Castelo de são Jorge, Lisbon, Portugal - 28th April 2013
By: Eohippus
Hello, dear mom!
I hope you´re having a great time in Vienna!
This is propably my last update from Portugal (which is a shame! I would have wanted to have more time to spend there!) and then we can move to Finland.
On one of our last days in Portugal we went for a walk in Lisbon.
In this pic I´m standing on Largo do Camões, and behind me you can see the Camões statue.
Luís Vaz de Camões lived in the 16th century, and he is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet.
His greatest work is "Os Lusíadas" - which also had a tremendous impact on portuguese language.
Here you can see him a bit better.
The smaller characters are other classic portuguese authors.
"Hello there, Luís!" said I, "I´ve come to visit your wonderful city!"
"Wellcome, wellcome, little post bus!" said he, "but alas, this is not my city! My city was destroyed in the big earthquake and the only place I now recognice is the old Castle.
We walked along, imagining how would the city of Lisbon have looked, sounded and smelled in the times of Camões.
Did you know, mom, that the first high heel shoes were used in medieval cities, because the streets were so thickly covered with filth? A nauseating thought!
We stepped into this nice souvenier shop.
Inside I met again one of the cute Lisbon trams - this time in great size!
Back on the streets again we saw some interesting graffitis.
How do you think Luís de Camões would like these?
Maybe there was graffitis in his Lisbon too. Why not? There was some even in the walls of Pompeii, many of them naughty.
I was doing some window shopping..
And admiring the "azulejos" with which many of the walls in Lisbon are paved.
These azulejos are picturing the Praça do Comercio square.
These azulejos are rather new, but they are showing old village life in the Algarve area.
Suddenly we found ourselves on the gates of Castelo de são Jorge, and decided to go in.
The castle is built on top of the highest of the seven hills of Lisbon, as we soon found out!
While climbing upwards the endles stairs we could peep into the yards of the small houses nesting next to the ancient castle walls.
What a cool place to live in!
At last we reached the castle yard, phew!
We were resting for awhile under the pinha trees, and guess what!
We noticed there was many pinha seeds on the ground!
Here!
We were peeling them by knockng them with a stone and ate them. They were delicious!
Then we went to sit on the wall, still munching, watching the view over the city.
Looks inviting, doesn´t it?
We went to investigate the castle towers and walls and whatnot, and Henna told us about the history of the castle, promising it to be just a suitable portion.
The hill has been fortificated first time maybe in the end of the neolithic stone age, told she (what a promising beginning, this can now go on about 8000 years!) and after that again maybe 30 times during the bronze- and iron ages by different people. (Okke, that was a fast summary!)
The oldest remaining ruins are from the Roman period (from 1th to 5th century) and from the moorish period from 8th to 14th century.
That is about as much as I want to know!
We climbed over every single wall and tower it was possible to climb, and every now and then we got a view over the city to a new direction.
Suddenly a monster tried to eat me!
But I was playing my postbus signal in the highest bossible volume and he dropped me, startled, and I run round a corner and made faces to him! Stupid monster! Why did the ancient people need to carve such dangerous things everywhere?
The castle was dedicated to são Jorge, saint George, you know, the guy who beats the dragon (I´ve always been on the dragons side!) when a portuguese king married an english princess in the 14th century. This George happened to be the patriot saint of England, you see.
No one knows how the castle was called before that.
Of course, that leaves lots of room for imagination.
-No one can proove it wasn´t called for example The Castle Of The United Free Plushies.
Look! From this side of the castle we can see our friend Tejo, running lazily in the sun. Well, not running. No one can run lazily! Roaming!
There is not much left of the buildings where the people were living in, although there certainly were some, because the castle served as the royal recidence for some kings.
It was here where the king received Vasco da Gama, for example, when he returned from his trip to India 1499.
Here I´m on the inner yard of the castle.
Maybe Camões was sitting here too some day, enjoying the sun and the birdsong like we were doing.
But it was time for us to say goodby to the castle and go home to pack our bags.
Goodby, ancient castle! Have some more happy millenniums!
A warm hug to you, mom!
Your Camionette!
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Posted May 11, 2013, 6:15 pm Last edited May 11, 2013, 6:18 pm by Eohippus
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Nuuksio, Finland - 1st May 2013
By: Eohippus
Hyvää iltaa, äiti! (Good evening, mother!)
Mitä kuuluu? (How are you?)
You can predict from this beginning that today we´re going to move to the finnish soil.
On our last evening in Portugal we went to the cinema.
We saw a film called "Night train to Lisbon".
The film was a bit too thrilling to me!
I spent part of the time in Hennas pocket..
But it was nice to see many places on the screen
we had already seen in real life.
Next morning we were in the airport so early that we were all half a sleep.
You can see our flight here, it is the fourth row from the bottom of the list,"Helsinquia".
That´s how they spell Helsinki in Portuguese.
Our gate was number 13.
We were having some fresreshments on a cafeteria while waiting our plane to get ready.
Here is our plane!
"Hello, airplane!" shouted I to the plane, "I wish you are feeling chirpier than I am!"
"Ha ha, little postbus!" answered the plane, "I´m quite ready to fly round the globe if needed!"
"I´m happy to hear that!" said I.
I would not like to fly with a sleepy airplane!
We managed to book a windowseat! Great!
Here we have just entered the friendly plane, and I´m watching everything going on around us.
I saw the luggage being thrown and kicked into the plane.
