Too much oxygen?

While we were in Häkkilä, Tommi got to drive the tractor of one of Sari's brothers and I guess, he really liked it because the next day he wanted one himself. Sari and I were a bit surprised and asked him for what he would need it in Tervalampi since they don't have potatoe fields or anything else of that kind. But Tommi explained that he could do the snow work with it and get the wood for the fire places. Well, they already have a machine for the snow work which is kind of a snow blower and they usually get their wood ready made in little pieces which can be transported in a trailer. However, Sari had a good explanation for Tommi's idea: There is too much oxygen in Häkkilä's air and that makes him get funny ideas. I agree and think he should go back to his little office at Nokia and Siemens networks as soon as possible! :-P However, Tommi could not be persuaded to not have a tractor and that's why he bought one while we were in Central Finland. I'm sure Tommi would love to drive the tractor home to Tervalampi himself which would mean a 10-hour ride.
And I end with something Sari always tends to say: The older the boys, the more expensive the toys! How true!

Rules?

If you go to sauna in Germany, you tend to follow a lot of rules. (Germans have rules and regulations for everything.)
So, in Germany you can stay in the sauna room for 15 minutes (when it's 90 degrees Celsius hot). After that you have to take a break, preferably for about half an hour. Then you can go in for another 15 minutes. After that you should have a break of about an hour. Lots of people actually take a nap. You may go in for another 15 minutes then. However, you should never go more than 4 times even with long breaks. It's supposedly is bad for your health if you break the rules.
Well, tell that a Finnish person and he or she will think you are crazy! Finns go into the sauna for as long as they want. They'll stay in for up to 30 minutes in one go, have a 5 minute break and go back in. The guys even stay longer and repeat it much more often. And the Finns are still alive and are probably healthier than the Germans who go to sauna.
And this is definitely a stereotype about Finns that is true: They go to sauna a lot!!! Whenever they are with their extended families or with their friends, they go to sauna with a beer in their hand; it is a part of their parties. When we are home, we don't go every day, but at least twice a week. And kids start going when they are only half a year old.
Sari told me a very funny story about her friend in Great Britain. She and her husband tried to have a child, but she couldn't get pregnant. And when her husband went to a doctor, he said that he couldn't reproduce because he goes to sauna regularly. Well, now I seriously wonder how Finns are able to reproduce!? Do they have especially robust semen that doesn't get cooked? *lol*

The Island

Once again we went to the little island in Central Finland and this time we spent a whole week there. But this time I was prepared to fight the boredom: I took my laptop, my external harddrive, my computer game, all three Lord of the Rings-DVD's, three books, my mp3-player, and I knew that I could use the wireless of Sari's brother.

Since last time I didn't sleep so well because I was sleeping in the same room with the boys and I tend to wake up at the smallest noise, I decided to sleep in the little hut (which had a sauna on its side). The hut was about 300 m away from the main house, right by the lake, didn't have any electricity or water, and was located in a forest. Thank God it doesn't get dark at night in Finland because I would have been scared to death to go there alone at night. However, it was quite and I slept like a baby. Every morning I woke up I expected to see a bear or elk in front of my door, but I was disappointed. And apart from a million of mosquitoes, birds, a few swans and a duck with its ducklings, I didn't see any other wild animals. Tommi and Sari made sure that there was always a fire burning in the little stove, so that I wouldn't freeze to death. I even learned how to start a fire myself; I'm sooo gonna turn into a country girl! *lol* And the little hut inspired me to my latest short story which sooner or later can be read on my Facebook or on www.blankpaper.de.

The main reason we went to Central Finland was to celebrate Midsummer (Juhannus) there. Unfortunately, it was fairly cold (12 degrees Celsius) and raining that night. However, it did not stop my Finnish family to celebrate it the very typical way: You start drinking at about noon, collect birch tree branches to hit yourself with in the saune, go to sauna in the afternoon, have sausages from the bbq, sit by the lake (in pouring rain), watch the bonfire (although ours was more like a bonsmoke *lol*), and get eaten by mosquitoes. I am not a big fan of insects in general, but the mosquitoes in Häkkilä were a nightmare. Normal (German) mosquitoes get scared when you move around and will fly away and they would only bite you in hair-free places. But the Finnish mosquitoes don't care: First of all, they are huge and they will attack you from behind in thousands while you are walking and bite you into your head and will not move until you either kill them by crushing or until you pull them off your head. I am soooo glad that the house in Tervalampi is not right by a lake! :-) My host mom would love to have her house at a lake, but the properties are much more expensive if they are.

Here are some conclusions I made after the first 3 days in Häkkilä: You now when you are in Finland when people go home by boat, when they go up north for their summer holidays instead of down south, and they always find a spot to grill their beloved sausages (Sari told me that the sausage is the Finn's most favorite vegetable!).

