June 25 (Monday) - Kokkola
One of the highlights for the rest of our stay in Helsinki was visiting the
Arabia
porcelain factory, which maintains a gallery with their porcelain work from
the last two centuries, some of which was just exquisite. We also went to
see Temppeliaukion Kirkko, or the Church in the Rock as it's known in English.
This is a church that was indeed built in the rock in the late 1960's, quarried in the
middle of the city. The roof of the church is an immense copper dome, and the
rough-hewn walls are wet in places, where the water seeps in. It's an amazing
place.
The other highlight was going to
Tallinn, Estonia. We just had half a day there, and I think we'd both
love to go back and spend more time in Estonia. We took the one-hour boat
trip from Helsinki, which comes into the harbor in Tallinn a short walk away from
the old town. The old town still has remnants of the medieval wall and many of
the buildings are from the 16 - 18th centuries. A lot of renovation work is being
done right now to preserve these buildings.
American dollars were eagerly accepted in Tallinn, and Mom and I both got
fantastic bargains on wool sweaters and other items. I'm trying to think of how to
explain why we both loved Tallinn so much - maybe it was the sense of optimism
that I perceived from the people there, the embracing of new technologies (cell
phones and Internet cafes are not hard to find) while also preserving their old
heritage, and also just the knowledge that Estonia is not top on the list of European
destinations for Americans, so we felt like we were getting a little bit off the
beaten track.
We took the train from Helsinki up to
Kokkola to visit our cousins. It's about a 5 hour train trip; Kokkola is on
the west coast of Finland, about a third of the way up the Gulf of Bothnia. Our cousins
are as gracious, friendly and hospitable as I had remembered them.
On Midsummer Eve we went out to Britta's summer cottage in the evening and
toasted the summer in with coffee, cognac and sweet rolls. The clouds won out
for the most part, so there was not much to see of the midnight sunset (sunrise
just a few hours later - and it never gets completely dark even when the sun isn't
up; more like a few hours of dusk). But the view from her cottage, out in the archipelago
was still spectacular.
On Sunday we were invited out to Jan and Åsa's cottage ( Åsa
is Britta's daughter), which lies farther out in the archipelago. The weather had finally
turned warm and sunny and we had a fantastic day. Lunch, then a motor boat trip
out to one of the last islands in the archipelago, which is used during the summer
as a fishing village. We brought wine with us and sat out on the rocks overlooking
the Gulf of Bothnia, enjoying the sun. The gulf, while being a saltwater
body connected to the Atlantic, does not have any tides. Instead the water rises
and lowers periodically in response to the prevailing winds. Also, the amount of
salt in the water is much less, due to all the fresh water streams and rivers
running in to it, and the distance from the ocean. In the winter, the sea
freezes all the way across to Sweden, with single shipping lanes being kept open
by ice breakers. Hence the ability of Swedes in former times to migrate over to
Finland.
Britta doesn't speak any English, just Swedish and Finnish, but we've been
trying to convince her to travel to the US with her granddaughter Jenny, who is
already quite fluent in English. So we're hoping the next time we meet it will be
in Seattle and we'll be able to return this wonderful hospitality which she has
offered us.
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Old town wall in Tallinn
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