Rantasipi Aulanko Haemeenlinna

... I am very sorry to miss seeing Dayla and Michaelis in Greece and the community they live in. That just might need to be another trip. I am also feeling my age and miss my son. So, changing my flight was not difficult and I return to Dulles on September 4. I think Alex, will manage to drive to get me at the airport (probably the furthest he will have driven from home and the most lanes to navigate).

Thanks for listening and stay tuned.
Love,
Nancy

Went to bed after midnight, woke up at 4.00 am, on the road at 4.30am, on the plane at 7.00am, arrived Tampere at noon local time, took the bus to the train station, managed to get on the 13.07 train with a little bit of a rush, kicked back on the train, coffee and orange juice all round. Marie, Antti, Harry, Tommi and Freddi met us at the station and we've been relaxing at their house since! Sun shining, kids out swimming, rowing, BBQ on and wine flowing!

... had brought from Australia.... they did very well! After the meeting we had some free time at the guest house. From there, we were taken to Visavuori which is a museum at the family home of Emil Mikstrom who was a famous Finnish sculptor, and his grandson who was a very famous political satirical cartoonist. After looking through the family house and the sculptor's studio which were over one hundred years old, we headed to the Iitalla glass factory which is named after the very ...

... versus Sweden for the bronze medal. The Finnish fans were ready for this game as Finland's big rival in anything but particularly hockey is Sweden. Everyone sitting around me was Finnish and we cheered together. While I may have some Swedish in my background and could be disowned by any Swedish relatives, you have to understand that I was surrounded by Finnish people, I was in Finland and I wanted them to all cheer for Canada during the gold medal game. I didn't ...

... feeling safe to trust to copying to Jack when the SD card is filled. Jack made a couple of funny noises so I am still not totally reassured. By 8 we were packed up, I'd loaded some photos into last night's blog, and we went down to breakfast. Included in our hotel room was a buffet breakfast - a large mix of hot & cold options, some particularly Finnish, some not. Amongst the hot foods I had was a "rice cake". It looked a bit like a pastry you'd have as ...

... AMG flight to the south, sit down strap in, brilliant, wer'e on our way. Luxor here we come. Looking out of the windows, we see a snow covered Ukraine, the snowline stops when we fly into Turkey, out over the Mediterranean sea night begins to fall, about 1 hour later, we see lights, must be Alexandria, flying over the Delta area, we watch the lights all the way to Cairo, nearly there, about 45 minutes to go, seatbelts on, just ...

... per hour. At the station Bruce noticed a young lady who was shivering in the cold. He kindly offered her his jacket. She sat near to us on the train. Her name was Marya and she was heading to Tampere, 2/3 of the way down to Helsinki. She reminded me so much of my daughter-in-law Alix Kubik. She was going to her cousin's wedding that evening and she was one of the bridesmaids. The wedding was going to be performed by a ...

... when it came into our sight. It is more white than the snow and it looked magnificent against the blue sky. And there it was. I caught me and trapped both of us; it put a spell on us and now we've been going there each evening, just to sit next to it and look down on Helsinki and the rest of Europe. And honestly, I could be going there for the next week ...

... such day but it can also be too exciting experience to get back to airport in time. I never visited Paris before so I am enthusiastic to see it, even shortly like this. And football fever there can be really thrilling to see. Crazy. Sunday 9th is also Vera's birthday and what could be better than celebrating it in Paris with hundreds of thousands of people cheering for her.

... hospitality exchange organization called Hospitality Club for a bit longer than two years now and we have been hosting travelers and we have been guests in six countries so far. It has always been better than one can expect, truelly amazing hospitality still exist on this planet and we have made life long friedships I think. We have really enjoyed this way of living and traveling and this trip won't an exception. Our aim is to meet local ...