Hello, mother!
How are you? 
Guess what? Today it snowed for the first time! 
Of course there is only a very thin layer of snow, but anyway, it was great to wake up in the morning and see the earth white!
Vi were visiting the Castle of Turku one day when they had free entrance for students, and Henna managed to coax her neighbor to loan the car to us. 
So we drowe towards west about an hour and half, and then we were in Turku, and here I´m standing in front of the castle.
This photo is from the castle yard.
There was a guide telling us about the history of the castle.
It´s building started on 1280. The Swedish conquerors of Finland intended it originally as a military fortress.
Later on the castle served as a bastion and administrative centre in of Finland under swedish rule. It was built larger and larger when the centuries passed by.
It was very dark inside the castle, and I found it somewhat gloomy too. Most photos we took are so dark you can see hardly anything in them, so I´m just putting here the ones where you can see it is your little Josie in the pic, and not a ghost.
The guide told us there is at least four different ghosts ghosting in the corridores! 
The castle was really huge, and somewhat maze-like. I felt great to stop to watch the light and greennes outside the castlewalls everytime there was a suitable window.
This is the first one of the two rooms with lightning - the kings dining room. Can you imagine the king eating with only one visitor, lets say, another king - both of them of course sitting in the different table-ends and shouting to each other as a polite small-talk over the dishes? 
We saw many interesting things, and I´m really sorry I cannot show them to you - for example the kings toilet was pretty interesting, and so was the prisoners pit - but both of them were too dark to take any photos.
This is the other room which had lights on - the castle chapel. There was an organist playing while we were there, and it was nice to sit and listen for awhile.
The castle was in very bad condition in the beginning of the 20´th century, but it was renovated troughout many decades, and for example this chapel is painted according to old mediaeval manuscripts describing the original works.
Here we are resting a bit between the many storeys and staircases.
Then we climbed the last stairs to the uppermost storey where the is a museum representing many of the items found in the castle and its surroundings during the archaeological excavations and the reconstruction.
There was lots of gold- and silverware, and other luxury items, which certainly were rare in mediaeval Finland, but even so I think I would rather have lived in a cottage even in mediaeval times than in a castle this gloomy.
The cottage certainly was warmer, and maybe there even was less lice.
When we had seen everything there was to be seen (except the ghosts - those only move in nighttime, they say) we came out from the castle and spent still some time on the yard.
It was only half an hour to the sunset when we get out, and so it was too late to go and see other parts of the town of Turku, which was a bit of a shame.. but maybe some other time, who knows!
Goodbuy, gloomy Turku castle!
And a hug to you, mom! See you soon again!
Your Josie
