Porvoo - Weds, July 27

Today we walked through the nearby Brunnsparken on our way to the Kamppi bus station where we caught the bus to Porvoo, a medieval town about 30 miles from Helsinki. There were lots of pretty wooden building and interesting shops. And the weather continues very hot.

Helsinki Sunday

Sleepy Helsinki Sunday - visited Leena's family's grave and planted flowers, trammed to Arabia to look for bargains (almost non-existant in Finland) in Finnish design goods, and explored that area (original site of Helsinki, waterfalls, old manor house, allotment gardens, new housing and old factories).  We had a delicious buffet brunch at Dylan's, a restaurant we stumbled upon, with a wide variety of salads and fresh fruit.
Then we took a bus to Leena's Mother's

2011-07-24 Finland Countryside

Savonlinna Opera Festival, Visit with Hans and Ritva at the lakside cottage

Tallinn 2011-07-19

Tuesday we were up early and took a cruise ship to Tallinn, Estonia.  As Tallinn has suffered a lot of poverty since it was an important trading post in the Hanseatic League, the medieval city is very well preserved.  There was never money to tear down the old. 

We took a good tour with an excellent guide that Leena had booked through the Cruise Line, first by bus and then walking through the old center city. 

2011-07-20 Helsinki

We took the ferry to Suomenlinna fortification on an island in Helsinki harbor.  Had a good tour with a guide and learned the history of the fort - first Swedish, then Russina, and only in 1917 when Finland gained its independence did it become a Finnish fortification.  Then island is also used for recreation - swimming, biking, picnicking, and is it an artists' colony.

Then we met Laina's friends Lille and Katri and their daughter Venni for dinner at a very pleasant restaurant (Cafe Piritta) on Elaintarha Bay.  They are charming and Venni (just one year old) is an absolute delight.

Sunday in Helsinki

I really do not think it's fair that the headings I see when I go to my blog are in Finnish.  There was momentary panic before I figured out how to sign in.  Sunday in Helsinki is quiet.  And it's not only Sunday, but July.  Finns are entitled by law to 4 weeks of vacation in the summer.  As you can imagine that makes it hard to run a business so many of them are totally closed for the month of July.  Of course, we don't really have enough money to eat in fancy restaurants and shop in fancy places so the closings haven't been much of a problem at all.

Today we figured out the bus and trolly routes we needed to get us first to a flea market and then to the Helsinki Worker Housing Museum.  The above ground transit routes are in disarray due to construction so it's been a bit of a challenge for Leena, but I'm happy to see all of the city.  The Museum has restored one-room housing units which tell the story of everyday life for worker families from the turn of the 20th century.  The one-room apartments, so called stove rooms, have been furnished and decorated as homes of people that lived in the house in different times.  It is fascinating to see how people lived in different places and times.  We had a wonderful young student for a private English guide, and Leena even improved his English, although the same can't be said for my Finnish.

Then Leena got a cell phone call from her brother Jurki and we met him for a lunch of tiny, little fried fish and mashed potatoes.  There was some arugala for color (and that's about as close to a vegetable as you're going to get, it seems). 

Then we took a taxi to the Garden Allotment Museum located in the gardens.  When the Finnish government decreed a 40 hour work week in the 1920's, they wanted to make sure the leisure was used well, so the city set aside room for garden allotments.  And they are still being used.  People build little shed/house which they own and rent the land from the city.  The gardens were beautiful, and we really enjoyed the raspberries we swiped.

Then more trams/buses to the Sibelius Monument where we joined lots of tour groups to admire the sculpture

And then after a light dinner we walked to the Helsinki Cathedral for a free organ concert at 8 pm, and then strolled that area until after 10.  At that point, if you concentrated, you could think that maybe it was twilight.  When we went to sleep at 11 or so, it was still light.  I think the street lights came on about midnight.  Ah, these long summer days!

Arrived in Helsinki

This is the first day of my summer 2011 Nordic adventure.  I cashed in some frequent flyer miles way back in January and booked flights to Helsinki via Frankfurt and back with a stopover in Denmark on the way home.  The Lufthansa flight was fine.  Changing planes in Frankfurt was an adventure with miles and miles of tube-like corridors to walk.  Some of the workers there had bicycles.  

Leena met me at the Helsinki Airport.  She'd taken a direct flight, gotten there earlier and spent a bit of time with her Mother before coming back to pick me up.  We took a cab to her friend Lysse's place - and what a wonderful house. 

