kareina

On Thursday evening I asked GoogleMaps how long it would take to get to the event (three hours driving time), and I determined that I could get there by the time site opens at 19:00 if I were to leave by 15:00 (one loses an hour when one crosses the border to Finland). Therefore, if I wanted to stop by and visit my friend Å, who lives about 1/3 of the way to the event, and return his SCA stuff that he left here before heading south for a visit some months back, I should leave by noon, so I would have time to chat a bit before heading on. By that point in the evening I was kinda tired (I didn't look this up till getting home from the Frostheim social night), so I decided that I could just do yoga and go to sleep, and pack in the morning, since I planned to travel kinda light (but not as light as I will need to pack for Crown, to which I will be flying carry-on only).

This was a very good plan. I got up at a reasonable time Friday morning, and gathered what I wanted to bring with me. Right up to the point where it was time to put the food I was bringing into one of the soft-sided "ice chests". Everything else had been packed into period looking containers, but all of the soft ice chests we have look totally modern. No one but me will ever care, but I care. So I decided that it was time to make a wool cover for one of the medium sized ones which have the silvery metallic fabric outer layer. At that point it was 11:00, so I had an hour to spare if I were going to do the stop to visit Å, and, since it is just a cover for a modern item, I figured I could use the treadle sewing machine, and it would go pretty fast. And it did, too, right up to the point where I realized that it would be hard to make the attachment of the wool to the area next to the bag zipper with the sewing machine, so I decided to do that part by hand, and, while I was at it, the second pass of covering the bright red nylon webbing strap, too, so that no machine sewing would be visible.

Since I was putting in the extra time, I also took a sewing break to have some lunch, which meant that I didn't actually finish up, fill the bag with food, load the car, and start driving till 15:30. This meant that I arrived at the ferry about half an hour after site opened, which was still in very decent time.

The site is on an island, to which they are in the process of building a bridge--it is now possible to walk across the bridge to fetch the hand-crank car ferry, but it isn't yet possible to drive upon the bridge. Since I don't read Finnish the autocrat told me in advance that I should just come to the ferry landing, call him, and he would come help me get across the water. I am really glad that he did. While it turned out to be a fairly simple task to put in the lock so that one can drive onto the ferry, then unlock the ferry, and spin the wheel to drag the ferry across the river, then put in the lock on the other side so that the car can drive off the ferry, I wouldn't have wanted to make guesses as to what to do without someone there to show me.

The site was a lovely one--pretty in the same sort of way as our new Norrskensfest site--lovely old red building clustered together on the banks of a lake. This site is smaller--it has only 40 beds, but that was a generous plenty for the 23 of us who attended the event (8 of whom were small children who seemed to spend most of their time smiling). When I arrived the downstairs beds had been claimed, so I explored upstairs, and decided on the top bunk in the gable room at the back of the house that has a balcony in it (who can resist a balcony?). As it turned out, no one claimed the other bunk, so I had a room to myself, though I had to walk through a room with two single beds in it, both of which got claimed.

The event had been advertized and a low-key, relaxed event, and, indeed it was. The only things which were on the published schedule were meals, and the fact that the sauna would be available in the evenings. Everything else was optional "do it when/if you feel for it". I brought my dulcimer, and had it out to play with on four different occasions (once on Friday, and three times on Saturday), including providing tiny hints of music during the lulls in the Baroness'es court (sadly, the Baron, who had been looking forward to heading north for the event, got sick and couldn't come) while waiting for people to come forward). That was more playing than I had done in the past several months, and I feel inspired to do more of it.

I had brought with me a variety of projects, but only took out the nålbinding, which is much closer to done than before I arrived. Since the event was a harvest festival I made a point of doing some harvesting. I noticed that the red currant bush near the kitchen and parking area had berries on it, so I asked the kitchen if they wanted some berries to add to the lunch and/or feast. Of course they said yes, and handed me a large ceramic bowl. That first bush had lots of berries (compared to my poor bird-stripped red currant bushes at home), but they still barely covered the bottom of the bowl. However, I figured that there were plenty more bushes in the area, so I started working my way around the perimeter of the lawn, stopping to eat raspberries at each raspberry bush I passed (the raspberries wouldn't have been worth picking for the kitchen--they were a bit too juicy (too much recent rain) and often had mold or worms, so one had to actually look at them before eating, but the ones that passed inspection still tasted ok. Sure enough, I found another bush or two in that quadrant of the yard, but then, when I worked my way around behind the sauna I discovered the main red currant area--so many bushes that I quit picking berries because I was tired of it, not because I had run out of berries to pick (at that point the bowl was more than half full). The kitchen was pleased--they put berries out for lunch, and still had enough left to use as garnish for some of the feast dishes, which, combined with the fresh salad greens, meant that everything served was really pretty.

I didn't partake of the smithing workshop, nor the archery, but the others seemed to enjoy both activities. The only dancing we did was late in the feast--the children wanted to dance, so a handful of us adults joined them, and we did several bransles before the parents announced that it was bedtime. I let one of the Finnish speakers call the dances (I provided the music from my phone, projected through the CD player the autocrat provided), so that the kids would understand the instructions.

This morning I packed up my stuff and loaded the car, feeling somehow "wrong" to have the car so empty. Then one of the parents asked me if I had extra room. Their family has no car anymore, so they had gotten a ride from the other family, but between the two families there were too many people to all fit in the car at once, so the car had to do two trips. The driver did *not* want to have to go over the ferry two times to get all the people and stuff to the other side. Of course I was happy to help, and not only took the overflow stuff and extra people across the ferry, but all the way to the home of driver, so that her husband and kids could stay home while she took everyone else home. Then I set off north towards the border, while they went south to their home.

