Cumulus Kemi

Sadly we left Perra's for the unkown. we travelled all day, by bus to the tiny village of Murek, train to Lulea near the east coast of Sweden, another bus to the Finish border and by foot across the border. The journey was fairly uneventful, saw some moose, read the War of the Worlds (and contemplated the destruction of Leatherhead by martians) and avoided scratching my now many mossie bites. The ...

It's Thursday and finally a little sunshine! I've spent the last few days in and around Oulu, exploring the city between burst of rain. I've only been drenched a couple times, and I manged to stay safely inside during the thunderstorm :) Oulu is a great city, it seems very clean (despite the large paper mill constantly spewing out smoke), and it's very accessible by bike - which is how I've doing most of my sightseeing. There's wonderful wide bike lanes ...

Kemi was REALLY EXPENSIVE. REALLY REALLY EXPENSIVE. ALMOST REDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE. It was rather smelly here because of the massive pulp factories and it was also raining the second day I was there so everything started to melt and it was just slush everywhere. The 'Ice Hotel' was alright for what it was but it really didn't compare to the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi. Not my greatest experience.

... have ended up in refugee camps. Also, in 1995, some of the Karen decided to stop fighting and live under Burmese control. It's all been a big mess that has brought on terrible heartache. The stories are hard to listen to at times. I sympathize as I know I was the product of refugee parents from World War II. As I mentioned in a blog entry from a previous trip in 2006, Margaret's father was a general in the Karen Revolutionary Army. Her mother is still alive and lives ...

... we decided to walk across the border. It was only about a kilometer walk across a bridge into Finland. We needed the exercise anyway. As we crossed the bridge, it seemed just too easy to be in another country. We weren't even sure we were in Finland. Bruce spotted three ladies coming our way and asked "Is this Finland?" They replied, "You are in Finland." It seemed like a Monty Python skit. We were in the Finnish town of Tornio and finally ...

... Beverly and why she didn't come. People generally are more desirous to see Bev rather than me and I fully understand why. I would much rather spend time with Bev than me, too. The Doh's are cut off from their families, their homeland and brethren in the Church. They have been resettled from the tropics of Thailand to the Arctic. Here it cold and dark almost 22 hours of the day at this time of year. My heart goes out to them. In order to give them connectivity ...

... going to the Baltic Sea two miles away for baptism might be a bit precarious and she offers a lake location instead. We then talked about baptism reviewing the main principles. Five of us set out in Meung Aye's little car for the lake. Klo Gay arrives a little later on his bicycle. I baptized Margaret in the icy water. It was a baptism like no other I've experienced being done by a Ukrainian in Finland and witnessed by a Burmese, a Karen, a ...

We're off to Finland today and an air of sadness to leave this time. The four of us traveling today will split up: Katherine and Kassy go back to Indianapolis, Bev and I continue on to Finland. We look with anticipation to our meeting the Doh family who are refugees from Thailand taken in by the Finnish government. They live at the Arctic Circle, quite a contrast from the jungle-like environment near Mae Sot, Thailand. We looked on the Internet for weather at the Arctic ...

... each for a very reasonable price. We then headed to find a 'taksi' to take us to the dock. There it was...The Sampo Ice Breaker Ship. The only ice breaker ship in the world that takes passengers, and we were going on it! So with antlers in tow we boarded our vessel. Once at sea the rumbling of the engines and the shuddering of the decks as we plowed through the ice cannot be adequately described, it evoked so many conflicting emotions; fear and excitement, amazement and disbelief. It ...

... nicely inquired if I wouldn't read to them from my Pippy Longstalking book. I said, "Why, of course." In the white light night of Umeå, we had Story-Time. With the skills and confidence of a Swedish fourth-grader, I narrated the wondrous adventures of Pippi Långstrump. "Annika kom hit, sa Pippi." I read fairly fluidly for half a page. When I reached the word "sjörövare" (pirate), the guys laughed and stopped me. This was a tough word. "Sj" is pronounced like an English ...