We were checking our route from the map, and I saw
that we would fly somehow near over Frankfurt.
So I decided to try to spot it from the air and wave to you, mom!
"Now we go, little bus!" shouted the airplane to me,
and then we went up into the air!
After some time we were served lunch, which was great, because I was already starving!
The kilo of sweets I tried to smuggle with me to the plane
as a little snack was found in the security control, and we had to eat them before entering!
It took about 2 minutes from five toyvoyagers to handle that!
Here we are somewhere near Frankfurt and I´m waving to you with all my wheels!
Did you feel it, mom?
The rest of the flight we were watching some awful program they always show in airplanes
(golf and fashion shows, why o why?) and putting funny stuff into the mouths of those people who slept their mouths open.
We landed to Finland after almost five hours flight.
A friend of Hennas took us to Nuuksio in his car.
Here is the little cottage I´m going to live in!
It is about hundred years old and it is in middle of a big forest.
I wanted to see a bit around and run to investigate!
There was wonderful white anemones everywhere!
And lots of narcissuses, which had just opened.
The blue anemones seemed to be glowing in the sun!
I was very happy to see all the spring flowers, because I had half expected to see still lots of snow!
Actually, there was still a bit in the ditches and some shady places..
"Since you are anyway roaming around there you could collect some wild vegetables!" Henna shouted from inside.
"What vegetables does she mean?" I asked from Zoe and Tuli, who know these things.
"Nettles, sheeps sorrel, young dandelion, coltsfoot and thistle leaves!" they answered, "They are going to be our dinner!"
And so we started to collect all those things.
It was very fun! But I wondered about the dinner!
We had soon collected a little basket full of the wild vegetables, and the Zoe and Tuli were showing me and Tiger Lilly what to do with them.
First we put the vegetables into a cettle and then I was mincing them with scissors.
They smelled wonderfully!
Then we built an open fire. There is enough dry twigs and branches everywhere on the yard!
We put some water to the cettle and put the cettle over the fire.
We let the vegetables boil about ten minutes, stirring every now and then, and added some salt and pepper.
Then we added some cream, and it started to look quite yammy! My mouth was already watering!
We ate our dinner outside, sitting on the roof of an old hencoop where Henna has put a table.
It was delicious!
Tuli told its is traditional to eat wild vegetables in springtime in Finland.
Such was our first day in Nuuksio. I think this is going to be a funny visit!
I´ll soon tell you more!
A warm hug to you!
Your Poschti
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Posted May 13, 2013, 8:40 pm Last edited May 13, 2013, 8:54 pm by Eohippus
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Porkkala, Finland - 7th May 2013
By: Eohippus
Hei taas, rakas äiti! (Hi again, beloved mother!)
How are you?
We have all been having a spring flue, and the little red cottage has been full of sneezing, coughing and nose blowing.
Before getting the flue we made a nice trip to Porkkala, which is a beautiful area in the sea shore, about twenty kilometers from Nuuksio.
In Porkkala we headed for a small island called Linlo.
There was a small bridge leading there.
On the island we were walking along a route of duckboards trough a forest.
An elk who had missed his potty training had also visited the island..
We left the duckboards and followed the reed-growing shoreline in search of a good place to lit a coffee fire.
Who can live without a hot cuppa every now and then?
The shore turned rocky and soon we were watching beautiful sea landscape from the many cliffs we climbed.
I was wondering about the line formations in the rocks.
Tuli explained to me they were formed during the ice age, when the whole northern Europe was covered with an ice layer which was many kilometers thick.
The ice cover was so heavy and caused such a pressure on the earth, that the rocks were smoothed and got round shapes, and the hardest stone types, like the white quartzite here, stick out from the softer granite as lines.
The sea looked very blue, and the air felt really fresh, and the seagulls passing by were shouting some rather fresh remarks too to do with our outer habitus.
Then we found an old fireplace and started to collect wood to burn.
Soon we had the coffeepot over the fire!
It was a bit coolish day, and also windy in the shore (I guess that is where we got the flue..) and I could hardly wait to get hot coffee!
Because it still took some time for the water to boil, we went down to the shore, which was full of round pebbles.
I think they looked pretty much like birds eggs.
I went back to keep an eye on the water, and when the coffee was ready I called everyone else too.
Then we had many mugs of hot coffee!
And ate 15 gingerbread cookies each!
This is my seventh.
After some more hopping on the rocks we came back home, because our gingerbread cookie package was empty! How horrible.
Next time I´ll show you pics from Helsinki.
Kisses from your (snotty) little bus.
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Posted May 18, 2013, 11:48 pm
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Helsinki, Finland - 25th May 2013
By: Eohippus
Hei, rakas äiti!
I wish the weather has turned more summery there!
We have had both rain and sun in a quite nice mixture.
I´m now going to show you photos I took in Helsinki
when we went for a stroll there some days ago.
It is about 30 kilometers from Nuuksio to the centrum of Helsinki,
and first we took a bus into a place called Leppävaara.
There wasn´t many travellers, and so the bus had good time to talk with me
in our secret common vehicle language.
He told me it is very nice to be a Nuuksio bus,
to be driwing in beautiful landscapes, seeing elks and deers, badgers and hares and lynxes,
foxes, raccoon dogs and even a bear every now and then.
Isn´t it wonderful, mom?!
Just 30 kilometers away from the centrum of the capitol city!
In Leppävaara we took a train, which took us to Helsinki.
We were all in good mood and willing to walk a lot.
