We arrived this morning in Helsinki. It is now about 7:30 pm. I fell on the bed and fell asleep just after our kind hosts dropped us at the apartment and got us a bit oriented. i.e. where to throw out trash and recyclable items including compost.

We went out to check out our neighborhood and locate a grocery store around five pm. Almost as soon as we had left our building, it occurred to me that although I had brought a shopping bag, I had not brought the camera.

The weather is beautiful. In fact we have fans on in the apartment. It is definitely more humid than we are used to.

We are about a block from a yacht harbor and only a few blocks from a huge park.

The apartment reminds me a lot of the faculty apartment in Paris. It is an older building and not a modern apartment. It is two flights up with a number code to get into the main door. It is like Leanna's apartment in L'viv - two doors at the apartment door. One swings out and the other swings in. The toilet is down the hall by the front door, but it actually has a small sink to wash your hands; however, nowhere to hang a hand towel. The shower and laundry are just off the "vestibule." The washing machine is like most European ones and takes about two hours to wash a load. However, we apparently can use the washer and dryer at the same time without electrical problems. The dryer has no vent so it has a large reservoir to collect water that has to be emptied periodically. The apartment has a big kitchen, office, living room and dining room and two bedrooms. The more comfortable bedroom with the better closet is next to the busy street we live on, so we are going to use the other one that is in the rear of the building and more quiet.

At the grocery store we stood in line behind an empty stroller and we could hear a mother calliing to a child not far away. The mother showed up with a beautiful little three year old girl who was pushing a tiny shopping cart carrying all of their groceries. She did an excellent job of putting as many of the groceries as she could onto the conveyor belt by herself. Of course, I could not help but smile. And to my delight, the woman turned to us and talked to us in Finnish. So nice not to be recognized immediately as an American tourist, but probably as a grandmother.

That is about it for the moment. Tomorrow we will go to Earl's new office and the department building. Like many universities in large cities, there is no formal campus, just buildings scattered around the city.

I'll be sure to keep you posted on new discoveries.