Sunday, 22 September 2013

Helsinki

Before my flight home from Finland, I had about 3 hours to spend in Helsinki.  The weather wasn't great - it kept raining off and on.  But I was still able to walk around and see part of the city.  Here is a market I walked through - these were the BEST strawberries I've ever eaten.  No joke, they were amazing!  
This was also at the market - thought it was funny.
This is one of the famous landmarks, the Helsinki Cathedral.  It sits on a hill and can be seen all over the city.  The sun happened to be shining when I was here.  
This is inside the Cathedral.  While I was there someone was playing the organ - I love it when that happens in a church I'm visiting!
Another well known church in Helsinki is this Russian Orthodox church.  Apparently the inside is as elaborate as the Cathedral is simple.  But I wasn't able to go inside as it is closed on Mondays - bummer.
I took a 20 minute ferry into the harbour (and British spell check made me spell harbour that way) to visit Suomenlinna.  It is an island with a fortress on it that I wish I could tell you more about.  There wasn't much information there and when I got there it was windy and raining.  So I took a couple of pictures and came back.  I'd love to say I'm learning a lot about everything place I visit, but honestly, sometimes I just get a picture and get rained on and move on.  

The last thing I saw before heading to the airport was the Helsinki train station.  I saw this building listed as one of the world's top 10 train stations to see for the architecture...it was very art deco.



Day at the lake in Finland!

The day after Ryan and Liisa's wedding, Liisa's family was very kind to extend an invitation to our family to join them for the afternoon at their lake house.  Actually, the house wasn't just one large house - it was a set of small buildings.  The one on the left here is the sauna and a living room area.  The little building on the right is a kitchen.  Up behind both of them is a small building with a toilet and storage room.  Then they have a building to sleep up about 50 yards to the right of the dock.  
We went for a swim off the dock.  Although it was summer, the water was still quite cold!  We had the advantage of using the sauna before jumping into the water.  Most Finnish homes have a sauna in them and the lake house was no different.  So we would sit in the sauna until we were hot, then jump in the lake and swim a few minutes.  Then back to the sauna again.  It was surprisingly invigorating and fun!
Liisa's youngest brother is only about 8 years old, but he has his own little boat. He took us for tours around the lake!  Here he is driving the boat, next to Liisa (the bride), Aryn (my cousin) and another little girl who may have been a cousin or niece in Liisa's family.  
Uncle Randy and Aunt Jo, enjoying the afternoon!
It was a beautiful afternoon and evening!




Monday, 2 September 2013

Ryan and Liisa's wedding

The wedding took place at Kerimaki Church, which is the largest wooden church in the world.  
The church was VERY beautiful, but they had some odd little wooden statues inside.  They were everywhere - some looked a like little Frankensteins.  Uncle Randy spoke to one of the workers at the church and they said that some of the statues were hundreds of years old.  They all had a slot somewhere on them for coins to collect charity for the church and the poor.  


The groom's sister (also my cousin), Aryn and I have gotten to be great friends over the last few years.  She moved to Atlanta to work on her PhD at Emory University.  Its been really fun to have someone from my extended family so close!  But then I moved to London, so it was a super fun weekend for Aryn and I to catch up!
Here we are with Uncle Randy and Aunt Jo, outside before the wedding.  It was super windy - sorry Aryn's hair looks so bad.  I don't have a picture where we aren't blown away.  
The ceremony was part in English and part in Finnish.  But aside from that, it was a very traditional Christian ceremony.  
 
Leaving the church for the reception - Mr. and Mrs. Price!
I don't have any good pictures from the reception, but it was very traditional as well.  Receiving line, a buffet dinner, toasts, cake cutting, a band and dancing!  It went quite late - the couple left the reception after midnight.  Then after the reception, everyone who was left (the entire wedding party, all the younger guests and the bride's family!) went to a club and danced until the club closed at 4am!

This was on the screen at the club - I'm pretty sure that's "Congratulations Liisa and Ryan" in Finnish!
Then this happened with me and Aryn!  I had to make the picture black and white so you can see our faces.  This was close to the end of the night after wedding all day, reception all evening and dancing all night!

Savonlinna, Finland

My cousin Ryan got married in June to a beautiful Finnish girl, Liisa.  They had the wedding near Liisa's hometown of Savonlinna, Finland and I was lucky enough to be invited to the wedding!  It was a remarkably easy trip for me, especially compared with the rest of our family, who came from the US and many of Ryan and Liisa's friends who travelled from locations all over the world.  

Savonlinna is north of Helsinki in a really beautiful part of Finland where there are tons of lakes.  We were there only a week before Midsummers Eve, which is the longest day of the year.  It was never completely dark at night - this is a picture out of our hotel room at about midnight.  This was as dark as it ever was!  The sun was fully up by 3am, but our hotel room had nice dark curtains.  Yes, we were up at 3am - more on that later...
Savonlinna is well known in Finland for being the home of this Olavinlinna Castle, where the Savonlinna Opera Festival takes place every summer.  It started a week after we left, so we were still able to tour the castle. Liisa arranged an English speaking guide for the large group from the wedding party.  Over the centuries the Castle was a strategic fortification between Sweden, Finland and Russia.  


This was the day after the wedding - we had a beautiful sunny day.  I know that my finger is in the picture - apparently I was so excited to see sunshine that I neglected to take a nice picture without my finger.  
More to come with the wedding post!