Soumenlina and Sweden pictures

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I am sorry that it has taken me so long to do a post about Sweden, but it was a lot of class time and very little sight seeing. We had about 3 hours to sight see the entire 3 day trip! These are the few pictures that I took while in Uppsala. We did visit Carolus Linnaeus' grave in the Gothic Church. Carolus Linnaeus is credited with coming up with 80% of the Latin names for plants and animals. He also attended Uppsala University as part of his studies. You can read more on Linnaeus here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Linnaeus

Yesterday Randall and I decided to go back to Soumenlina (the island fortress off the coast of Helsinki) to see what it looked like without all of the snow. It was very pretty with the green grass and flowers blooming. We packed a picnic lunch and ate on some of the rocks overlooking the ocean. We also walked around and looked at the fortress walls and some of the buildings. We had a really good time just relaxing and enjoying the sun and warmth. We actually got enough sun to turn our arms and faces pink!

It seems like spring has arrived in Helsinki in the last 4 days! The temperatures have been in the upper sixties to mid seventies since Thursday. The forecast is calling for the trend to continue through next week. The days have been sunny and long; we have just over 17 hours of sunlight now! The sun rises at 4:40 am and sets around 10:00 pm. This allows us to enjoy evening walks in the sunlight at 8pm most days.

We are beginning to prepare for our departure from Finland. It has been fun and exciting, but we are ready to get back to North Carolina and see everyone. This will most likely be my last post unless something exciting happens within the next 9 days!

Russia

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We had a good time in Russia. We did not run into any issues crossing the border or while staying in St. Petersburg. According to our guide St. Petersburg only has 60 sunny days per year! We were fortunate enough to be there on two of those days! St. Petersburg is called the Venice of the North because it has 47 different islands that make up the city. Unlike Venice the city structure is in a block style setup making navigation much easier. They also have roads where as Venice has sidewalks. The only issue we had was the tap water. The water is not safe for drinking due to bacteria; it also comes out of the tap yellow. We did not use it for anything other than washing. We used bottled water for brushing our teeth and drinking.

The first night we were in St. Petersburg we went out for a traditional Russian dinner. The dinner was 6 courses with entertainment! We had a salad, two soups, a meat dish with potatoes, dessert and coffee. All of the food except the salad was good. They also had a group that sang some Russian songs and led us through some games. I was in one where two people dance standing over a 3 foot rope until the music stops. Once the music stops playing both people reach for the rope. The first person to grab the rope wins; I actually managed to win that one! Randall was in one where two people face each other and try to grab a chicken hat off the other person. He won in less than 30 seconds, which was the quickest anyone had done in our group! We did not take the camera that night and I have not gotten any pictures from some of the people I knew with us.

Throughout the rest of the trip we viewed a lot of really expensive buildings; many of them being palaces and cathedrals. The first Palace we visited was Catherine the Great’s Palace. All of the rooms in that palace had detailing with gold leaf or foil except for the amber room. We do not have any pictures of this room because they would not allow us to take any. It was not as spectacular as they made it sound so you will not be missing much by not seeing the pictures. The outside of the palace used to have gold accents but they were damaged and/or painted over with yellow over the years. They are in the process of replacing the yellow paint with gold, but they will not be finished for two years! So, imagine all of the yellow being gold and you will get an idea of how nice the palace was years ago and will be again.

Many of the cathedrals we saw also had a lot of gold foiling/leafing or gilding done inside and out. There was one cathedral that is still functioning as a church that was not made using gold on the outside; it was made of limestone instead. When it was made the limestone glistened in the sunshine making it one of the most unique cathedrals in St. Petersburg. Now it has lost its luster, but it is still unique.

