Finland - Hamina, Hamina, Hamina, Hoo!

Dearest Readers (however few of you there may be :p),

I realize that I am quite behind in my posting, but I hope that you will kindly forgive me.  You may expect posts today, tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday - and then probably not any more until I arrive home in America.  I am not certain of what my wireless situation will be once I am traveling with the rest of the WYD pilgrims.  I apologize for this helter-skelter, fast and famine approach, but I console myself with the thought that I am really not that interesting anyhow, and as such am not disappointing to so great an extent.

Sincerly,

Catfish

Now on to more pressing news: Finland. 

I got off the ferry in Helsinki and was able to get to the airport without much trouble.  The bus ride was long, but easy to navigate.  I ended up waiting in the Helsinki airport for about an hour until Kelly arrived, and then we waited another hour or so until Mirva’s mother and godfather showed up.  At that point we waited another five hours for Mirva and her father to get to the airport.  Their flight had been delayed in both Chicago and in London and as such they were very late.  They also lost their luggage. Thankfully I have not had such disasters as that in my travels.  We came back to the flat in Hamina and ate, and then pretty much crashed.  

Sunday morning we all slept rather late.  I woke up around noon with Mirva and Kelly following not to long after.  We ate breakfast/lunch and then Mirva, Kelly and I went into town to have a look around, get groceries, and buy other necessities that had been left in Mirva’s suitcase which she didn’t have.   At the grocery store we found this pretzel which was bigger than my face.

Hamina is a small town just under two hours east of Helsinki driving.   It is one of only two towns in Europe designed on a spoke and wheel urban plan.  At the center of the town is the city hall which sits in the middle of a roundabout.  Streets emanate out from this center at regular intervals, and intersect two other streets ringing the town.  Hamina is on the southern cost of Finland, and as such has both a harbor and beaches.  Hamina is principally a military town due to the presence of the large military base there.  Go figure. 

Typical to Scandinavian cities there are quite a few parks, well labeled public buildings, and a market square where in the mornings one can buy fruit and flowers.  On the whole it was a lovely little seaside town. Bucolic, as Christian would say. 

Monday was a very similar day to Sunday.  We woke up late, had our breakfast/lunch, and walked into town.  Our first motive was berries, but unfortunately the raspberries we bought were both overpriced, and a little moldy.  Also there were some bugs.  No bueno.  From there we visited the library, and their mulit-lingual children’s section.  It was a little funny to see twilight written in Russian.  Many Fins speak Finish, Russian, Swedish, and English.  I’m pretty jealous of their language skills.  

As none of the buildings in Finland have air conditioning the Library was rather hot and stuffy.  From there we walked to the local bakery where Mirva purchased a jelly doughnut called a monki, as well as a cream filled strawberry pastry, and a cinnamon twist.  We took all of the pastries in in the box and walked down to the sea side where we had our picnic.  We then sat by the beach and tanned and talked of the world.  I did get a little sunburned from sitting by the sea, but it was well worth it.  After out sojourn by the Baltic we went to get ice cream.  This time Mirva had nougat, I had Irish Coffee and Kelly had Chocolate, a rotation from what we had the other day.  From Ice cream we walked back to the flat and Kelly and Mirva took a nap while I blogged and Mirva’s mom cooked dinner.  Dinner was boiled potatoes, chicken in a sauce, and bread.  Yummy!  After dinner we all went on a walk and went back to the playground we hung out at yesterday.  We hung out at the playground until 9pm.  We then came back and demolished a bar of chocolate and sat up reading, playing tiny wings, and I worked on loan information until about 2am.

Tuesday was again a late start with breakfast at noon. That afternoon we didn’t do all that much.  We pretty much just sat around all day while Mirva’s dad went to pick up their luggage from the airport.  I did a lot of reading, some catching up with the blog and whatnot.  We had microwave meals for dinner, mine consisted of reindeer meat, mashed potatoes, and lingonberry sauce.  It wasn’t very good.  But, I think that was really more the fault of it being a microwave meal, and less that it was reindeer meat.  After dinner Mirva, Kelly, and I all went for another one of our characteristic walks.  As the sun doesn't go down until nearly ten, we took a walk after dinner every day and were able to meander through the parks talking of everything and nothing for quite some time.
 I know this post is rather photoless, as I can no longer see the screen on my camera I have been somewhat remiss in taking photos.  Kelly Danver, however, has an exquisite eye, and a camera to match and her flikr stream can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellydanver/sets/72157627325335792/