Practical Finnish details

TRIPLE pane windows seem to be everywhere (oh, so cold those winters). However, in order to find laundry, we had to take a ferry to a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Go figure.
We were told "the Fins are a peculiar people." They certainly do not air their laundry in public.

Moi...moi

Moi is hello-moi, moi is goodbye in Finnish. We've just said farewell to Helsinki and wished everyone grand adventures until we meet back in the States. The Instagram photos are astonishing, but this sketch captures our travelin' quintet (plus our new favorite Moomin) pretty well.

Hey (or maybe Hai) Helsinki!!!

Hello Helsinki!
After an all night journey across the Baltic Sea, we were greeted in the morning by our charming hostess Jasmine. She showed us her delightful apartment and escorted us to the most delicious breakfast at Cafe Tin Tin Tango. Afterwards we shopped the market for seasonal berries and mushrooms, wandered the design district, found earrings and flip books at Napa (means "belly button" in Finnish), checked out a typical hardware store, explored the Design Museum, made a pilgrimage to marimekko, and FINALLY saw some laundry (spotting it is challenging in Scandinavia). Finished up the evening at the Helsinki Festival with an extraordinary performance of punk-intersects-ballet-and-high-fash (fash is a word) "Animal Vegetable Mineral" choreography by the Michael Clark Company.

Clarke has navigated the streets, Lauren the internet and Lisa our attitudes. We couldn't ask for three more perfect Muskateers!

Legs of Leningrad

Where do they get those legs???
The Americans cover them with boots and leggings - Russian ladies stop traffic.

Unexpected colors

St.Petersburg is a glorious string of canals, candy cane churches and pastel colored buildings held together by souvenir shops and intermittent technology. If we could have one ruble for every nesting doll, we'd have as many paintings as there are in The Hermitage (they say if you spend one minute looking at each painting, it would take you 8 years to see them all).
Do the math.

It's all about aging

The alphabet is sometimes discernible -most times making us feel like we've had a stroke. Reading is an extraordinary effort and national pastime. We can see why.

Sorry no blog posts

Between being on a boat, under a bridge, next to an onion dome or in a garden, internet service has been spotty at best. We haven't tried the phone since dialing seems mysterious and quaint.

Proof of evolution

We found the missing link.
Long ago, someone's ancestors climbed up onto land to get things started.

Eats - not so cheap

This California-looking fresh, tasty salad is composed of arugula, parmesan cheese, lemon vinaigrette and smoked whale meat. Quite yummy.
It costs a pretty kroner, but well worth it!

Sea and Skum

The air is astonishingly clear and everything is either brilliant blue, green or one of Norway's five approved colors: brick red, mustard yellow, white, pale blue or dark green (there we go with the blues and greens again. I wonder how politicians worked these restrictions out centuries ago.

Hurtigruten

Rearrange the letters and and translate you get "geriatric floating city." This NOT the mailboat we'd imagined. Crystal chandeliers? This concept could revive the US Postal System.
Chuck is a fabulously good sport but Lauren has made me promise "no more cruises."
The landscape is astonishingly like the Pacific Northwest and not a Norwegian sweater to be seen outside the gift shop.
Clarke and Lisa join us Tuesday in Helsinki and we head off to St. Petersburg - on a boat, again. Uff, da!

Norge National Sports

Passing through Lillehammer - the site of the Winter Olympics just outside of Oslo - we were reminded how athletic everyone is here at any age - actively walking, hiking, biking, climbing all over the city. In the winter everyone must cross country ski since it is a "national right."
And there is this wonderful attitude toward public art and performance. Here's a staircase built out of 2x4s by students. And while his electric car is charging, this fellow practices, ties his "slack rope" up to the railing and teaches Lauren a step or two. Meanwhile, Chuck works on perfecting his "under bridge trolling" and daily tripping exercises. They have these 2" curbs EVERYWHERE and in the most unexpected places...

I didn't know reindeer were real

Too much believing. Too many little hoofs pattering on rooftops. Too many red-nosed Rudolph songs. When they served us reindeer meat (the black stuff in the center of the plate) Lauren exclaimed, "I didn't that reindeer were actually real."

Gratulerer med bryllupsdagen

We lost a day in route, so almost forgot!
The whole family was at the wedding at City Hall last August 22. So how about a honeymoon with them a year later?

ME to WE

Lauren realizes the power of WE as she also discovers that Scandinavia is filled with "my peeps" - healthy, backpacking, legging-wearing, blond, blue-eyed beautiful people.
Chuck and I discover apartment buildings lined up like barcodes, helpful translations and that ABBA has her own museum.

Kaviar Toothpaste

We get the full smorgasbørd breakfast of kaviar and salmon, chocolate marble cake, four kinds of organic-orange yolk eggs ( the chickens eat lots of kale), cheeses and four kind of rye crisp. Heading off to the train across Norway to Trondheim then to take the Hurtigruten (LOVE the sound if that word) mailboat down the coast to Bergen.