She has the top floor in a late 19th century Victorian mansion in the Kaivopuisto area, home to

lots of embassies.  We are next door to the Estonian Embassy and down the street from the U.S. one.  The Russian one a few blocks away has a looming Classical presence and was built with Finnish war reparation money to Russia after WWII.  Leena wouldn't let me pictures of embassies..

Afraid of falling asleep we got started our explorations immediately of the city.  The sea is a block or so away and surrounds the city on three sides.

We walked along the water up to Market Square, stopped at the Old Market and browsed the interior market as well as the open air stands selling vegetables, crafts, furs, prepared food and tourist stuff.  And then we had to do lots of window shopping on the Esplanade - admiring all sorts of Finnish design goods.

It was such a beautiful day I got a sun burn and the outdoor cafes were full of Finns (and others) soaking in the sun.  Helsinki is a very clean and very green place, with lots of parks and statues.

After replenishing Leena's tansport pass we caught a tram at the Central Station to Leena's Moms to say Hi and pick up a forgotten phone charger. 

Then back to our wonderful accomodations with a stop at the grocery story for provisions. 

Retirement Party

Now my retirement is almost totally official (won't be final until the first pension check is deposited).  The library and party planners par excellence Karen, Alice and Ann put together a wonderful brunch last Sunday (July 10) to celebrate my retirement (and Nancy Fezell's too - we went out together).

It was great to see friends, old and new - there were people who represented all 35 years of my employment at the library.  We got plaques and lovely gifts and everyone had a good time.

Jewish Museum and the Upper East Side (UES) in the 90's

The Cone sisters were two independently wealthy women from Baltimore who, at the turn of the last century,  liked to shop for art and to travel.  Friends of Leo and Gertrude Stein, they visited Paris frequently and amassed a nice collection of Impressionist art which was left to the Baltimore Art Museum. The Jewish Museum has borrowed some of these and supplemented them with a lot of historical material about those two Jewish collectors.  You can read more on the Jewish Museum site.

Nancy and I drove into NYC, found a cheap garage and walked to the museum which is in the French Gothic Chateau style Warburg mansion on Fifth Avenue.  It is quite impressive.  Needless to say one is not allowed to take photographs in the museum so I don't have any of all the Matisse and other artists works.  The exhibit was great and the emphasis on the sisters and collecting during that time made a great human interest story. 
We also saw the Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World) show which was whimsical and entertaining.

We finished off with lunch at Square Meal - lovely salads (grilled rosemary shrimp and Maryland crab cakes), wonderful muffins with homemade raspberry jam - at a price commensurate with the neighborhood but more than we would normally pay.  Very good, though, and Nancy says we can afford almost everything.

Sleeping Beauty at the Metropolitan Opera

Wednesday matinee...a million little girls, some mother and a lot of older ladies joined me at the Metropolitan Opera for Sleeping Beauty.  And it was magical, just like a fairy tale, lots of glittery costumes, handsome leaping princes and twirling ballerinas.

And before the performance I had a lovely lunch at the David Rubenstein Atrium where there is free wi-fi, great sandwich service, and a living plant wall. 

New York City Fire Museum

I checked out "New York's Unique and Unexpected Places" by Judith and Alexandra Stonehill, and it's amazing how many of them Leena and I have visited.  But we hadn't been to the New York City Fire Museum.  It's listed in the Greenwich Village & Chelsea section, but it's really SoHo, 178 Spring Street - almost to the Hudson River in a neighborhood that I'm sure once was pretty rough, but it now on the fringes of uber-gentrification.

There were fire engines of every description, hand pulled, horse pulled, motor driven, as well as all sort of memorability like badges, hats, punch sets, and touching tributes to fire dogs (one stuffed) and fire horses (did you know the first fire dept ambulance was for the horses?).  And because the NYC firemen firgured so significantly providing emergency services during the 9/11 terrorist attack, there is a room set aside to commemorate their heroism and memorialize the 343 firemen who died.

The Garden State

You know New Jersey is the Garden State, didn't you?  Mary called to see if we wanted to pick blueberries.  It's the beginning of the blueberry season and a number of farms offer you-pick.  Check out Jersey Fresh and figure out where you went.  Mary chose Hillview Farm near Morristown because it's between them and us, and it was fine - good blueberries, corn and pies - although it also had a lot of don't - don't park here, don't picnic, don't look at the chickens.

We picked.  It was a beautiful, hot, clear day.  After working up a sweat we gave the farm store a little business and had a picnic.  We weren't told no picnics until we were just about finished.

The farm is very near the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge so we went to see some wildlife.  Most of it was taking a nap in the heat of the day but we did see frogs, turtles, various birds and dragonflies as we walked the trains and the boardwalk over the swampy bits.