We also had the opportunity to see a Russian ballet in one of their oldest theaters. The ballet was really good and impressive. We have not been to a ballet before and did not know what to expect. The theme of the ballet was Sleeping Beauty. I had to give Randall the summary of the movie before hand as he had never seen the Disney cartoon version or read the book. The ballet was very close to the Disney movie so I was able to follow along. The ending was different as they had several scenes from other Russian fairytales depicted. We do not have any pictures because we thought it would be forbidden to take your camera in.

One thing that stood out to us was the fact that they had all of the nice palaces and churches, then on the next block the houses would look like the ghetto at home. It was very obvious what they cared about and put money into. The street we stayed on was the main tourist street in St. Petersburg so most of the buildings were well cared for and maintained but most of the buildings on the outskirts of the city were very poorly maintained.

Another interesting thing we saw on our trip was on the way to Finnish Russian border. Due to the thorough border checks large trucks can be very delayed getting into Russia. We saw a line of trucks several miles long parked on the side of the road! Our guide said that the trucks can be backed up for two weeks at times! We did not see these on the way back so they must have gotten all of them through over the weekend.

Overall Russia was fun and we did not have any issues. We saw some very interesting sites and had a really good time.

Randall's Trip to Turkey

Last week Randall was in Turkey for a work related meeting. The group that he works with is going to be involved in a large scale project involving members from several different countries. It is common practice with these projects to hold a large start up meeting to get everyone together and organized. Since we do not do anything like this in the US he was invited to join them. He attended a few meetings at had the opportunity to meet people from many different countries. He was also able to do some sightseeing and take some pictures of the Mediterranean!

I was not able to go because wives do not generally go to these meetings. Instead I enjoyed a week of quietness and relaxation. I had some work to do for a GIS course I am taking but otherwise I just relaxed. It was lonely at night as I am used to being home alone during the day. We were both happy for Randall to be back home on Friday.

Everything else is going well here. Nothing new or interesting is going on this week. We will not be doing anymore traveling until the end of the month when we go to Russia! The snow is finally melting! It has been rainy the past two days so most of the snow has cleared off of the sidewalks. There is still a decent amount on the grassy areas and in the fields but the sidewalks are better.

To see more pictures click below.

http://s1035.photobucket.com/albums/a439/jlamick/Randall%20Turkey/?action=view&current=fbbd916d.pbw

Amicks' Visit

View of Tallinn

Senate Chambers in Tallinn

Alexander Nevsky's Cathedral

Town Center in Tallinn

Kadriorg Palace grounds

Kadriorg Palace

So, my parents’ trip went well. We spent a few days here in Helsinki and one day in Tallinn, Estonia.

They did have a travel glitch that caused all of us to spend some long hours in airports. Their flight from New York to Copenhagen was delayed half an hour causing them to arrive minutes before their connecting flight to Helsinki took off. I had given them our phone numbers but had neglected to include the country code so they were unable to tell us that they did not make the flight. We were tracking their flight from New York but thought they had time according to the times posted on the website. So, Randall and I went to the airport in time to meet them for their scheduled arrival. Once that flight had been unloaded we realized that they were not on the flight. We decided to wait at the airport in case they were re-routed to another airport and arrived before the next Copenhagen flight. Long story short Randall and I waited for 8 hours in the Helsinki airport for my parents to arrive. We were all glad when they finally came through the doorway safely.

We did not do much other than get home eat supper and go to bed as they were tired from traveling. Sunday we walked around the apartment neighborhood and the Viikki campus before lunch. After lunch we showed them where Randall works and where our old apartment was. On Monday we went to two of the main shopping centers in Helsinki and looked in several stores to show them price comparisons.

On Tuesday we went to Tallinn and looked at several historical sights and viewed the town from two observation walls. After viewing all of the sights we went to the mall for my mom and I to do some shopping. She got a hoodie for Bradley and I tried on several dresses but didn't find anything that I really liked. Once we were done shopping we went to the Peppersack for supper. It was really good my mom had Salmon over wild rice and a salad, my dad had a pork fillet over sauerkraut with stewed potatoes, Randall had a curry beef dish with baked potato and carrot salad and I had cheese crusted chicken with wild rice and a salad. Everything was really good except for the salads because they were just lettuce with no dressing. We all had a good time and we were exhausted when we finally got home late that night.

