Birds

I saw a swallow in Finland that I hadn't seen before. It is called a barn swallow, or Haapäärasky. I will show photos of a Haapäärasky and of a North American barn swallow. Here is Maryland, we sometimes see barn swallows, as well as Purple Martins, Tree Swallows and Bank Swallows. I'm not sure, but I think our local barn swallows are the most common where I live. The local barn swallows have a buff-colored breast, blue wings, and rust-colored areas on the throat and head.

Trip to FInland, 4

Food

I loved the food I ate in Finland. From the coffee to the fish soup. Especially the fish soup. There were so many kinds of rye bread, too. One for every town, it seemed. Then there were Tarja's pastries, yeasted sweet rolls, and Wille's enormous pancakes. I liked the sausage, the cheese, but especially the potatoes. Those potatoes were delicious, every last one of them. Boy, what potatoes!

I had fun seeing how people made their coffee. Most often, I saw the yellow coffeemaker at Ilpo and Merja's summer house. It looked a lot like my coffeemaker at home, except it was yellow and prettier. Then there was Elsa Bergmann's percolator. I had never made coffee in a percolator before, believe it or not. Freshly prepared percolator coffee is just fine, quite tasty. The Moccamaster coffeemakers were funny, two-part affairs that looked like they sat on a two-burner hotplate. I liked them all, and all the coffee they made. What fun! At home, Brad and I have tried making coffee many different ways, over the years. It's always fun to try a new coffee gadget.

Now that I'm home, I want to find recipes for rye flatbreads. I want to make that fish soup, probably with salmon. I want, need to find a recipe for the shaved beef with gravy. And I have promised myself to choose my potatoes more carefully.

Here in Maryland, I often try to buy local food. In Finland, I didn't worry about that. And I know that the Finnish tomatoes I ate came from greenhouses. I might not eat a greenhouse tomato at home. In Finland, I ate grapes from Egypt. I think it would have been wonderful to have some wild Finnish blueberries, if I'd been there in late July (or August?), but the grapes were good too. I certainly ate some local bread and fish, and other foods too. I didn't talk to people about what a local-food diet might be, but the food I ate was wholesome and tasty. Here, have a strawberry, or maybe a potato. And please, pass that salmon over my way.

Trip to Finland, 3

Ilpo and Merja's summer property is very, very pretty. I spent an afternoon with his father, Angervo, walking through the garden. Angervo told me the Finnish names of the flowers. Much of the time all we could do was giggle and shrug at each other, but it was fun. In Finland, in early July, this is what I saw blooming: daylilies, roses, California poppies, lupins, and strawberries. The peonies had buds but no flowers yet. I did not see ants on the peonies there the way we do in Maryland. There were lots of mosquitoes, just like people said there would be. We were okay though. Lots of Off! was used, roll-on for bare skin, spray for clothes. I liked walking around Tornio and seeing the light in the sky. I could imagine that a painter would really enjoy being that far north in the summertime, to try and catch the light. I could watch the river all day. The river was always different, and always at the end of the path through the grass.

Trip to Finland, 2

I'd like to write a bit more about the night train. I really enjoyed myself on the train. For me, the train represents travel without having to drive, or having to think about driving. In Finland, taking the night train meant I could travel for 10 and a half hours without driving, and while getting some sleep. I would like to do that again on another trip. It was convenient, and I liked seeing the "railroad" side of the towns we passed through when I was awake.

Much of Finland is flat, and there are a great many trees there; I saw a lot of fir and birch. There were lots and lots of rivers and lakes.

Small note about Avis Car Rental in Kemi. Use them. Oskar brought our rental car to the train station for us, and waited at the end of the platform so he could wave at us when we arrived.

Trip to Finland, 1

We left on June 30th. June 29th was the day Jerry and Rosemary arrived from Montana. On the 30th, we flew from Washington Dulles, all the way to Charles de Gaulle. The flight was 8 hours long, but filled with movies, tv shows, excellent food, free wine, blankets and pillows. At CDG, we had to run the gauntlet on our way to the Finnair flight we had to catch. We went through passport control and also a security checkpoint. Dad and Patti were on the flight to Helsinki. They barely made it with only an hour layover at CDG. Finnair food is not good. Don't bother with it. Nice staff though. When I started seeing tiny islands off Helsinki, with wee sailboats floating nearby, I felt like Fantasy Island couldn't be far.

I'd like to spend more time in Helsinki at some point. We had an afternoon, between about 3pm and 10pm, when we could stroll, buy train tickets (thanks, Dad!), accidentally run into cousin Elaine, and just generally wish that we could take an earlier train. We had reservations for sleeping compartments on the 22:23 thanks to Reijo, but it was a long time to wait for it. I slept well on the train, and I enjoyed the novelty of it, but not everyone was happy. J and R had somebody knocking on their door all night. Kemi station came at 9 o'clock in the morning on July 2nd, and we were surprised to see, not just Oskar from Avis car rental, but also Ilpo, Tarja and Reijo. Hurray! We moved into Ilpo and Merja's summer house, and proceeded to be amazed by the ever-present sunshine. We never seemed to know what time it was, while we were in the Tornio valley.