Even with that extra delay I was home by 14:30 (gaining that hour back at the border helps), which meant that I had time to unload, relax with a book and some food, take a nap, and put away most of the things I had brought with me before it was time to head out to the first Folk Dance night of the season. That was much fun, and since getting home I have had a chance to check mail, update logs, and write the above. Now I had better get my yoga done and get some sleep, since I work tomorrow.

On Friday mom and I flew to Finland. We left my apartment at 08:00, flew to Helsinki, and changed planes for the flight to Oulu, which is near the mid-point (north to south) of the country. We were met there by my mother's second cousin, who had driven the seven hours north from the Helsinki area just to pick us up. He took us the 100 km south to the home of one of his aunts, where we stayed for the weekend. We arrived at their house at 20:00, so not quite 12 hours of travel, given the one-hour time change.

A number of other relatives were there, and they greeted us with "a light snack", which consisted of karjalan piirakka, complete with the egg-butter accompaniment, and thin pancakes with strawberry topping. Since my sister (who did her high school exchange in Finland, had told me that I had to try the karjalan piirakka while I was there, it was delightful to be served them as soon as we arrived. The evening was spent getting to know the small group (~8) and trying to learn their names. Mom had the advantage there, as she'd met some of them back in 2002 when she visited some of them in Sweden (many Fins moved to Sweden in the 1960's looking for work, a number of our cousins included--a few of them have returned to Finland in the past few years).


Saturday morning I went for a walk with one of the cousins--there is a lovely trail that starts near their house which is a lighted ski-trail in the winter, but is still a hiking trail just now. Then we joined the more extended family at the Tyyskä house. In the old days in Finland it was the houses which were named, and families took their names from the house. The original house is no longer there, but the replacement, built in the 1950's is still there, still occupied by family, and still in good shape. There were around 30 of us there for a noon meal, which was mostly yummy baked goods. The older folk didn't speak much English, but there were enough from the younger generations who did who were happy to translate.

The differences in the generations are amusing--my mother's grandfather was the eldest child in his family, and the people we met on this trip are descended from a couple of his younger siblings, who stayed in Finland when he moved to the US. Because of the difference in ages between those siblings, combined with differences of when they choose to have their children the "aunts and uncles" we met this trip are all the same age as my mother, but their children, who are the same number of generations removed from the common ancestor as my mother, are mostly younger than I am.

While at the old family home they took us to see the old "smoke sauna" they still have, and compared it with the more modern stove sauna, and the even more modern electric sauna. The "smoke sauna has no stove pipe--the fire is built in a large box, which has rocks on top, and the smoke works its way out between the rocks. As a result the walls are black with soot, and the room smells quite smoky. I don't think I'd care to use that one! The next sauna has a wood stove, with a stove pipe, so the smoke goes away, and the walls are nice, clean, bare wood. That stove also is covered with rocks, which retain the heat and help heat the room. It is necessary to replace the rocks every few years as they loose their heat capacity with repeated use. The electric sauna is more convenient, but all agreed that it wasn't as nice.

After the lunch party broke up we were taken to see the house where my mother's father had been born. His parents moved to the US twice. Once before he was born; his elder brother was born in the US. Then they returned to Finland for a few years, and my grandfather was born there. Then, when he was two years old they returned to the States, this time for good. One of the older uncles says that he can recall his parents getting letters from mom's grandfather when he was young. However, mom has no memory of her grandfather ever mentioning family in Finland, so she was rather surprised when a Finnish cousin (living in Sweden at the time) contacted her to see if they were related (he'd been given her address by the son of mom's brother, who still has the surname Tyyskä, since my cousin didn't have a copy of the family tree, but knew that my mother did).

We returned to the house at which we were staying on time for the evening meal, at 16:00. Can I tell you how very pleased I was to be visiting people who like their meals on the same schedule my body wants them? So many people in other places think that the evening meal should be hours later than that, but I need my food early! Many of the people who had been to the afternoon gathering made it for dinner too, and a few others who hadn't been able to attend the afternoon as well. It was a delightful evening full of good food, good company, and good music. After most people went home they warmed up the sauna, and we took turns enjoying that relaxation (their sauna is inside the house, and rather small--two at a time is actually a very reasonable number for that sauna, though I would have prefered more company).

Sunday morning we had time for more visiting with our hosts and the other family who had been spending the most time with us before we had to return to the airport for the flights home. Even though it was such a short visit both mom and I felt amazingly welcomed, and like we fit in and belonged. I want to meet my cousins Carola and Carina, who still live in Sweden--their mother says I not only resemble them, but have some of the same gestures and patterns of movement. We were all sad when it was time to leave, and tears were shed from more than one eye. I'm so glad we went, and I look forward to keeping in touch with these delightful, kind, generous people.

Most of the photos are on mom's camera, and we don't have the cable to get them off of that, so sharing them will have to wait till she returns to the US next week...

Needless to say, I made no progress on my uni work while there (though I did remember to read my 1000 words a day each day--I'm up to 277 days in a row this time--that is 70% of the days that have happened since starting my post-doc, and 25% of the days since I decided to start reading 1000 words of geologic literature a day). Today I managed to make some progress on my speech for an upcoming talk, and made a new MgO tube for the next experiment I will run. I've got about an hour left available this evening for work before I need to head home--it is important that I be on day shift next week, so I will start this week, and see if I can keep to the schedule.