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| Olavinlinna Castle |
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| Typical building in Savonlinna |
On Friday we traveled to Savonlinna, a small town that is about a two-hour drive south of Joensuu. We visited the vocational college there, which happens to be the main competitor with Junnu's school . The schools seem fairly similar in terms of curriculum, but this college had the advantage of directly overlooking Saimaa Lake (sorry Junnu). Savonlinna has been a city since 1639, and now is largely a vacation town. In the summer, visitors outnumber residents.
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| View of Savonlinna from the Tower |
The main attraction in Savonlinna is Olavinlinna Castle. The castle was founded in 1475 (we were reminded several times that it predates Columbus' voyage to America) by the Swedish to protect the boundary between Sweden and Russia. It exchanged hands several times between the Swedes and the Russians, and is now obviously located in Finland. Now the castle hosts tours and every year has a famous opera festival. I didn't get a good picture of it, but one of the highlights of the castle was the toilet in the tower. It essentially was a small room that jutted out from the tower about 75 feet high, and there was an open hole with a grate over it. All waste went directly into the lake. This could perhaps be refreshing in the summer, but I can't imagine it would be very enjoyable during Finnish winters.
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| Summer Cottage |
On Saturday we went to the Hukkala's family summer cottage. Summer cottages are a huge part of the culture in Finland. Junnu told me there are about a million summer cottages in Finland (this in a country of only 5.5 million people). While at summer cottage we ate, relaxed, read, and off course, went in the sauna. I was quite proud of myself because jumped in the lake even though it was only about 50 degrees outside and god knows what the water was (very cold). One of my Russian friends said that I had it about right, except it should be winter and I should be naked. I am not quite that Finnish yet, but maybe if I eat enough Salmiakki I will get there eventually.
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| "Enjoying" the lake |
I will say that going from the hot sauna to the cold water and then back to sauna did certainly get my heart rate up. Junnu said this is what Finnish people do instead of smoke grass, and while I am not sure the experience is entirely analogous, it is probably healthier.
Besides my cold weather swimming, I also got some Finn points for eating Mämmi, a traditional Finnish dessert that Wikipedia assures me is made of "water, rye flour, powdered malted rye, seasoned with dark molasses, salt, and dried powdered Seville orange zest." Mämmi is traditionally served topped with cream and sugar. It had a milder flavor than I expected, especially since Junnu's two younger children intentionally gathered around to watch me as I tasted it.
Mammi has the appearance and texture of barely cooked brownie batter, and I would be hard-pressed to categorize it as either liquid or solid. It tastes like rye with cream and sugar on top. Brian told me that when Junnu was here he made him drink Malort, and while I have never personally tasted Malort, I am confident that Mämmi tastes better.
On Sunday I went for a birding walk with Junnu, Marita, and Jalo. Birding here is quite difficult for me as almost all the birds are different from what we have in the States. We happened to run into Junnu and Marita's friend who is a biologist and knows quite a bit about birds. He helped us identify a White-Backed Woodpecker, While White-Backed Woodpeckers are doing better further south in Europe, there are only about 150 of them left in Finland, so it was quite exciting to see. Overall, it
was a very successful Finnish weekend.
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| Jalo on the birding path |
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