And while trying to get rid of of the smoky bonfire the next day, the men found snow in the torf-like earth they had on there. So, we had a snow ball fight in June! :-)

On the fourth day, the sun finally decided to come out. So, we did a short hiking trip up to a mountain close by a summer cottage of on of Sari's brothers. Sari's family is quite big and most of her borthers and nephews and nieces came with us. But back at the summer cottage I found out that it did not have a normal water toilet, but only an outhouse. And you can call me spoiled, but I don't like those at all!!! Well, but if you have to go, you go. And I was surprised to find out that it was very new and shiny. The summer cottage wasn't old and although most cottage could have running water, lots of people don't even want it because they want their summer cottage to be different than their normal houses and that means no hot showers in the morning. I can't really understand that though: I'm addicted to my hot shower in the morning! :-P

In Central Finland I also discovered a new fun sport: kajaking. I always thought it would be very hard to handle and I would have to struggle with my balance all the time. But it is very stable and I didn't turn over once. On the first trip Tommi followed me in the rowing boat to make sure that I don't drown. But I prefer being on my own, listening to my mp3-player and enjoying the water around me.

Since nearly all Sari's relatives live by the lake, Tommi and I went by boat to pick up Sari's sister-in-law for sauna (Yes, we went to sauna every day!). My conclusion: The orange life vest makes me look fat and does not go with my current hair color!

I always knew that I liked boat rides, but last week I also found out that I like motorcycle rides. One of Sari's nehews has one of those really fancy and really fast motorcycles and he took me for a ride. It was amazing and I think I have to consider getting a motorcycle licence as well or at least a boyfriend who has a motorcycle! :-P
The next ride I took was on horseback. I haven't been for ages and when I heard that one of Sari's nieces has horses, I wanted to go immediately. It was great to ride again and Sandra (the horse I was riding) was so calm and didn't mind cars, rocks or the noises of birds (all things which scared the horses I used to ride to death). We also went to a lake, so that the horses could cool their feet. I sooo wanna get back to do horseback riding regularly again!

One more ride to go: a boat ride in a fast boat. One of Sari's brothers has a boat with a really strong engine and he took me for a trip on the lake (which, by the way, is huge). It was a lot of fun! (On the map you can see all the bays of the lake. The A stands for the village of Häkkilä, but not for the island we were on.)

As a souvenir from Finland I bought myself a necklace: a triangular shaped piece of an elk hoof.

During the week I also managed to watch all three parts of the Lord of the Rings. I've never watched it before because I'm not a huge fan of very long movies, let alone three very long movies. But I have to admit that it is very good and very interesting once you get into it! :-)

The last days of our stay in Häkkilä is was so hot that I managed to get a sunburn and we got to swim in the lake.

Since I don't have so much experience in driving for long times, I drove about 200 km on our way back. The VW Golf of Sari is really nice and it's quite a lot of fun to drive it! And I figured out that going in a car is much less boring if you drive yourself! :-)

The last few lines of this blog I wanna dedicate to my current hair color: I come to Finland with light/white blond hair and planned on not coloring it before I got home. But my roots were starting to show really bad and it looked quite ghastly. So, Sari and I looked for a strawberry blonde hair color without ammonia (my hair is enough damaged as it is). Well, there is definitely some kind of red in that dirty blonde of my hair color, but it's not how I expected it! :-/ However, I'll now keep it like that until I get back to Germany.

And I end with a picture of the church of Saarijärvi which has the same color-combination as most of the houses in Finland.

A Week full of Animals

Last week was the first week where I had the boys all week. And apart from some fights between them about the Playstation, it went quite well.
However, on Wednesday Arttu came indoors and was crying. I ran to him and his sweatshirt was bloody and his finger was bleeding. He always said "Pesonen" which is the name of the cat and I figured that the cat had bitten him. But while I cleaned the wound and put a bandaid on his finger, he explained that Pesonen had caught a mouse and when he stepped closer, the mouse bit him. I was quite surprised because I've never heard of wild mouse attacking little boys. And I was even more surprised when Arttu pulled me outside and I saw Pesonen and a huge mouse sitting side by side. I don't know if Personnen had hurt the mouse, but it was only moving very slowly and didn't run away.

The next animals we encountered this week were lice. Arttu had a friend over and her mother just called to tell us that her little brother has lice. And when Sari checked Arttu's head, he already had eggs in his hair. So, Tommi got all of us a nice bottle of lice-shampoo and now my hair smells like medicine! :-/ (If you know start itching all over, I can tell you that this is totally normal. I starting having an itchy head the moment I saw the egg on Arttu's head. So, don't worry: it's just your imagination! :-P)

For Kathleen

Kathleen, my friend from university, always used to make those little paper boats and I never paid attention to it because I can never remember how to fold things like that correctly. But now I’m alone with the boys all day and have to keep them busy somehow. When the weather is nice, it’s easy: they like to be outside, ride their bikes, jump on the trampoline, play Finnish baseball, basketball…. But right now it’s cold, windy and rainy. So, I had to get creative and look up a website that showed me how to fold those little paper boats. The boys loved it and Valterri was busy for about an hour to paint the one he had made. I also painted mine: in a really girly way! :-P

