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.
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