Travelog for: Leonard

In this café we said goodbye to Alfie Langer who will be travelling back home with a friend of his mentor - after staying a year with our joint host. Before the sad goodbye hugs we ate and drank well, wrote quite a few postcards and had a few laughs  Oh, the new gal is Ellie Echidna, my host got her along with some souvenirs 

We visited the local Moomin exhibition today! It was called "Tove, outhouse and the sea". It was held in the local art school of kids & teens. The youngsters had  taken a deeper look into the works of Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomins and then made their own Moomin art. In the exhibitions was also photos of Tove and the island, taken by Tove's brother. The most interesting part was the original doodlings of Tove! They had reprinted them poster size. Those are the drawings Tove  doodled in the outhouse. Among those is also the very first Moomin like character she ever drew!

the shoe and everything after that photo is made by the kids. They're quite talented don't you think?

After the Moomin exhibition we were hungry! We went to have lunch on a ship! The ship is called Glückauf. The ship is a two masted steam/sail ship built in 1898 in Germany. It has been changed and renamed several times along the years. It got it's original name back in 1984. In 1987 it was changed into a restaurant and in 1996 restored the stern to its original form & shape.

So now it's a restaurant for 50 people and the original engine room is the kitchen. The engine is preserved and still in working order!

The food was good, I had pasta with tomato & cheese sauce. Oh, and we met Alfie! His new travel mates came for the exhibition too We toasted for that 

My host wanted to say proper goodbyes to her postcrosser friends so she made that "flag" - and drove to the airport to suprise her friends! Of course I wanted to go too I got to see and feel the airport. It was quite empty at that time of the night though. I met Alfie once more too! We had some hot chocolate and wrote some postcards...

When we had said the proper goodbyes I got to look at the artwork - that wooden thingie and the butterflies. Outside had become darker but not too much as I could see the old planes on the yard of the aviation museum.

We arrived in Tampere! Not by plane although my last update was from an airport  Tampere is about 2h drive away from Porvoo. It's the 3rd biggest city in Finland by population, which is about 210 000.

This weekend starts the European Youth Olympics. You could see advertisements and posters about it - and people dressed in sporty outfits with a countryname on the back.

The weather was nice. We started out walk at the buss station and walked down by the harbor/market place. I wanted to taste a Tampere specialty, Mustamakkara - Black Sausage. Blood sausage is made by frying in oven and it's at its best served hot with cold milk. You can buy it hot from almost every food shop in Tampere. But my host said we should hurry to the Moomin Valley Museum!

Here I am approaching the Moominvalley of the Tampere Art Museum! The boulevard is next to the entrance - as well is the Minna Canth sculpture. Minna Canth was the first woman writing in newspapers. She was also an author and a feminist - which was a big deal in her time (1844-1897).

But back to the Moomins! This museum is in the same building as the main library of Tampere. There are original works of Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomin. There are also several 3D tableaux made by Tuulikki Pietilä, the love of Tove's life. There's also a Moominhouse made by the two women plus Pentti Eistola.

We weren't allowed to take photos inside the museum so we had to settle with a few pics at the entrance and in the back room where that game was. There is that Moomin sculpture at the front door, it was vandalized a year ago and they had to make a new one, which took some time. There's a Moomin shop next door - oh I would've loved to spend more money in there...

I found a video on YouTube!

Here's the main library from the outside and the surroundings. Some more sculptures... That round stone moving on the round bottom was quite cool! And hey, look at the temperature! It's almost noon and +30 degrees Celcius!    That's way hot!

In the last picture you can see the library and Näsinneula Tower far behind it. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go to the Särkänniemi Adventure park - that's where the tower is. I've heard that the views are great there.

This is the Alexander Church, situated next to the main library (on the other side of the road). It was built in 1880, when the 25th anniversary of the accesion of Alexander II was celebrated. The church was named after him to honor the Grand Duke. The church was designed by architect Theodor Decker.

The Alexander Church represents the architecture in the period of the so-called repetition style. In the outer parts there are features of the so-called New Cothic and in the inner parts for example Romanesque. The altar piece represents the transfiguration of Christ.

The church was painted and restored in 1937. The fittings were fully destroyed by a fire caused by a spontaneous combustion.

Inside they had these small tables with info on for example their sponsor work in Africa.

Next we walked back down towards the buss station, saw some Hare Krishnas performing... Passed that and walked over the bridge and saw some of the industry from which the city grew. We walked the main street all the way to the main railway station and then turned back another road. There was the orthodox church, there was a ceremony going on so we didn't go in. We came to Koskikeskus shopping centre... Walked thru the mall to come back from the other side - next to the harbour&market place where we first started our tour.

Now we need to hurry, we have a wedding to attend!

I got to attend a Finnish wedding! It wasn't held in a church but in a rented society house. They had decorated it with red and white, the food was tasty, the program was funny and/or lovely... Etc. There was a play, singing, dancing, kidnapping if the bride... I had a blast!

Before heading back home we went shopping in the local mall (not in the city center). There I saw this weird sculpture. It looks like a whale tail to me. Our "art guide" said it's made by a Finnish woman (something Pulkkinen) and that she's the only one doing art this way: digs a hole, puts metallic plate in it, blows it up. Interesting... 

On our way home we stopped by a gas station to get some gasoline. They had these golden lions next door! I'm so brave I could become a lion tamer, don't you think? At least with these kinds of lions 

It seems that aussies like to visit my host: Banyo came yesterday. He knows Alfie and therefore we felt like welcoming a family member  Penny came today, she looks nice, I'm sure she'll love it here too.

Tonight Banyo, Penny and I got to see a parade! The local volunteer fire-brigade had a parade to celebrate their 111th anniversary. There was a marching band followed by the rest of the volunteers - and then the fire-fighting vehicles. They had both old and new vehicles in the parade. It looked and sounded very cool!

Today we followed the trail the parade had left yesterday 

The was an event for kids and we t-voyagers got to go too! We saw the fire-engines closer - we even got to sit in them! But at first we saw Djungeltrumman & Arne Alligator perform. They were quite funny with the alligator and ghost. The link takes you to their music in Finnish (they performed in both Finnish and Swedish).

This place is really a dance hall (pavilion) in which they have a dance many times during the summer (and sometimes in the winter). The orchestras invited play tango, mambo, ballroom dances, walz etc.

There's a nice view don't you think?