Wednesday 11 August 2010

Iisalmi again: August 11

Finland is two hours ahead of England, and it had been a late night, so we all slept in. There was good black bread (ruisleipa) and cheese for breakfast. Pia and Kari had to work, but Mette came around and gave us a bit of a tour around the town. Here I am, standing in front of my old school, the Lukio. It looks the same from the outside, but there have been renovations, and a new building stands nearby with top science labs and a new dining hall. (Finland provides free cooked lunches for all their students.)
I had a look at my old homes, and around the shops. Some things change, but it basically looked the same. Here we are near the smallest restaurant in the world...
The footpaths were broad, so different from England! More people rode bikes than drove cars that we saw that morning. We walked down to the markets, where they were selling strawberries by the litre. Then we took the long way back, around the lake's edge. We had a bite to eat and a little rest.
The habit here is to have an early dinner. Mette made a spaghetti sauce she had learnt in Holland, very tasty. Pia and Kari had come home by 4 to eat it. Then Pia's parents, who had hosted me years ago, came around. So, we had coffee and special thin barley pancakes with jam, cooked on the outside grill. We picked some apples from a tree in the yard - usually they don't grow so far north.
Then we were introduced to a game based on a traditional Finnish one, 'mölkky'. It involves chucking a bit of wood at other, upright, bits of wood in order to gain points. It seems to be a cross between boules and bowling. It involves both skill and strategy, and we enjoyed it hugely. We had another late sauna before turning in.






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