Aura

I’ve never been a huge fan of cheese. But I would also never turn down a good kind of blue cheese. But here in Finland, you can get Aura. This cheese is the devil. When the boys are having it, they turn into greedy animals and each of them has to have the biggest piece. (And kids at their age usually don’t even eat a spicy kind of cheese like that.) It went so far that I now regulate their blue cheese intake: each of them is allowed to have one slice of bread with it. And I’m hiding it in the fridge behind the beer. I can’t describe the taste of it, but it’s simply super delicious! I’m already addicted and eat it secretly when the boys are playing upstairs or when they are in bed! :-P I had it only a minute ago and would like to have it again…just the thought of it makes me hungry again…I’m gonna turn into an animal as well…hrrrrrrr!!!

The Cell Phone Country

Finland is a cell phone country. Everybody has one, even small kids at the age of 5. Nearly nobody has a landline anymore. They are even taken down because they are too much work to maintain for the companies.
And of course, EVERYBODY has a Nokia. I think they would expel me from Finland if I didn't have one!

Tervalampi

Tervalampi is the village I'm living in. To get a little money for the local school, my host mom organized a shirt sale which promotes this little village. So, here's a picture of the my host family and they are all wearing their Tervalampi sweaters.

The Silence of the Nature

I spent my last weekend in a village called Häkkilä. And believe me: this is in the middle of nowhere!!! To be more exact: it is in Central Finland. The next town called Saarijärvi (with about 10,000 inhabitants) is 25 km away and there is no grocery store which is any closer. So, you check twice if you have everything on your shopping list before you get back on the long gravel road to your house.
Well, but let me start by giving you a few maps so that you can see where everything is. I live in Tervalampi which is only 40 km away from Helsinki (Map 1). Saarijärvi is 350 km north of Tervalampi and you need 4,5 hours to drive there because of a lack of high ways; not because of the traffic because there is none (Map 2). And the house where Sari, my host mom, grew up in is on a little island called Kurjensaari (saari = island) which is connected to the main land by a bridge (Map 3). The red dot shows you where the house is. The island has, believe it or not, 12 permanent residents (5 of them belong to Sari's family). The other houses are only used as summer cottages.

My host family wanted to leave Tervalampi at 5 pm on Friday. But so far they have never made it on time anywhere. So, I predicted that we would leave at 6 pm and I think I’m a psychic because we did. After a long time on normal concrete roads and the temperatures getting colder all the time, we finally turned onto a gravel road and I figured it couldn’t be long now. On this gravel road we didn’t meet one other car although we stayed on it for about 20 km. When I had already given up hope that we’ll ever arrive, we finally turned onto an either smaller gravel road which was in worse condition. We drove a few meters through the forest and over the bridge and then we stopped at a little yellow house directly by the shore. By the time we arrived at the lake, it was midnight, 2 degrees Celsius (in summer!) and it wasn’t dark at all. (The last picture in this set was really taken at midnight, I swear!)

At least the next day it was up to 6 degrees Celsius and we went to the graduation party of Sari’s niece. They again had sandwich cakes (delicious!) and 7 types of cakes. And none of the clothes I wore (except my underwear, of course) were mine! *lol* I haven't brought any nice clothes to Finland with me. But luckily my host mom nearly has my size! :-) In the evening I took a little walk around the island. Then we relaxed in the sauna (In Finland, women and men go to the sauna separately. In Germany, I always went to the mixed sauna and didn’t mind at all.) While the sun was going down, we roasted sausages over the fire in the dressing room of the sauna, drank alcoholic drinks (The Finnish way of drinking is straight out of the bottle. Who needs glasses anyway?), listened to accordion music and I took about a hundred pictures of the sunset. But it’s definitely one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve ever seen!

On Sunday, we wanted to leave the island at 1 pm and I predicted we would leave at 2 pm. And of course, we did! So, back in the car for 5 hours and I always had at least one of the boys and sometimes even both of them lying on me. But as long as they are sleeping, they are not arguing with each other, so it had its upside! :-P

So, how did I like Häkkilä? It was ok. If it had been warmer and I could have spent time at the beach, I would have probably liked it more. But I asked myself one question while I was there: Can it be too quiet? And my answer is: YES! In Kassel (my university town) I lived in a building close to a tram line, a 4-lane street and regular helicopter traffic to a hospital, so I’m used to lots of noise around me. But on the island I could only hear birds, the occasional lawn mower, and the meowing of a cat. That’s why on the way back I had to turn the volume of my mp3-player up to an almost painful level to surround myself with noise again and to make myself feel normal again! :-P I might go to Häkkila again for midsummer, but this time I’ll take my laptop with me and use the internet of Sari’s brother (who only lives 200 m away) at least every over day. I simply can’t live with my favorite electrical device!!! Maybe I should give my laptop a name. How about Michael? Hmm…