Category: travel

Visiting Lena: part 4

Lena is the best host ever, and one of the things she planned for two of us was biking at the crack of dawn on Sunday! We had to drive to the bike path, and Lena had to fit two bikes into her car, but the experience was totally worth it! She also researched the path in advance, so that we wouldn’t have to wonder where to go in the places when the path suddenly disappears.

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Visiting Lena: part 3

And Saturday was not over yet! We walked around Belle Isle for some more time,

Looked at Canada:

And then visited the Aquarium; not as big as Shedd, of couse, but still lovely!

Then we walked around a little bit more (the fountain doesn’t work!)

And that was not it! We returned to Lena’s home for dinner, and then went to a local community theater.

Visiting Lena: part 2

On Saturday afternoon, Lena booked us a tour at Pewabic Pottery Do I have to say that one more time, I learned something I had no idea about before?

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Visiting Lena in Michigan – part 1

As always, we have a packed program, and as always, I feel so loved and taken care of!

Morning in Ann Arbor.

Can you spot a deer?

Wait, there are two!!! Three!!!

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Narva-Joesuu

On Friday, we got up at 5 AM in order to catch the 6:30 AM train to Narva. This time, we didn’t mess up with the buses, and took the right one, and didn’t even miss the stop, and were at the cemetery at 10:15 AM.

The weather on both Thursday and Friday was much better than forecasted. On Thursday, it was just sunny with no rain. On Friday, the rain was starting and stopping, but it was still light enough that we could walk around for a while, and we took shelter at a bus stop for only the last 30 minutes.

I was sure I would find the grave immediately, but I got lost again, and after wandering “somewhere close,” I asked a lady tending another grave if she could help me. The lady looked at the photo on my phone, but couldn’t recognize it, so I kept moving in circles, until she suddenly called me: Woman, woman! Here it is! I realized I completely forgot this way of addressing strangers (woman, girl, man, etc.).

Anyway, I found it. And now that the lot is cleaned up, I see that more repairs are needed, so we’ll have to figure out what we are going to do with it)/

Same as last time, Boris and I walked from the cemetery towards the village center, and passed the wood where I used to go berry-picking.

Once again, we stopped by the house where I spent three summers of my childhood. This time, however, it looked like there was a massive construction in progress, so I suspect that next time I visit, this house won’t be there anymore. Well, I am glad I had a chance to see it!

We had an extra hour and a half in Narva, and the rain stopped again, so we walked to the fortress (the view is so breathtaking that I can’t stop looking!)

Another 3-hour train ride to Tallinn, walking under the pouring rain to the ferry terminal, and a two-hour ride to Helsinki (this time, comfortably sitting in the cafe).

Boris believes that as long as someone remembers a person who passed away, this person is not completely gone. For him, that’s the reason to take care of this grave and keep visiting it. I do not hold this belief, but still, somehow, it’s important for me not to abandon it after I found it.

Tallinn

It was supposed to rain both days we were going to spend in Estonia, and I couldn’t be happier with the weather forecast going wrong! In fact, there was not a drop of rain the entire time we were in Tallinn, except for a time when we were walking to the ferry on Friday evening. We were so sure that it would be raining that we didn’t even have any plans for the good weather, so after disembarking, we stood for a while trying to figure out what to do :).

Roterman keeps offering something new each time we walk through it

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Valo Co-working

Each time I work from Valo in Helsinki, I like it even more (if it is possible :)). I’ve mentioned a couple of times that my only challenge with working there is the uncertainty about exactly when a room will be assigned to me on any given day. The standard reservation time is from 9 AM to 5 PM, and I rarely start working before that, but until my room is assigned, my key button doesn’t open the gym door, and I love using the opportunity to work out before work.

On Monday, I saw that the room had already been assigned at 6 AM, so I happily departed for Valo. When I saw Jarko at his usual place at the “catpatin deck”, he greeted me and said that he saw that I had reserved the rooms for three days, and he made sure that for all three days the rooms would be assigned starting from early morning, so that I would have time to go to the gym and have breakfast. I can’t even describe how touched I was!

There are very few people working at the beginning of July, and the entire staff at their main cafe is on vacation for six weeks. Lunch is being served in a smaller cafe, and breakfast time is extended until 11 AM, because most people are staying in the hotel rather than co-working 🙂

Biking In Helsinki

We are actively using the time of year (white nights) to go biking, even though I spend 10 hours a day at the co-working space, including daily workouts and meals.

On Saturday, we biked to Natasha’s place, and it appeared to be faster than taking a bus. On Sunday, we went for a very long bike ride, including a lunch break at IKEA (it started raining twice while we were biking, but we waited for the rain to calm down at the bus stop shelter). There was no biking on Monday, but then I biked to work on Tuesday (Boris escorted me both ways), and then we went for another bike ride after that to cross the new bridge, which is closed to any fossil-fueled traffic 😂.

On the way to Espoo
Lunch at IKEA
Biking to work
On the bridge
No cars allowed

Each time I bike in Helsinki, I feel incredibly jealous of the local cyclists who can bike literally from anywhere to anywhere using the safe biking lanes that are isolated from other traffic. To be clear, biking in the city during the rush hour still makes me uncomfortable, but I know that it’s mostly in my head. Other than that, looking at all the bike lanes, all the arrows, all the crossings … I totally get what Anna is trying to achieve! Even Milwaukee can’t be compared with Helsinki, and I do not even want to start talking about Chicago!

An Organ Concert At The Kallion Church

It was a super-fun concert, and if you look at the program and wonder how some of these pieces could possibly be performed on an organ, you are in your right to wonder! It was quite unexpected, and sometimes funny :).

The dress was bought for the occasion 😀

Traveling

A very short trip to Helsinki. Left lots of loose ends in Chicago, in the office, and otherwise, and trying to take care of at least some of them remotely.

My flight was on Friday evening, and I decided to take the L to the airport, thinking that at least the travel time would be predictable and I could do some work on the train. Didn’t exactly work as planned, since I had a medium-sized luggage which was rolling around all the time, and I had to hold it, and a Blue Line train moved as if it was a race car, but I made it to ORD, and even had a relaxing hour in the LOT lounge (that’s where Finnair is sending their eligible members these days).

It was nice to see the welcoming screen 🙂

I have been in Finland for three days, and I did a lot of biking, met with friends, attended an organ concert, and worked from my favorite coworking space. Some clothes shopping. A lot of time with Boris. Sleeping for 7 hours a night (I will be back to six tonight, most likely, but the first two days are like that).

When we biked to Natasha’s place on Saturday evening, we passed multiple green areas with lots of wild flowers everywhere. All the flowers were the ones I saw in the countryside when I was a child, everywhere I ever spent my summers. If there is anything from my childhood I am nostalgic about, it is nature in the places where it was almost untouched by civilization: meadows, strawberry patches, wild blueberries, and lingonberries; high pines, ferns, and horsetails. And this soft light-green grass, which is surprisingly different from the prairie grass, and I never thought about it until the first time I came back from the prairies to the European North. And that might be the main reason I would always want to come back to Finland 🙂