Trip to Finland...

Friday 20: - Didn't have "reserved" seats aboard United small 52 person plane, 1 hr late due to refueling problems in chicago. Took bumpy trip to Chicago at 11:40am and got to Chicago at 1:15pm. Waited 30 min for plane to find a place to park at terminal 2 and then moved to terminal 5 "international" by shuttle. Ate at Mc Donalds. Left 4:20pm for Stockholm.; - Smooth flight with 2 movies (spot, 7girlfriends) 3-4 hrs of darkness and got to Stockholm at 12:40am (our time) Lead by mom in hot persuit and some help from English speaking people we got to our Helsinki flight on time. Left Stockhome at 1:40am and arrived in Helsinki at 2:40am (our time) *switched my clock + 8 hrs. got lugage just fine and met Paivi and her father. Picked up some traveling passes and traveled to a restaurant. Ate potatoes, lettuce, fish , chilli. connected to the restaurant was a glass museum that we toured. After the tour we traveled to paii's parents home in Petajavesi. We met Paivi's mom and we got the tour of the house and talked with each other. One by one we all got to bed and passed out from the exhausting time difference.; - *weather: Stockholm was foggy, partly cloudy in Finland, little rain.

Sun 22 (skip Sat do to timezone): - Woke up near 11am and had juice & rice/break paties. Then we picked up some super delicious strawberries in the neighbor's lawn and a few really tinny strawberries in Paivi's parent's place. Then we took showers and got back on the road. First we fisited an old Finnish church. "old church". Secondly we traveled to a park owned by the city and took a hike (Paivi and us kids) while the rest took a row boat ride and cooked brots over an open fire and when us hikers got back we did the same. After that, we traveled back to paivi's parents house and got our swimsuits. Got back in the van (really wild because it was almost like a limo - with 3 chairs facing each other), got into a rented sauna and went swimming (some of us - mom just dunked her feet in the water).; - Here our family had our first experience with finnish sauna's. The sauna's were very hot and then they would splash water over the hot rocks to make the whole room steam up so at times it was a little difficult to breathe. After the sauna, we drove back to the house and ate potato's, rice and meat rolled in lettuce (tasted a little like a chineese wanton) and for desert there was gloutberry vanilla cake. That evening I took an extra sauna and shower because I got dirty in the lake (muddy lake). We then watched a movie of Paivi from the morning news when she modled off how to make her felt paintings. Once the movie was done, our family headed to bed.; - *weather: cool in the morning and nice in the afternoon, it rained while we were sleeping yesterday.

Mon 23: - Woke up, took a shower & ate toast/cereal (grain & rasins). Near noon we left for Jyvaskyla, found a place to park and took a walk to the marketplace where Paivi's dad got some peas to eat. Then dad went with Paivi to the bank to get Finnish Marks (6.9 mark = $1). While we explored around (the rest of us) mom stopped at a bathroom and instead of turning on the light switch, mom turned on the handycap alarm which a worker came to turn off. the bathrooms were 1 Mark to use. Then we all got back together and walked up a long hill to the library. From the library we found a cafe to eat at. We all ate at the salad bar which had cut up carrots, something like cream and muchroom, chicken & lettuce & cucumbers.; - At the end of the meal dad and Paivi bought super delicious cake slices! Then we went to the bathroom in a mall which had blue lights in them. The blue lights are to prevent drug users from finding their veins. Then we walked back to the marketplace and Paivi's dad bought some delicious liqorish that was frosted with sugar (apple, cherry, lemon, peach, string and black). After that we walked back to the van and took a short trip to a tower that us kids walked up and overlooked Jyvaskyla. Our next visit was to the lake boat tour. the tour took us all the way across the lake and back in 2 hrs. There wasnt much to see, however the ride was nice and relaxing. We got back into the van and drove back to Paivi's parents house where we relaxed, but pryor to that we stopped at a KKKK "big" market shop to get food for dinner. The store was equivalent to a big K in the US. We got to visit with a cousin of Paivi's mom and his two sons that were there.; - One interesting thing at the store was that the shopping carts were set up so you had to put a mark or 5 marks into the cart to unlock it from the stack. At Paivi's parents house we ate outside. We had grilled chicken, potato salad, mashed beets and for dessert we had pancakes made over the fire. Later on that evening we (me and AnnaMarie) took a sauna and watched an american movie "Wanda" on TV. Went to bed around 11pmish.; - *weather: little rain when we got out of the library, partly cloudy.