The train took us to the Helsinki main railway station,
which is the building behind my back.
Henna says it always reminds her of a 1930´s radio.
These huge guys who are guarding the main gate of the station
are lightbearers from the finnish mythology.
The metal "badges" are there because they´re going to take the statues to be cleaned.
Ha ha, they need a bath too once in a hundred years.
I guess I could handle that too.
We started to walk first towards north along Mannerheimintie,
which is kinda main road of Helsinki.
I saw the first Helsinki tram. I think they are quite cute, although they could be even more beautiful
if they were, for example, yellow..
The big yellowish building is the main post office of Helsinki,
and the other one is a department store called Sokos.
Helsinki is rather a young city.
It was established 1550 by the command of a swedish king who was also the king of Finland at that time.
The king was thinking of a good place for a harbour to enlarge the economy,
not about the conditions to build the city in.
Helsinki was build over a swamp area, and people were so reluctant to move into the new town
that the king had to order them to.
Nowadays there is, anyway, over 600 000 inhabitants and the town keeps growing.
The oddly shaped building behind my back is a museum of contemporary art called Kiasma.
The aquarium -like building is a new music center, which was built couple of years ago.
The statue is called "Laulupuut" - The song trees, and it is picturing a pike (Esox lucius) in the top of a tree, singing.
Henna told the statue was inspired by a poem of the poet Aaro Hellaakoski called "Hauen laulu",
the song of a pike, in which a pike climbes a spruce to taste the reddish cones and to sing.
We marched onwards, and soon we saw the finnish parliament house
on the other side of the street.
It was built in 1931.
I think it looked rather pompous.
This is where finnish people mainly come to demonstrate - to shout for the parliament members going in or out.
We were counting the pillars, after Henna told us that when she was a brat,
they asked the number of the pillars of the parliament house in an exam at school, and she had no idea.
We counted fourteen. So now you know!
We saw also a miniature model of the building.
We climbed a rock next to the parliament house and watched the scenario.
The tower behind the spruce belongs to the finnish national museum.
So we walked to see the museum building next.
It is a funny building which looks rather much like the finnish mediaeval churches.
It was inaugurated 1916.
The museum has a beautiful yard, which is now full of glorious dandelions,
like little suns on the grass.
It was a somewhat cloudy and coolish day, and every now and then the sky looked really grey,
but after the harsh winter people here enjoy even the gloomiest days of summer!
On weekends everyone is somewhere outside, whatever the weather.
There was a friendly looking bear guarding the door of the museum.
We didn´t go in this time, because we wanted to walk and see much more.
Maybe one day when it really pours!
So we walked onwards, and I saw another, a bit older tram. They are all green here!
"Hello, Helsinki tram! Happy to meet you!" I said to her (in our secret language).
"I say the same, little bus from Switzerland! Have a nice stay here!" she answered and blinked her lights to me.
Zoe, Tuli and Tiger Lilly are asking about five times a day me to teach the language to them, but I don´t know..
I like them a lot, but they are not vehicles!
One day they started to suddenly to speak a "bird-mammal-frog language" and to look very secretive, which pissed me off very much!
But Henna told us we were stupid. We should create a secret language for ALL toyvoyagers instead of guarrelling with each other, she said, and off course she is quite right.
"I often am!" she is shouting now when I write, reading over my shoulder. Hmh.
Next we saw "Finlandia talo" - Finlandia Hall, which is a concert- and congress hall on the Töölönlahti bay.
It was completed 1971, and it seems that on its own time it was something very special,
and made the architect Alvar Aalto very famous round the world, but I must say to me it looked just a white box.
I admired more the wonderfull tulips planted on the yard.
We walked trough Töölönlahti bay park, which is a very popular place to spend time,
have picnics and such.
This is a memorial monument of one of the finnish presidents, Urho Kekkonen.
What? It doesn´t look like a monument to you?
Well, nor did it look like that to me either, more like a beautiful swimming pool. But I like it.
Many trees and bushes are in bloom now, and many of them smell wonderfull,
so the walk trough a park is not only cherishing our eyes but all the senses.
We saw another, more conventional statue.
It is picturing "runonlaulaja" Larin Paraske.
I don´t quite know how to translate runonlaulaja, maybe a bard?
Runonlaulaja was a specialist who could sing a big selection of the so called "Kalevala" folk poetry,
which was learned by heart, listening to the older people.
Here you can see something of the Töölönlahti bay itself.
On summertime it is possible to hire a rowing boat and go rowing there.
This building is "Hakasalmen huvila" - Hakasalmi villa.
It was the summer residence of Aurora Karamzin, who was a great philanthropist.
As a young maiden Aurora "was appointed a lady-in-waiting of Empress Alexandra Fedorovna the elder,
consort to Emperor Nicholas I of Russia and a lady of the bedchamber of their Imperial Majesties
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna the younger and Empress Maria Feodorovna.
She was made a dame of the Order of Saint Catherine, the highest honor for ladies in Imperial Russia". (Phew!)
Later in life Aurora used her immense wealth to create benefactory institutions in Helsinki,
such as schools, public kitchens, and the Deaconess Institution of Helsinki.
Quite a remarkable woman!
Nowadays the building serves as one of the Helsinki town museums.
They had a café in one of the side buildings, and we got very interested when seeing it!
Well, we hadn´t been eating anything for whole two hours!
Soon we were devouring a "karjalanpiirakka" (carelian pastry) with "munavoi" (spread made of butter and hard boiled eggs) over it.
