Blogs from Päijänne Tavastia, Finland, Europe

Jari Tukiainen has just stamped his favourite entry for the harbour competition with a "this is the best" sticker. He hopes the entry is ultimately selected and the competitors' ideas become the blueprints for the harbour's redevelopment plans. Tukiainen and I are doing the rounds at the Helsinki City Planning Department's Laituri building, an exhibition space created by the Planning Department for town planning enthusiasts like him and curious tourists like me. And everyone in between. The harbour area competition was held to tap creative minds from across the world to find ways to integrate the harbour area into the city's urban space. But even the most talented urband planners can overlook some aspect of the city's character that makes it what it is and fail to account for the same in the plan. An alert ... read more

After the wedding, all of the family (yes Jodie you are considered family you poor thing) from Australia went to stay in a cottage on one of the many lakes north of Helsinki. Before we even got to Finland I was refering to the cottage as the "Hall of Truth". And didn't it live up to its name. The drive up was the first chance for us all to get back together after the wedding reception. It turned out that there was more to the evening than I thought. We had people nearly getting kicked out of clubs for trying to jump the line and not paying (and really at his age he should know better); a sister left at the bar by herself with numerous drinks she had payed for and then having to make ... read more

Nach der fantastischen Woche in Lappland habe ich die folgenden Wochenenden genutzt, um die nähere Umgebung weiter kennenzulernen. So klapperte ich mehrere Skigebiete ab und stellte immer wieder fest, dass die Loipen gepflegt und nicht zu viele Leute unterwegs waren. Den meisten Spaß hat mir das Fahren auf den zugefrorenen Seen und dem Finnischem Meerbusen bereitet. Obwohl es schon ein eigenartiges Gefühl war, „auf“ einer durch Bojen gekennzeichnete Fahrrinne Ski zu laufen. Bei schönem Wetter war am Wochenende richtig Betrieb (für deutsche Verhältnisse: einige Menschen) auf dem Meer. Außer den obligatorischen Eisanglern, Skifahrer und Fußgänger konnte man auch Fahrradfahrer und Autos antreffen. Selbst gegrillt wurde auf dem Eis. Ein Tagesausflug fuehrte mich nach Lahti. Wenn nicht gerade ein großes Sportevent anliegt, ist Lahti im Winter eine ruhige und verträumte Stadt (... read more

Day 19: Clear, sunny and cold: A train journey to Lahti, check into our hotel - hostel and a walk into town. Again the weather was cold, so we thought something hot to eat would be nice. Down by the lake are lots of eating places. We chose one where we queued up, cut off a chunk of bread and a slab of butter from the pat and then were given a bowl of home made pea soup with chunks of bacon in it, then a nice fresh doughnut. We sat outside at bench seats and table which overlooked the lake that goes up to Jyvaskyla (not the lake in the photos). Check out the "little bit of Australia" in one of the photos. ... read more