Tues 24: - Woke up, at 7am by Paivi, took showers, ate breakfast and packed our lugage into the van. then te traveled without Paivi's parents to where we stopped to buy some glassware for presents. We ended up eating at a restaurant nearby too. (this place was a bunch of different stores close together.) We got our food and waited a very long time because there was a larged reserved group that came after we ordered. In this building was also a glass blower that leg others watch how he made the glass at 100 degrees Celcius.; - Then we got to a chocolate store and bought some chocolate covered strawberries and fudge. After that we entered a honey store and bought 3 different honeys (vanilla, blueberry, strawberry). We got on the road (mom loved the circular intersections). down the side highway Paivi got cought speeding by the Police because she was traveling at 100km in an 80km zone. One cop passed us, clocked us and then, down the road, another cop van stopped us when a policeman got into the street and waved us to stop. Then we got ack on the road and headed to Hame which was an old Spanish castle (not for a king) and later on it was a prison. The castle was fun to walk around however the museum part got tiring at the end. then we drove to a friend of Paivi's who is named helka. We watched her make a muschroom cream with potato's meal. then we ate. After the meal we walked to where Helka's sister planned to have her wedding reception which had some nice art to view. Once that was done we walked (us kids) or rode the elevator up to this really high up (12 floors) cafe which overlooked the city and the nice swimming pool down below. Everyone got back to helka's and settled in for the night while we brought in the 2 cats Elo and Veena in the house and Paivi & helka left for helka's sisters place to stay for the night.; - *weather: nice.

Wed 25: - Got up, showered, packed and ate breakfast at helka'a and drove to Pasi's apartment in Helsinki. visited and was introduced to Katri, Pasi's fiance. Our group left by bus to the subway and then left for downtown Helsinki. We first visited a church made out of rock that we stoped at briefly. After the church we went to pizza hut. Mom had a slice of salmon pizza. Our group went to the "WC's" (bathroom) next to a theater. Then we left to a store and picked up a free gift of film. then we walked to a huge mall named Stockmann where we got free key chains. We left and got to a book shop where annaMarie got a english fillin puzzle and "on the street where you live" by Mary Higgins Clark. The girls got into a womans clothing store and us guys went to a media store to wait for the bus to Seurisaari.; - We got there to a gift shop and picked up free post cards. these free gifts, enterances to museums and transportation in Helsinki were all paid for with a 175 mark/ $25 dollars. We walked across a bridge to the island of Seurisaari which had a tour to take. An english speaking tour guide showed us some colonist finnish houses/farms. then the family went to eat at the restaurant on the island. After we ate, our group walked around a little more. At 7pm we got to a concert at the church and listened to a guitar player. We got back on the bus to the subway and then back onto the bus back to Pasi's apartment. Mom and dad stayed at the apartment and the rest of us jumpped into the van and drove to a campsite named Rastila camp a little ways away from Pasi's. We got to the cabin at the campsite, washed up and got to sleep.; - *weather: nice.; - *nicknames: I called AnnaMarie a "retard" and AnnaMarie called me "Messed up".

Thurs 26: - Woke up at 6:30am at the campsite, took showers and drove to Pasi's apartment and ate breakfast. took the bus to the subway at a different stop. We got out and walked to the market to wait for the feiry to the island of Soumenlinna. We got onto the feiry and got upon the island (Pasi came with us but did not take the tour). the reason why we got up so early was to get an english speaking tour. The tour guide took us throughout the entire history of the fort that took 14 years to build that was financed by the French and English, then taken over by the Russians (the commanding Finnish officer surrendered for unknown reasons) and was latter bombarded by French/English for show and patrionism. Pasi treated me to finnish beer at the cafe "Lapin Kulla." We took the feiry back to helsinki, took the subway and buss back to Pasi's apartment. Mom and dad got their luggage, we packed up the van and we left for katri's parent's lake cabin (we got very hot from the tour and transportation and I became the water boy with my backpack water bottles and famous "jaffa" juice). We got to the cabin and relaxed on the deck. mom collected flowers and we had nice conversations with Katrina while Pasi made the salmon over an open fire. paivi's parents met us at the cabin as well. We ate a delicious salmon/ potato & salad meal and then took turns men/women in the sauna. Pasi treated me to two other brands of beer "koff" and "karjala" beer. We said our goodnights and went to bed.; - *weather: hot.

Fri 27: - Woke up by an evil mosquito that bothered me and AnnaMarie around 8am. Paivi gave us a story of an event of something that happened over the night. Somehow two bats flew into the cabin in the night and were excourted out by Paivi and her mom. the group ate breakfast, showered and packed up the van. We left and headed to the airport. We got to the airport at 12:40pm. I wrote a postcard and Anna read her bok. We said our goodbyes with hugs and a few tears. We passed though the metal detectos and Stephen got caught this time. Our family got onto the plane and flew out of Finland....; - *weather: nice.