Good Old Finland

Midnight sun

I know I said that we were finished with our blog posting, but this post is dedicated to Papa Martti, arguably our most dedicated blog reader. For those of you, that haven’t had the pleasure of an introduction, Papa Martti is Juho’s grandfather ( on his father’s side), and gets the prize for most dedicated blog fan, because not only did he  painstakingly  translated each post from English to Finnish, but he even went to a computer class to learn how to do this.

We arrived in Finland, refreshed and revitalized after 2 weeks bumming around the Mediterranean in Turkey. Anni, Juho’s sister, picked us up from the airport and we spent our first Finnish summer day playing mini golf in the sun. In Finland the days stretch on forever, they are at their shortest in the south, but still it never gets completely dark, the summer sun merely fades into twilight.

Our new home

After a night of delicious food and fine whisky, we headed north towards our new home of Turku. Juho’s beautiful mum, Paula met us at the bus station, a touching reunion, having not seen each other for 2 years. We went straight to our new apartment, which by the way is absolutely gorgeous, light, spacious and right in the heart of Turku. My favorite feature would have to be the grandfather clock, built by Juho’s other grandfather, Valter Papa.

We spent a week enjoying our new city, and the novelty of having a real home, before heading north to Raahe, Juho’s hometown.  Watching the Finnish countryside go by, I was struck by how delightfully beautiful Finland is in summertime. It appears like something out of a storybook, all green fields, dotted with wildflowers, and wooden cottages nestled in between thick forests.

In Raahe, live Juho’s father, Perrti, who lived up to Juho’s description as a “very reasonable man”, and Juho’s youngest sister Eeva, or Pikku Myy, as she is affectionately called ( Moomins anyone?)

As a lower southern hemisphere dweller, I was completely disorientated by the fact that it NEVER gets dark here! As in, it is SUNNY at nighttime!!!!!!! Around midnight there is some pink in the sky as the sun “sets”, but it is still completely bright, the sun then “rises” ( like some naughty child who never goes to sleep) at around 2am. It is the strangest thing. On the Friday eve of the infamous Raahe festival, Juho, his mates and I, cycled into town around midnight to check out the festivities.

We jumped in his friend’s boat and headed out to some islands, the sun  was either setting or rising by this time, casting a pink glow across the water. In Finland there are these magnificent archipelagos, some have summer cottages on them, and some simply a lighthouse. We chose to explore the furthest one, which had a lighthouse and a wooden hut, complete with fireplace. Anybody can come here, you can sleep the night, and in Winter time you can ski here over the frozen ocean!

Juho of Turku

Juho had planned our arrival in Finland to coincide with Midsummer, the biggest yearly event in Finland. Midsummer or summer solstice (winter solstice downunder) is the time when friends and family head to summer cottages to eat, drink and sauna. Have I mentioned how crazy the Finns are about Saunas? Every house, many apartments and all summer cottages MUST have a sauna.  There are public saunas at the beach, saunas in workplaces, restaurant saunas, saunas at the bank ( nah just kidding about the last two!) During parties, people sauna all night, in and out of the sauna, and did I mention that all of this is done NAKED? To be fair, at parties there are usually woman and men saunas, or sauna times. During midsummer the Finns take this sauna activity to a new level, and beat each other with branches (what the?!) I got off with a light midsummer tapping with the branches, but Juho’s back was covered in lashes.  

So here we are in Finland, Juho working crazy hours down some gold mine-He worked 7 days this week, 12 hour days, except Sunday when he went to work at 6:30 am and came home at 5:30 am the next day!!!! Madness I tell you! I on the other hand have been spending my days dabbling in some Finnish study (my Finnish is still woeful, but I can read and understand a bit-the next step will be actual words out of my mouth). I start Summer school soon, and then my Masters, which is all quite exciting and terrifying, but I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to study within the best education system in the world, for free! Most importantly I feel very blessed to finally see where Juho comes from, meet his family ( all as lovely as he), and have some insight into what it means to be a Finn.

Good old Noo Noo

Races with Juho's cousins