Old Town Tallinn

We took a boat to Tallinn, Estonia this weekend. Estonia is just south of Helsinki, about 1.5 - 3 hours by boat depending upon how much you want to spend on the boat you take. Need I say our boat took 3 hours?

Old Town Tallinn is a medieval walled community with lots of towers, thick brick walls, medieval ambiance, wenches, jesters and souvenir shops! If you like old architecture (like me) Tallinn is your place to be.

We had beautiful weather--72 degrees and sunny and not a cloud in the sky. I took a lot of pictures.  However, some of these pictures were taken the weekend before our trip when I got to explore Tallinn with the American Womens' Club of Helsinki.  It was cloudy and chilly that day.

 Old Town Tallinn's towers, turrets, tunnels, tall walls and tumbled cobblestones tickle my fancy. 

Kiek en de Kok (A Peek in the Kitchen)  It is said that from this tower you could peek into many kitchens.

You could walk along some parts of the wall.  I never really thought I had a fear of heights, until I watched my children scamper along the wall with a wobbly, 600 year old wooden fence the only thing keeping them from a head injury and the cobblestones below.  (I'm sure the fence has been replaced at some point in time!)



This is the view from below. 

The stairs on the inside of the towers weren't any better.  Every stone or wooden step was a different height and many of them were half as tall as Lily herself.  I was sure she would roll down the stairs at any minute.  Lucky for us we had that sturdy rope to hang on to to help pull ourselves up the stairs!  It was quite a thigh workout running up and down towers all day!

This photo was taken while walking along the wall.  See?  It was perfectly safe--except for those windows behind them that they kept crawling into in order to look at the ground and the people below.

Honestly, every time I turned around, there was another beautiful tower.  . 

Gorgeous weather and a gorgeous place!

Time

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Seaside living

Wherever you go in Helsinki, the sea is not far away.

As you can see from this piece of a map of Helsinki, the sea surrounds us, so most residents are just a short bus or tram ride away from the water.

Lucky for us, we are less than a 10 minute walk away from the water!  (This is a photo of our neighborhood beach.  We live right by the church with the green steeple on the right.)

Living close to the sea has many benefits.

You can sun yourself on the rocks on the shore while eating a sandwich for lunch.

You can take a ferry to one of several islands and explore the island with friends.

You can take a family walk on the seashore at almost any time of day!

Of course, there are a few drawbacks.

Crazy, dive-bombing seagulls will snatch an ice cream cone right out of your hands. (I managed to survive one of these attacks, but did not escape without a new-found, healthy respect for these creatures.)

Crazy gulls will also build their nests wherever they find it convenient (even if it is in the middle of the sidewalk in front of a door). I did not get a good picture of mama gull because, due to my recent  attack, I was too afraid of the squawking mama to get close enough to take her portrait.

And sometimes, a beautiful day will be temporarily dampened by a little fog.

But all in all, the benefits FAR outweigh the drawbacks.

Living by the sea is one of the things we will miss most about Helsinki when it is time to go home!

Swing

Swing.

Swing, swing high.

Swing, swing low.

Swing.

Swing, swing high.

Swing, swing low.

Like the robin in my window,
feel like I could fly away,
on a cloud or on a rainbow
I know, I'll go.

Swing.

Swing, swing high.

Swing, swing low.

Swing.

Swing, swing high.
Swing, swing low.

Like the moon up in the heavens,
Like the balsam growing tall,
Like the tides that move the oceans
I know, I'll go.

Swing.
Swing, swing high.
Swing, swing low.

*Photos on the "Viking" swing from my friend Stacy.
Songs lyrics frome song Swing by Raffi, a song I listened to many, many times with my children over the years.

Sauna

Finns love sauna. 

According to Wikepedia, there are over 5 million inhabitants and over 2 million saunas in Finland.  That works out to about one sauna per household!

(Photo from Flickr is not mine.)

Vacation properties (summer cottages) often have sauna buildings close to the water so that it is easy to take a dip.

(Photo from www.sauna-talk.com.)

Apartment dwellers (like us) can schedule a weekly time in the building shared sauna for a small fee.

We have a weekly sauna time too! Only I'm quite sure that our sauna experience doesn't look much like the typical Finnish sauna experience!

We try to make it a relaxing experience, really we do. But our three kids have not been brought up in the sauna tradition and it is a bit difficult for them to sit still and sweat. (In all fairness, it is difficult for ME to sit still and sweat!) 

So our sauna experience involves a few Superheros and a lot, I mean A LOT of coming and going.

In Finnish tradition, sauna works something like this...

After taking a shower, you enter the sauna (naked or not--usually naked in Finland--NOT in our co-ed, family situation) and sit on one of the wood benches. The room would be heated to about 170 - 220 degrees Fahrenheit.

We are still sauna rookies, so we keep the room relatively "cool," although we are able to withstand higher temps. each time we go.  (My pictures are terrible.  There is virtually NO light in our sauna.  We've been told our sauna is quite old and dated--but what do we know?)