It is a traditional delicacy from the Karjala (Carelia) in eastern Finland. It was very good!
Full of new energy we walked along, now towards south, trough the modern Kamppi shopping center.
Next to the shopping center we saw this very interesting looking building.
To me it looked first like a dinosaur egg, but I was told it is the Kamppi Chapel.
It is also known as the "Chapel of Silence" since it is intended to be a place to calm down and have a moment of silence in one of the busiest areas in Finland.
It was built only last year, and it won The Chicago Athenaeum: International Architecture Award For The Best New Global Design - price.
We went to see it from inside too.
It is built totally of wood.
I think the wooden ceilings were really beautiful!
What do you think, mom?
I also liked the detail of the pile of pillows looking like rounded beach stones.
And the fact that the candles where stick to stand in white beach sand.
I guess it all has to do with the finnish near to the nature -ideology.
This is maybe the most famous statue of Helsinki, called "Kolmen sepän patsas" - The three smiths statue.
It was unveiled in 1932, and it depicts three smiths hammering on an anvil,
naked, which is slightly odd, thinking of the sparks, to start with.
It is a popular meeting point.
We turned to walk along Aleksanterin katu street and passed the department store of Stockmann.
It is the largest department store in the Nordic countries, and it was opened 1930.
The first escalators of Helsinki were in this building,
and for some years there was a nuisance of the Helsinki schoolkids coming to driwe
up and down, up and down with them after school hours.
I spotted these rather ugly faces on wall of one of the houses we were passing.
We came to Senaatintori - The Senates Square.
This is the statue of Emperor Alexander II, located in the center of the square.
The statue, erected in 1894, was built to commemorate his initiation of several reforms
that increased Finland's autonomy from Russia.
During the Russification of Finland from 1899 onwards,
the statue became a symbol of quiet resistance.
I met another fluffy bus on the square!
He was a turist bus taking people for sightseeings round the town.
We were chatting a good while.
On one side of the square is Helsinki Cathedral.
It was built 1832-1850, and since it was also built over a swamp people were sure it would sink.
We climbed the stairs to see the church better,
and also to see the view over the square.
This is the Helsinki University main building, which is on one side of the square too.
The university has been situated in Helsinki since 1829,
but it was founded in the city of Turku in 1640
as The Royal Academy of Turku.
It is the oldest and largest university in Finland.
This is the Sederholm house.
It is the oldest remaining building of Helsinki centrum, built in 1756.
Because most buildings were made of wood, they were destroyed in many fires or demolished to make way for newer stone constructions.
Specially during the 1960´s to 1980´s many beautiful, old buildings were destroyed
and ugly boxes were constructed in their place.
Sederholm house serves as a museum too nowadays.
This is Holy Trinity Orthodox Church.
It is the oldest normally serving church in Helsinki centrum.
It was built 1825-1826.
I started to have a feeling we had seen rather many churches already..
Next we walked to the seashore, to see the famous Kauppatori - Market Square.
Originally this was a muddy shore where the fishermen came to sell their catch straight from their boats.
The square was built in beginning of 19th century
and became the main market for people from surrounding countryside
to sell their products for the city dwellers.
Besides vegetables, berries, mushrooms and fish there is nowadays tables
selling handicrafts and souveniers.
It is also very popular place to sit in outside tables eating fish dishes or coffee and buns.
This is also the place where the ferries leave to Suomenlinna fortress islands,
and there is also many cruise companies making sightseeings.
The big boats to Sweden and Estonia also leave near by.
I noticed there was turtles preventing cars driwing everywhere. Good job!
We walked over a small channel to see the Uspenski cathedral
(STILL one more church, crying out loud! )
Uspenski Cathedral is an Eastern Orthodox cathedral, dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos
(the Virgin Mary). (Umh..)
It was designed by the Russian architect Alexey Gornostaev and built in 1862–1868.
I was rather full of churches, cathedrals, chapels and whatnot,
but even so I was sad the cathedral was closed - I would have liked to peep in..
This is the view over Helsinki in front of the Uspenski cathedral.
Can you spot the dome of the Lutheran Cathedral ?
We came down from the hill where the cathedral stands and saw this old lightvessel.
It was serving ships in the areas where there was no lighthouse, showing the dangerous rocks and such when the weather got rough.
We walked over"The bridge of love" and watched the lovelocks people have hanged there.
I think it is very romantic!
Maybe one day I could driwe here, wheel in wheel with a cute little vehicle.. hmm!
Just when thinking these romantic thoughts I saw this awfully cute museum tram driwing towards me!
I could only say "Wow!" and I think I even blushed,
and she smiled at me charmingly.
I watched long time after her, and the others were giggling and slapping my back.
When she disappeared behind a corner, we moved along and saw this fountain called "Havis Amanda" by sculptor Ville Walgren.
The statue is from the year 1906 and it is a mermaid who stands on seaweed, rising from the water, surrounded by four sea lions.
Every year on Vappu, 1.5, Havis Amanda serves as a centrepiece for the celebrations.
Students of the local universities put a cap on the statue in an elaborate ceremony.
For many it is a "must see" event.
We continued our walk along Esplanadi park, which was full of people, enjoying the summerday.
There was an estonian tram- and bus driwers wind instrument band playing on the stage.
There was a very beautiful icecream kiosk, but it was too cold to have icecream.
Maybe next time!
Then it was time to go home, and we headed back towards the railway station.
