Birds of Finland

Watching the birds in the morning has become a routine to accompany coffee and e-mail.  This morning I remembered Mother lamenting not having a bird book when they were on the fjord cruise in Norway so I thought I'd better prepare for Finland.

BirdLife Suomi-Finland is a website with pictures and sound.  At first glance I see a lot of familiar birds (the waxwings have some beautiful pictures) and the call pops up with the photo.  I'll have to delve deeper for birds that are not common here.  Try it and let me know what you think.

Off The Beaten Path: Wash a carpet

Here's a blog entry I couldn't resist. 
"If possible try and wash your carpets like all the Finns do. There are places at the sea where this is possible, in Helsinki Kaivopuisto there is one of these places. You have to use environmental-friendly soap to wash them so that the sea doesn't get polluted. The carpets won't be polluted because water here is quite clean and there is only 0.5% salt in it here in Helsinki.

I think it's very unique to do it. Or does any other nation wash their carpets at the sea? It's fun! I did it! You should try it! "  this is a blog post by Sabsi on Virtual Tourist  She also has a page on Helsinki which she calls "probably my favourite place on earth."

My only question is "Do I have to pack my own carpet, or can I borrow one?"  I do have a Finnish carpet beater that Leena gave me once, but that's probably only for winter use.

Helsinki

I'm not doing too well here.  It's been over a week since my last post, so here goes.

Positioned on a rocky headland cradling the Baltic Sea, Helsinki was established by Sweden to catch up with Russia's expansion of its Baltic trade routes.  But it only really began to grow after the construction of Suomenlinna fortress off Helsinki's coast in 1748 which brough thousands of builders and soldiers and their families to the city.  Then in 1808 during the Russian occupation, the entire city was levelled by fire. 

Reconstruction began in 1817 - once Swedish FInland had become property of the Russian empire - and architech Carl Ludwig Engel and planner Johan Ehrenstrom based their city planning directly on St. Petersburg and he built a capital that was remarkably Hellenic in look.  They developed a grid of wide streets and Neoclassical, Empire-style brick buildings.  This grid forms the basis of the modern city and around Senate Square the planned grandeur is evident.  When Engel came to town, the city had a population of 4000; when he died, it had grown to hearly five times that. 

The square itself, overlooked by the gleaming Lutheran Cathedral is still the city's single most eye-catching feature.  A few blocks away, past the South Harbor and the waterside market square, is the handsome tree-lined avenue of the Esplanadi, with a narrow strip of greenery along the center.

Oh, I can see that this post really should have been about Finland's history of being batted about between Sweden and Russia, but I guess that will have to come next.

Planning for this summer's travels

Sunday, April 10, 2011

I'm back to my blog in an effort to remember at least some of the stuff I'm reading about Finland. Yep, Leena is taking me home for a visit to Finland with excursions to Estonia, St. Petersburg and ending up in Denmark for a week with Vibeke (Leena's going straight home). And, yep, I am retiring so this will be a longer vacation than ever. We'll see how I do.

See all those lakes? Finland has more lakes than any other country - 10% of the land mass and forest covers nearly 70% of the remainder.

And Finland is big, too ...just slightly smaller than Germany, but the population is 5.35 million (New York City has about 8 million) with a population density smaller than any other country in the EU at 17 people per square kilometer (nothing like Wyoming though with 5.4 per square mile)

And if you're doing your income this week end you'll want to know that the income tax rate is about 31.5 % and the VAT 22%. But, in exchange, you get free health care and other social services. Imagine that!

It's also the most ethnically homogeneous country of the EU and "according to a recent study, Finland is the least corrupt, most competitive and most democratic country in the world." Well, I'm reading Lucifer's Tears by James Thompson, a mystery novel set in Helsinki, and I don't think he read the part about curruption in that study.

Bargemusic

Susan, Leena and I had a great Sunday visting the Lower East Side, Brooklyn and a concert at Bargemusic with lunch and dinner included.  Sure is nice to have such a great visitor!