You pour water on the rocks, as Joey demonstrates here, to fill the room with heat and humidity. You need to repeat this a few times throughout your sauna time to keep things steamy. Our sauna is electric, but there are other kinds such as smoke or wood saunas.

If you need a break, you can leave the room and take a cool shower in the adjacent shower room (or jump in the lake!).  For most Finns, this might happen two times during a 60 minutes sauna session.  At the beginning, our kids were constantly running back and forth between the sauna and the shower and it was difficult to keep the room hot. That's when the Superheros made their weekly appearance.

Sam and Lily play with the little dudes in a basin of water inside the sauna. This keeps them inside the hot room for longer periods of time and they only leave when they need to take a break from the heat.

There are a lot of health benefits to sauna. For one, it is supposed to be relaxing and lower your blood pressure. I have yet to experience even the briefest moment of relaxation in the sauna. The kids all fight over the chance to pour water over the rocks and where they get to sit. The higher you sit, the hotter it is. Of course we all fight for the bottom bench!

   

We aren't quite sold on the whole thing yet.  I just don't get the whole sitting in a hot room and sweating concept, but I'm really trying to learn to love it.  Well love might be too strong of a word. 

At one time, women in Finland gave birth in the sauna.

Oh. Dear. God.

Friends

Before moving to Finland, I did a lot of research about life in Finland.

I felt like I knew what to expect and what our challenges might be. Sure, there were a few surprises (like Sam having school for only 3 - 4 hours a day), but in general we have been able to meet our challenges and move forward.

But...(you knew there was a but coming, right?)

...I didn't know that it is very uncommon for 5 year old Finnish children to stay at home with Mom or Dad. And so, our biggest challenge here in Helsinki has been finding friends and activities for Lily and I.

We gave it the ole collge try--we really did. We tried Expat play groups, but even the expats take advantage of the child care system here--most of the children at the playgroups were 2 and under.

We looked for schools/day care for Lily, but the waiting list was always too long--she would have been able to start, well, right about now. Since we return to the States in 2 1/2 months, it just didn't seem worth the wait.

We looked for activities like gymnastics or ballet, but the prohibitive cost and the scheduling just didn't work out.

Then, we met another American family.

And let me just say, are we ever glad we met the M Family!

It's so much more fun to explore Helsinki when there is someone to play with!

(Lily is wearing a scarf because my thermometer, which sits in direct sunlight, led me to believe it was really warm out before we left the house. In fact, it was NOT warm, AT ALL! I refuse to buy another winter hat, so in desperation, I had to buy something to cover her cold little ears!)

And isn't it much more fun to play "throw-the-dinosaur-up-the-slide" when someone is actually at the top of the slide catching the dinosaur?  (The catcher would be Sam, or in the case of the first photo, my forehead--ouch).

Brothers and sisters are fun to play with (sometimes),

but it's also nice to have a new friend to hang with at the park!

May Day (Vappu)!

May first (called Vappu in Finland) is one of the biggest holidays in Finland. The excitement in the air for a week before Vappu was palpable.

Last week, my Facebook feed had more than a few articles about public urination, excessive drinking and reasons why to avoid the city parks where Vappu is celebrated. I knew that our favorite park, Kaivopuisto (the park by the sea where we went sledding in the winter), would be filled with picnickers celebrating Vappu and that it could get crazy and I am NOT a fan of big crowds. Part of me thought, "how bad could it get?" and the other part of me feared it would be similar to the drunken party that was Halloween at my Alma mater, the University of Wisconsin Madison (must...not...drink...kamikazes...ever...again...) .

One of the first things I noticed the week before Vappu were the balloon vendors. And while my children begged for an enormous Angry Birds balloon, at 20 Euros ($27) a pop--pun intended--we had to forgo this Finnish tradition.

We had plans to picnic with Finnish friends at Kaivopuisto. And I have to say, while there were A LOT of people,

it was really quite tame. Everybody finds their own little piece of rock or grass and sets up their picnic.

It is customary to drink sparkling wine (or Champagne if budget allows!)  And I love that kids Joey's age run around collecting the wine bottles to turn in for a few extra Euros! 

I always find it interesting to see what other cultures prepare for a picnic. Here, salmon seems to be quite a popular choice.  We also tried Finnish potato salad and "tippaleipa" a Finnish funnel cake.  These two foods in addition to hot dogs (no buns please) are very common Vappu foods.   We brought the ever-popular Finnish salsa and guacamole!

I'm sure at this point you're wondering..."what's with all the white hats?"

These are the hats Finns receive when they graduate from high school (lukio).   While May Day is generally a day to celebrate workers in many countries all over the world, here in Finland, it has become more of a student celebration. 
High schools are not the only institutions represented at Vappu...you also see a lot of people wearing these jumpers:

The jumpers represent different universities and departments within the university and the patches all over the jumpers are from different clubs and contests (i.e. sledding, drinking...etc.). Joey covets the jumper and the hat--he says he's not leaving Finland and that he will graduate from high school here. Any Finn out there who wants a permanent house guest for the next 6 years? Of course, then there's university.... ; )

We had a fantastic day.  The weather was beautiful, the company engaging...

and then we went home to play some good old fashioned American running bases!