's what the adjustable seat pillow is for - to place your head upon. But it's too hard. So the answer is to underinflate your neck pillow, slide up the seat pillow to it's highest point, and tuck your head into the bulk of the neck pillow under the seat pillow. It works, believe me.

Now for the sleep masks. The sun goes down here at about 11pm and comes up about 3pm. Unless you can sleep solidly through the night, you're bound to wake up to a bright room. With my sleep mask on, Pat said I look like one of the panelists on the old "What's my Line?" show (the funny woman whose name we can't remember).

It took a while to learn how to use the sleep mask. The problem was eyeball pressure. If you put it on like you would imagine it should be, the tension put too much pressure on my eyeballs. The solution was to place the band section up on my eyebrows, aim my chin down into my chest, and cover the nose gap by putting my hand under the pillow to create a hill between me and the window. When I gave up an hour later, and gave it to Pat when she awoke briefly (hers was lost somewhere in the attempts to sleep on the flight), she showed me that the strap was adjustable, and soon wore it to sleep. Note to self: get another one with an adjustable strap, and try again. I remember sleeping on the beach in the hot sun as a kid after a long morning surfing. I think the trick is to be very tired.

Looking for the Past

Greetings!

After 155 years, you'd think I could wait just a few more minutes to spot the land of my ancestors. But with my cheek pressed tightly against the window, I scan through the carpet of clouds which covers the coast of Norway for some hint of green. Like my great great grandparents on the ship out of Bergen, I'm looking for that promised land.

I sat next to the window on the leg out of Munich so I could see what Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway look like from up above. The flight from San Francisco took us over the pole at night, and we all tried to sleep for the eleven hours. A small sillouette of a plane on a television screen kept us informed of our location as we passed Canada, Iceland, Greenland, and Great Britain.

I didn't pay much attention to Germany as we headed north to Hanover and the Danish border. We were far above the clouds that had been pelting the Wimbledon Tennis Championships earlier this week, as they now crossed over into northern Europe. It was only as we reached the northern border of Denmark, and the sea, that I caught glimpses of land. One patch of industrial windmills caught my eye, as well as many ships navigating the islands on its edge. And thenit was lots of blue sea.

But now, with only a thousand feet between me and the cloud layer, I ache for the pilot to dip below so I can catch the first sight of Norway's green and brown turf. After years of research, and dreams of walking through small farms with the names of my family, I just know they're down there somewhere.

A Long Couple of Flights

Greetings!

It's midnight on Friday, July 6th (here in Oslo), and we've checked into the Clarion Hotel. It's probably earlier for all the rest of you because we lost about 10 time zones getting here. We gained:

1. A new understanding of Pat's allergy to dogs on planes. We sat near a woman in the San Francisco Airport who was feeding her dog something in a bowl, and then packed him up in a large carry on bag when boarding began. We think she was drugging him. She ended up sitting behind Pat on the long flight, and Pat is convinced that her sneezing and other symptoms are the result.
2. An appreciation for the food and service on Lufthansa Airline, especially the pasta and spinach entre, the bounty of wine, and the breakfast eggs. They also were much more organized than the United staff at the SFO Airport. The United team had to call in to check Visa TSA security info, and the Lufthansa team scanned them against computer data in seconds.
3. A possible new interest in Japanese country and western singers. Of all the varied music offered on the headsets and videos on the flights, the most interesting and entertaining was a trio of young japanese artists who brought the house down with their harmonies, melodies, and hot talent.

But I hear Pat wrestling with semi-slumber, and my click-click-clicking on these keys may not be the best thing for her. Tomorrow, we fly to Helsinki to begin our stay in Finland. More to come when I find another wireless hotspot, and am not fighting jetlag.

Gregory

Leaving Santa Rosa

Greetings!

Well, we've packed, and arranged for the support of the fish, flowers, and the house. Anne and Art will take us to the Airport bus this afternoon. The latest weather reports for northern Europe show rain for the next two weeks. A jacket switch, and the addition of an small umbrella.

This is going to be our longest trip together, and we're both healthy and excited. I've got some good information and contacts concerning the home farms of my Norwegian ancestors in Norway. Finland, Sweden, and Denmark are going to mostly be the capitals, with some daytrips. Retirement just keeps getting better and better.

Have a good summer, and I hope you enjoy the journal. I'll try to take it to a bit higher literary value. Perhaps some poems and vignettes of life as we see it over there.

Gregory