On our way there we saw a guy playing really beautiful music with bottles
filled with different amounts of liquid.
And a "dog bar" outside a shop - bowls with water and different dog bisquits, and a plake asking the dog owners to leave some coins to keep the bar going on.
What a nice idea!
I think I like Helsinki a lot.
It is not a very big city, and its "sights" are somehow humble compared to many other places I´ve been visiting.
But I like its greennes, freshnes and cosynes.
I think you would like it too.
See you soon again, dear mom!
Kisses from your "linja-auto" - bus !
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Posted May 26, 2013, 5:31 pm Last edited May 26, 2013, 7:25 pm by Eohippus
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Seurasaari open air museum, Finland - 3rd June 2013
By: Eohippus
Hei, rakas äiti! (Hi, dear mom!)
How are you?
I´m just fine!
Last weekend we went for a walking trip onto Seurasaari island, which is a popular place to spend summerdays, and where there is also an outdoor museum.
There is an old wooden bridge leading onto the island.
Saturday was the last day of school before summer holidays in Finland, and there was even more people than normally, celebrating the beginning of the summer by eating icecream, sitting on the beaches.
We started our museum round in an iron age house.
We walked there along these duckboards.
There was some kind of totem pole wellcoming us to the house.
Henna told us that in stone age the finns had three totem animals they considered their foreparents - elks, bears and swans.
If they still believed in such things on ironage is unsure, though.
These buildings were made together by archaeologists and people who have past and roleplaying as their hobby.
They have few times a year iron age happenings here where people can buy iron age handicrafts and food or learn some iron age skills in workshops.
This is a typical finnish iron age building.
There were people living in one end of the building, and animals in the other end.
In wintertime the animals and their dung helped to keep the house warm.
These houses had open fireplaces and no chimneys, which were only invented in the 13th century.
So all the smoke came in, which wasn´t very comfortable.
Some poor people lived like that still in the 1950´s !
So, on summertime, when the fire was not nessessary for warmth, people didn´t cook inside the houses, but in this kinda cooking huts on the yard.
It was common to have magical symbols on the door- or windowposts preventing any malevolent powers entering the house.
On this doorpost there is a looped square or Saint John´s arms (käpälikkö in finnish), although it can be a bit hard to see.
We walked to see some more modern historic buildings and passed by these wonderful lilies called Solomon´s Seal.
I don´t know if I would like to live in an iron age house!
Full of smoke and still rather cool in winter, brr!
Although it would be nice to sleep under the same roof with sheeps and cows and horses..
Well, here we have a more modern building.
Hmm.. I would have said it is from iron age too, but as Henna pointed out, it has a glas window, which means it cannot be older than from 17´th century.
Otherwise there is not much difference!
Then we walked and watched many old countryside buildings, all from the 17th to 20th century.
There was some very grand houses and some very humble ones. This house is built so that it is possible to driwe a chart or sleigh trough it onto the yard.
Red was the most common color for houses, and the paint was made of red ochre and tallow.
The mix is actually pretty similar than it was in rock art.
Probably the red color, as the color of blood and life, was also considered to be quarding the house and the inhabitants from evil.
Usually only the main building was painted, and the sidebuildings were left grey.
I could very well live in the houses from this period!
They are only lacking electricity and running water compared to the modern times, but, actually, we don´t have running water either in the little cottage we live her in Nuuksio, and we´re doing quite well without.
The electricity is another thing. Without it I could not even write my updates!
We a saw a windmill of the type called "magpie mill" because it had a tail with which it was possible to turn the mill so that wings catched the wind as well as possible.
We had a little pause in a café selling traditional foodstuff, and tried something called "kalakukko" (fish rooster).
It is rye bread inside which there is baked lots of fish called vendace.
It looked horrible, but tasted rather good!
These buildings are "aittas", granaries or storage houses.
Big houses had many aittas on the yard, one for meat, one for milk products, one for flour, one for clothes and so on.
Usually the sons and daughters of the house had an own aitta each of them, and sometimes the servants too.
There they kept their personal belongings and also slept in them in summertime.
Specially in western Finland it was quite normal that young people slept together before marriage, and if a girl had couple of kids already while marrying, it was just taken as a proof of her fertility.
The food aittas always had this kinda little hole under the door. Can you guess why?
It was the private entrance for cats, so that they could get in to take care of the mice and rats trying to eat the foodstuff.
This is an old wooden church.
It is an extremely popular place to get married.
And this is its belltower.
This is a house from the Karelia area.
In these houses the animals still lived under the same roof - in the downstairs, while people lived in upstairs.
I guess the animals helped again to keep the upstairs warmer.
This little cottage had a wonderfully blooming apple tree on its yard.
Then we saw couple of saw called church boats.
The villages built, owned and handled them communally, and competed with other villages whos boat was fastest.
It was possible for the whole village to get into the boat at the same time for the trip to church.
The construction of these huge boats is pretty similar than the socalled viking boats, and probably they are their late descendants.
The boats smelled of tar, with which they were painted.
I sat inside the boat, enjoying the wonderful smell of the tar!
Mom, I would love to be rowing in a boat like this!
We saw still tens of different buildings, so that I think it was enough of finnish building history to last the rest of my life!
But just when they (the buildings) started to get out trough our ears Henna got the excellent idea to buy icecreams to everyone!
Sometimes she gets great ideas!
I wish you´ve had some icecreams too!
See you soon!
Your Poschti.