On Wednesday we stayed around the apartment and spent some time just talking and catching up. We did leave for about an hour and a half to give the cleaning lady a chance to clean. While we were out we went to the indoor open market so that my parents could see what one looks like. On Thursday they flew home with no problems at all.

Overall their trip went well; we all had a good time and were glad to see each other. We are getting down to the short rows now with only 2 months and 9 days left until we fly home. We have enjoyed our time here but we are also looking forward to getting back to North Carolina.

No Posts

Sorry that I have not posted in a while but there isn't anything to post about right now. It is still cold here, but we did have above freezing temperatures Monday and yesterday. It snowed some yesterday and has snowed most of the day today. I think the total accumulation is around 5 feet so far. We will likely continue to get snow until late March to early April. After that temperatures should rise and the some of the snow will begin melting. Not all of the snow will melt before we leave because it has been piled up so high from scraping the roads.

I will not be posting this weekend as my parents will be arriving on Saturday! We will take a lot of pictures while they are here and I will try to post several times the week after they leave, so keep checking for new posts.

Helsinki Boat Show

Sorry I did not post last week but there was nothing to post about. We did not go anywhere exciting or do anything interesting. We both had a lot of homework to work on so we spent our weekend doing that.

This weekend however, we had some free time so Randall wanted to go the boat show they had in Helsinki. It was different, we were not expecting all of the boats to be "cruising" style boats. They had very few fishing boats (3-4) and those were small (~21-22ft). The did have some large sail boats and a couple of yacht type boats but not many. They had a lot of electronics booths and several booths with just motors; in board and out board. There were several booths selling apparel and safety gear. We had a good time and were interested in the various types of boats that are popular in Finland but did not see the types of boats that we would be interested in at home.

Skiing in Porvoo

The "easy" slope

The teaching slope is on the left

The harder slope

The wooden houses

We went skiing yesterday and had a great time. Randall fell twice as much as I did because he insisted on going faster than he could control. He had problems learning how to stop. I went a lot slower and was able to stay upright longer. We got an instructor for over an hour and a half, which really helped. We realized though that we were the only adults that were taking lessons. The kids that were taking lessons were under 10! I am sure they laughed at us a lot. Our instructor however was very nice and patient with us; she helped us up continually and did not laugh every time we fell.

During the instruction we spent some time on the learning slope which was small and easy. After we mastered that slope we moved up to what they consider an easy slope. This slope if compared to US ski resorts is a medium difficulty slope. Randall fell several times but I managed to not fall at all. After the instruction was over we ate lunch and decided to call it quits because we were tired.

After leaving the ski place we walked around the town for a few minutes and looked at on old section of town. In Porvoo there are several wooden houses that date back to the 1500's, so we got some pictures of those while we were there. After that we caught a bus back to Helsinki where we relaxed for the rest of the evening.

"Snow" in NC, Ha!

Snow accumulation on the sidewalk

Snow piles in front of our apartment building

A bench beside the apartment building

So it "snowed" in North Carolina this weekend. Well it also snowed in Helsinki, only it really snowed here. We had about a foot of snow fall from Friday night to Saturday night. It has been snowing since Thursday and has stopped temporarily today. It should start snowing again sometime either this afternoon or tonight and last most of the week. We have had a warm front come through in the last couple of days. The high for today was around 28 Fahrenheit.

Seriously, I hope that everyone has enjoyed the NC snow and that you were all safe. Stay warm and enjoy the wintry weather.

In the pictures you are looking at piles of snow that have been pushed up from scraping the sidewalks and piles of snow that has accumulated on bushes and the sidewalk. Those were not piled up from scraping, they are actual accumulations!