Finland, Part 3

Will try to get some photos of Anna and I up asap.

We went to Helsinki last Friday, including the malls, the subway, the arts centre, the government buildings (ancient Greek looking), the cathedral and Vantaa. Vantaa is the district of Helsinki where most films depicting Russia are filmed due to the inheirent dangers of actually filming in Russia.

On the weekend we had church and all the much extended socialising that surrounds it, including the visit of a Finnish friend of Anna's from studying in Russia. Quite a contrast from Finland it seems. On Monday we dropped Anna's brother Kalle off in Tampere. The rest of the week was made up of getting my berrings of Huittenin by exploration, watching movies and the olympics and accepting the invites of the many dinner outings made at church.

Yesterday, was the end of year like -last day of school in Finland. This as I found out involved many leavers dressed up as things such as Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Fairies, Princesses and the ever so witty nazi ss soldier, getting driven through the town in large flat deck trucks making as much noise as possible and throwing lollies at everyone they see. Sort of similar to the kinda thing You might find happening on the strip at 12.00 Friday night.

Last night Anna and I went to Pori, a small city on th Finnish coast. Not really too much to report on it other than really big (as in 10 rugby fields big) copper factories, a beautiful river running through the city and a WW2 era 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun sitting on top of one of the buildings in the central city. Nobody really seemed to know why.

A map of Finland. Huittenin (where I'm staying with Anna) is about 3/4 of the way from Helsinki to Pori.



Finland on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland, the Runeberg cake at the bottom of the article was enjoyed by both me and Anna, on the 5th Feb, Runebergs day.

Over and out

J