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Posted Jun 3, 2013, 5:41 pm Last edited Jun 3, 2013, 5:45 pm by Eohippus
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Suomenlinna , Finland - 13th June 2013
By: Eohippus
Hyvää iltaa, rakas äiti! (Good evening, dear mom!)
I´m happy to hear that you have not floated away with the floods!
We have been having warm and sunny days here in Finland -
much warmer and sunnier than in Southern Europe, which is rather odd!
On sunday we went to Suomenlinna fortificated island in front of Helsinki.
This is the little ferry with which we get there.
The ferries to Suomenlinna leave from Kauppatori, and on summer weekends they are usually full
of both finns and tourists.
The trip took only about ten minutes.
Here we are just arriving to the islands.
Here you can see the islands on a map.
Suomenlinna was built during the Swedish era as a maritime fortress.
Work on the fortress was begun in the mid-18th century.
Today SUomenlinna is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Suomenlinna is also a district of the city of Helsinki, with a permanent population of more than 800.
We went first to walk a bit in the living district, to see the houses and surroundings.
People live in old barracks and beautiful old villas, which were originally officers apartments.
The life on the islands is almost like living in some small country village.
Only the masses of tourists and finns who come to enjoy the beautiful landscapes (and vodka ) in summertime put the life here into an upheaval.
Almost everyone living here naturally has a boat. It´s like owning a car in other parts of Helsinki.
We also saw an old submarine.
It is built in Finland in the 1930´s and it is called Vesikko (=mink).
This is the church of Suomenlinna.
It also works as a lighthouse - the is a light on the top of it.
The church bell is not up in a belltower, but on the groundlevel.
I felt a strong urge to play it, but I realised there would be some angry people coming to make difficult questions if I did..
There is syringas growing everywhere on the islands - they were plamted here in the 18th century.
They were the first ever syringas growing in Finland, but they soon started to spread when the people who had come here to build the fortifications went back to their homes round the country and took little saplings with them.
We went to have some refresments before going to walk the rest of the islands.
Then, our bellies filled we walked to the area where the ruins of the old fortifications fight against the time and wall-peeing drunkards.
There is tunnels and cellars and dungeons, narrow staircases and rumours of ghosts of the unlucky people who were kept as prisoners in the humid, icecold caverns during the wars between Sweden and Russia, Krimean war and the finnish civil war.
One things I mostly enjoyed in Suomenlinna is the lack of cars.
I know it is a funny statement coming from the mouth of a small bus, but it was really great!
People living here use bikes or their feet.
Everything was blooming and wonderful and it was a bit difficult to connect the horrible history of the place Henna was telling us to the lovely landscapes around us..
We didn´t go much inside the murky buildings - the earthen floors inside were very muddy and there was icecold water dropping over us from the ceiling.
The open air is so much better!
There was small bridges connecting the islands.
We walked along the small roads and saw everywhere people having a picnic or playing petanque or flying a fresbee or something like that.
We came to the western shore of the island and there we saw some people flying kites on the roofs of the old gunpowder storages!
We all lay down on our backs to watch the kites on the sky.
Then we walked along and saw many more interesting paths and buildings and roofs of them..
we were climbing a lot, you see.
I think we saw much more than most tourists, because Henna and Zoe both have this odd syndrome which makes them to go straight ahead whenever they see signs or plakes saying "private" or "don´t enter" or "danger of falling" or other things like that.
The landscapes were so beautiful, mom!
Sun made the yellow flowers to glow and the sea to glisten!
I could see the Helsinki mainland in the horizon.
We were feeling again a bit peckish..
Luckily we had taken some provisions with us - small karjalanpiirakkas (carelian pastries), berry pies and juice!
We were eating and drinking and singing a finnish song called "Sua lähde kaunis katselen" (I´m watching you, oh beautiful fountain).
After the picnic lunch we had to sit down for awhile.
The tourists come here to see the fortress, but I guess many of them are more impressed by these views.
This is the little official swimming beach.
Henna told that when she was five year old girl she was swimming there and meanwhile a magpie stole her panties!
We started to walk back towards the ferry..
We saw some old cannons over the banks.
We saw still many more old fortification walls and things on our way back.
Then we found a small pool, growing yellow irises.
Soon we were again near the ferry platform and on our way back home.
It was a lovely day!
I hope you enjoyed it too!
Kisses fro your little adventurist!
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Posted Jun 13, 2013, 6:03 pm
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Sulking, and sulking more - 20th June 2013
By: Eohippus
This is an announcement to let you know that we´ll continue with our updates
as soon as Hennas new camera arrives.
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Posted Jun 20, 2013, 3:55 pm
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Temppeliaukion kirkko church, Helsinki - 14th July 2013
By: Eohippus
Hello, dear mom!
How are you?
Good news! Henna has got her new camera and I can write still couple of updates before moving to new landscapes!
First we just have to learn to use it!
So, the past couple of days we´ve been running around like crazies, and taken photos of everything, each other and the landscapes, different insects and whatnot.
Here we are walking in the forest surrounding our little cottage here.
Kukkuu!
There is yet no mushrooms, it has been too dry summer here, but the berries are ripe now!
We were picking lots of blueberries.
But I guess we were eating even more!
So the bucket was getting full very slowly!
Specially because the softness of the moss lured us to lay down on our backs,
and the heavy smell of forest flowers and the buzzing of the insects over the swamp started to make us feel kinda sleepy.
The treetops swaying sleepy too against the blue sky, and the light clouds sailing lazily across it didn´t help much either, and soon we were all in deep sleep.
Henna woke us up few hours later.
Meanwhile she had picked the bucket full of blueberries.
She said she let us sleep because we were so cute there, laying on the moss, snoring slightly and ants investigating over us.
We found also some wild forest strawberries!
They are small, but so delicious!
These flowers are in finnish called "Kurjenkello", which means the cranes bell.
Their latin name is Campanula persicifolia and in english they seem to be "harebell"!
Maybe both cranes and hares are playing them at nights..
Then we marched out from the forest, because we had to make a visit to Hennas mother.
Henna had promised the blueberries to her.
So we take the bus and the train to Helsinki.
I always like to watch the views!
The train was practically empty!.
Hennas mother was giving us cakes and thanking us for the berries.
What a nice lady she is!
You can see her chin in the photo.
Then we were "behaving", like we had been told, watching the views from the windows..
And keeping company for dolls living there.
They were very civilized dolls. They had to be - they had lace dresses and even parasols.
I bet their conversation was civilized too - teaparties, new dresses and gossip. Ugh!
After fifteen minutes of that we pressed Henna to save us from the dolls by threatening to tell her mother some interesting details we had been reading from her teenage diaries we had happened to find in the attic.
So we left and Henna took us to see a rather peculiar church, called Temppeliaukion kirkko.
It is also known as the Church of the Rock.
It is behind me in the pic. Or actually, that is the roof.
The roof dome looks a bit like an ufo landed on the rocks.
The interior is excavated and built directly out of solid rock and it is bathed in natural light which enters through the glazed dome.
I think it looks a bit ufo inside too.
But actually it is a really peacefull and silent place.
I like it.
Well, haha, silent when there is no hundred tourists nor a concert going on.
It is a very popular place for both.
I´ll end now this update, but I´ll be soon back!
A tight hug to you, mom!
Your Poschti
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Posted Jul 14, 2013, 9:57 am
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Helsinki, Finland - 24th July 2013
By: Eohippus
Hei taas, äiti! (Hi again, mom!)
How are you?
I´m still here in Finland, but I´ll start my journey to Germany on Friday.
We have been spending a lot of time outside, rummaging round the forests around us.
One day we made a long walking trip trough the nearby countryside.
We walked a long way trough fields and meadows.
Every now and then we saw a farmhouse somewhere behind the fields.
We saw also some cows and horses, but usually they were too far away for us to see them properly, but on one house they had these longhaired cows right on the yard.
"Hello, cow!" said I, "why do you have such a long hair?"
"Muu muu, little bus!" answered she, "maybe my hairdresser just happens to be on holidays!"
Do you think she was pulling my leg, mom?
There was a river making its slow way trough the fields too,
and since we seemed to be heading to the same direction, we decided to go on same foot.
She didn´t seem to mind the company either.
There was beautiful rantakukka/Lythrum salicaria/Purple loosestrife growing in many places on the shore.
In some places the river was running faster, and we had to run too, to keep the same speed.
Other times we wer much faster, and had to sit down to wait for our friend.
(Do you understand my ramblings, mom?
Henna doesn´t. She´s just rolling her eyes and saying there must be the full moon up soon, reading our writings.)
But there certainly wasn´t any full moon then, there was a full sun, and the river glimmered blue under it.
If moon (luna) makes people go lunatics, does the sun (helios) turn them into heliotics? Huh?
I bet it does! We were quite heliotics the whole gang! [/size]]
For example we simply HAD to cross the river many times by jumping from stone to stone or by running along pretty slippery tree trunks.
Blame the sun!
After falling in about twenty times Henna suggested that
it would be high time to turn our backs to the river, since we seemed to be
unable to stay over its surface.
So we headed to the road, and on the road
we met a little sisilisko/Zootoca vivipara/Viviparous lizard.
The poor thing had lost its tail!
You know, they can save their life by dropping their tail, if, say, a hungry crow attacks them. So they drop the tail for the crow to eat and go on, growing slowly a new tail.
Quite handy, but also very tiring. It takes a lot of energy to grow a new tail!
"Hi, little lizard!" said I, "what did scare you so much you had to drop your tail?"
"Well, mister Bus", answered she, "it was two evenings ago while I was peacefully eating flies, when suddenly a huge flying saucer landed next to me, and out came these naughty-looking, bulge-headed creatures who tried to pick me up and put me into their animals of earth -collection!"
Mom? What do you think of that?
Do you think they´d be interested into little postbusses too?
But we simply decided to wear aluminium folium hats in future, and took again a bus to Helsinki.
We went to spot sailing ships, since there was the Tall Ship Race going on.
There was lots of people!
We saw some quite small boats and some quite big ships too.
Most vessels were from around the Baltic Sea - there was many boats from Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Latvia, Russia and Estonia, but the boats which had come the longest way were from Saudi-Arabia, Mexico and Peru.
The weather had turned a bit cold, and were also feeling kinda peckish..
So we stopped to have some pancakes with jam and whipped cream.
Then we walked around watching more ships.
Some of them were quite colourfull.
I had a nice day and I wish you had too!
See you very soon again!
Your Poschti
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Posted Jul 24, 2013, 8:21 pm
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Linlo, Kirkkonummi, Finland - 26th July 2013
By: Eohippus
Hello, dear mom!
I´ll now tell you about my last days in Finland.
I told the others that before leaving Finland I would like to overnight in nature,
since here the possibilities to that are endless.
The others agreed noisily, and so we went onto a small island called Linlo in Kirkkonummi,
about 30 kilometers from Nuuksio.
We crossed over a small bridge to the island and started to follow duckboards and paths
in search of a perfect place to put up our tent.
While walking, we spotted many other small islands
in middle of the blue sea.
The paths led us across the island, trough dence hazelnut thickets.
On the western side of the island we came to a beautiful, rocky shore, and behind the rocks there was a perfect tenting spot - a sheltered, green valley.
There was some bronze age graves on one end of the valley.
Yes, I knew would ask! The stone heap we are sitting over is one of the graves..
In Finland the custom was to build a big heap of stones over the grave chamber, you see.
In the opposite end of the valley was growing lots of hallonberries, and we decided to rise our tent there.
Handy or what?
Here is our tent!
Doesn´t it look like a great place to sleep in?
(Henna of course didn´t fit in, but she said she would have chosen another spot to sleep anyway,
because "half of you snore and the other half kick". )
I´m afraid I belong to the first half.
Our next task was to build up fire and make coffee!
Here we are collecting firewood.
I was keeping an eye over the coffeepot while the others were
rummaging trough the bags in search of something to eat.
Then I poured the coffee for everyone, a bigger cup for Henna..
.. and smaller cups for us voyagers.
Henna made me to blush saying that someday I´ll make a good husband for some lucky little girl.
The others were giggling, of course..
We were having some gingerbread cookies.
I think it was a bit funny to eat them on a sunny seashore, because in my mind they belong to the Christmastime..
The next round was some buns.
And then we were having bagels.
And then we were fighting over the last one, but we shouldn´t have,
because we got totally entangled with it and each other and then we had to shout Henna to help us out,
and she only did it after tickling us!
And then we spent a wonderful day on the island, investigating every nook and corner of it!
Insides of the island we found a swamp area.
Henna had told us to avoid swamps because they can be dangerous places to go walking on,
and so we had to go there walking on to see if anything would happen. Nothing did, though.
But we found there some spotted orchidés.
This one is for you, mom!
And then we found the first mushrooms of this summer. Chantarellis!
We carried them back to our camp.
Then we went to the beach, where we were watching the beautiful stones
rounded by the sea, and collecting the most beautiful ones of them.
And then we were just hanging idly around, chatting this and that, which is a splendid way to spend time.
Then we picked hallonberries to eat later in the evening.
And when the evening came we sat round the fire
in our comfy sleeping backs, drank tea, ate hallonberries,
and told stories about all the places we had seen, and about our homes.
In the evening, before goin to sleep, we sat in our sleepingbacks round the fire
and talked about our experiences round the world and about our homes.
Zoe and Tuli taught us a finnish song which is sang when sitting round a fire.
"Meil on metsässä nuotipiiri
missä kuusten kuiske soi.
Kipunat kohti tähtiä kiirii
lähipuutkin punervoi.
Ja me muistamme sankariaikaa
sadun tenhon tunnemme, taikaa.
Ja kun laulumme yön yli kiirii
ja kun hongat huminoi.
We have an open fire in the forest
which is ringing by the whispers of the spruces.
The sparkles are reaching the stars
and making the nearby trees glow red.
We are remembering the past times of heroes
and feeling the enchantment of fairy tales
when our song is ringing trough the night,
when the fir trees are humming."
Then we roamed into our tent and slept soon with sounds of sea and wind and some odd nightbirds.
Good night to you too, mother!
Kisses from your Poschti!
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Posted Jul 26, 2013, 8:25 pm Last edited Jul 26, 2013, 8:53 pm by Eohippus
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Espoo, Finland - 30th July 2013
By: Eohippus
Hello, Poschtis mom!
How are you?
It is not Poschti who is writing, but Zoe I The Great,
the legendary kiwi bird who learned to fly,
the beautiful, the smart, the wonderf.. ok, ok, no need to hit me with more pillows!
Anyway, I´m writing this update instead of Poschti,
because he is not here anymore to write it himself, you see -
he left towards his new destination.
But he gave me strict orders what and how to write, ha haa!
So I´m not mentioning here some interesting details, like twelve kilos of liquorice, glue on the rim of a toiletpot nor a cute female tram!
So, we all gave him a tight hug and said farewell and all that -
he is a very nice little fellow for a vehicle, and I´m happy
he´s coming to spend more time with us in winter!
By the way, madam, if you´re his mother, are you some kinda vehicle too?
Nothing against vehicles, just asking..
I must say your son had difficulties in making up his mind
when it came to the way of travelling to Germany!
First he was thinking of stealing this lawnmover from Hennas this summers workplace, and we were all helping him to learn to use it
while Henna was planting flowerbeds.
It went very well and we all had great fun!
But then we all realised he couldn´t reach the brakes!
There went the lawnmover into the river.
(Don´t tell Henna if she asks something about its whereabouts!)
We hauled Poschti back upon the dry earth, and soon he found another means to travel,
and in my opinion much more stylish!
So, there he went, out from the window and onto the thin air with his bike, just like E.T!
Maybe they are related?
Only Poschti was singing the Starwars theme tune while he went, and he also shouted
"Send many kisses to my mom!"
And a hug from me too!
And Henna sends her greetings!
We wish to meet little Poschti soon again!
Zoe
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Posted Jul 30, 2013, 6:35 pm Last edited Jul 30, 2013, 6:45 pm by Eohippus
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